Merits

As oil and gas companies continue to ponder the best strategy for unlocking natural resources in the Utica Shale — and industry analysts continue to debate the merits of doing so — data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) indicate that the state has passed an important milestone: 100 horizontal wells online and in production.

North Dakota lawmakers continue holding hearings and debating the merits of energy bills to create incentives for less associated gas flaring at the wellhead and to provide tax relief for oil and gas producers, a spokesperson for the state Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) told NGI’s Shale Daily Monday.

North Dakota lawmakers continue holding hearings and debating the merits of energy bills to create incentives for less associated gas flaring at the wellhead and to provide tax relief for oil and gas producers, a spokesperson for the state Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) told NGI Monday.

Besides powering a manufacturing/petrochemical industry renaissance, North America’s abundant supply of shale gas is fueling a war of words over the merits of energy exports versus domestic usage.

BP plc’s operating performance remains “satisfactory overall,” which merits a revised outlook to “stable” from “negative,” Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) said Wednesday.

A new report on the merits of developing Alaska’s Arctic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) states the move would create “significant economic effects,” and would generate thousands of jobs and billions in payroll and tax revenue.

Regardless of the merits or faults of a recently proposed generator retirement policy by PJM Interconnection, there are deeper market design flaws that the regional transmission organization (RTO) must address in order to ensure reliability in its footprint, generators told FERC in recent filings [EL03-236].

Southwestern Energy said yesterday that the lawsuit brought byroyalty and mineral rights owners alleging damages from anunderground natural gas storage facility in Franklin County, AR isnot supported by the facts or the law, and said that it had actedaccording to the guidelines of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission.

While gas industry officials debated the merits of capacityauctions, electronic trading experts last week indicated suchauctions were doable from a technical standpoint but would firstrequire a certain amount of standardization of products,definitions and practices. This immediately raised the eyebrows ofsome critics, who believe that too much standardization could beharmful to the gas industry.