Matter

The city of Corpus Christi, TX, is appealing to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to grant it the right to decide whether to sell water to oil and gas producers for hydraulic fracturing and other purposes in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. One company has approached the city to buy water for industrial purposes, according to Corpus Christi Water Director Gus Gonzalez, as reported by the city’s Caller-Times newspaper. If the TCEQ agrees, the city would be allowed to divert surface water from the Choke Canyon reservoir for mining activities. “If [city] council approves any contract water sales, then all revenues generated will be deposited to the water fund and used to either reduce rates or fund future water supplies,” according to a city document related to the matter.

There will be no quick replacement for Tom Doll, who resigned as Wyoming Oil and Gas Supervisor suddenly last week (see Shale Daily, June 18), according to a spokesperson for Gov. Matt Mead. The governor and the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission are working out the details of the search for a replacement, the spokesperson told NGI’s Shale Daily.

Natural gas prices this year and next will be slightly higher than previously forecast, lifted in large part by an expected increase in demand from the industrial sector, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Tuesday.

If you work in one of the 23 counties comprising the Eagle Ford Shale region of South Texas, today — or any day, for that matter — would be a good day to ask your boss for a raise.

Whether the natural gas market is “proactive or reactive” today doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, according to Bentek Energy’s Jack Weixel. Like the chicken or the egg metaphor, asking which came first, gross gas production or dry gas production is irrelevant when considering that today output is 20 Bcf/d higher than in 2006.

Whether the natural gas market is “proactive or reactive” today doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, according to Bentek Energy’s Jack Weixel. Like the chicken or the egg metaphor, asking which came first, gross gas production or dry gas production is irrelevant when considering that today output is 20 Bcf/d higher than in 2006. The real question is how will the market adapt, or rather, what’s the market going to do with all the production?

It is a matter of when, not if, additional testing will be done in Pavillion, WY, where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has two test wells that turned up suspected chemicals tied to the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of natural gas wells in the area. Gov. Matt Mead’s spokesperson has confirmed that additional tests are coming, but they are still not scheduled.

Dow Chemical Co., the biggest U.S. chemical manufacturer, expects to see its earnings jump 16% in 2011 from a year ago, in part because of the ability to use inexpensive shale gas in its operations, CEO Andrew Liveris said on Tuesday.

The City of Wellsburg, WV, has taken its first step toward repealing an ordinance it had enacted less than three months ago calling for a ban on natural gas drilling within the city and an adjacent one-mile buffer zone.