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While FERC waits to hear what its role will be under the Clean Power Plan (CPP) being formulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), one of its five commissioners said he is more concerned about infrastructure issues with natural gas, not limiting access to abundant supplies.

While FERC waits to hear what its role will be under the Clean Power Plan (CPP) being formulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), one of its five commissioners said he is more concerned about infrastructure issues with natural gas, not limiting access to abundant supplies.

Despite indications last month to the contrary (see Daily GPI, Nov. 11), the Obama administration’s goal is to save the threatened sage grouse without listing it as an endangered species, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told a winter meeting of the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) in Las Vegas Saturday.

As natural gas production from the Marcellus and Utica shales in the Northeast continues to soar, the industry faces a delicate balancing act on what types of pipelines or liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects make economic sense to construct in order to get the gas to market, a panel of industry executives said Monday.

Baker Hughes Inc. executives on Friday said the total U.S. rig count should fall on average by 8% this year from 2012, but with better drilling efficiencies, the onshore well count may only decline by 4% to around 35,000.

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Thursday said it plans to develop a proposed rule requiring companies who make chemical substances and mixtures used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to report data on the chemicals.

Rex Energy Corp. said it has seen “impressive” results so far from its first three wells in the Warrior South prospect, an area in Ohio’s portion of the Utica Shale.

Backed by Germany’s government, three global firms have begun a three-year project that will attempt to make the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) into a useful component of various industrial processes, starting with abundant natural gas supplies as a feedstock.

Physical natural gas prices on average gained a penny Tuesday with traders seeing no immediate need to make purchases during a holiday-muted trading week. Upper Midwest points added a couple of cents, and West Coast citygate prices were lower as forecasts of power demand were tempered. At the close, August futures were up 7.7 cents to $3.654 and September had added 7.8 cents to $3.651. August crude oil rose $1.61 to $99.60/bbl.