Kansas

A Michigan-based biogas producer with European ties thinks there is gold in the agricultural waste of Kansas, where it is proposing to build a $100 million production complex in the heart of the Heartland to produce renewable natural gas (RNG).

BCE-Mach LLC, formed earlier this year with the ousted founder of SandRidge Energy Inc., Tom L. Ward, on Monday said it would buy a bundle of properties in the Mississippian Lime that are primarily operated by Ward’s former company.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week offered a sharp upgrade to renewable natural gas (RNG) in its proposed 2019 Renewable Fuel Volume Obligations (RVO).

Kansas regulators on Tuesday laid out an accelerated plan for natural gas utilities to replace aging and obsolete pipeline infrastructure.

The three major natural gas providers in Kansas told state regulators that a special funding mechanism is needed to accelerate the replacement of thousands of miles of distribution pipelines in the state’s aging, 21,000-mile distribution network.

Tallgrass Interstate Gas Transmission (TIGT) is asking FERC for a rate hike and postage-stamp rate treatment. The pipeline cites reduced throughput due to shrinking Rocky Mountain-Midcontinent basis differentials, as well as modest prospects for market demand growth and competition from other pipelines “in virtually every market.”

The breadth of the downturn in the oil and gas industry took investors by surprise and negatively impacted the manufacturing sector in more than half of the country, especially in states that are dependent on the energy sector or are big energy producers themselves, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Board (FRB).

A U.S. arm of Royal Dutch Shell plc is throwing in the towel in the Kansas portion of the Mississippian Lime, selling off 45 producing wells and about 600,000 net lease acres.

Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s Eagle Ford Shale leasehold, now is the top producer within the company, delivering year/year growth in 4Q2012 of 266% and sequential growth of 20%, the independent reported Thursday. Net production in the South Texas play averaged 62,500 boe/d, with 66% of it oil, while 19% was natural gas and 15% liquids.