Mexico

Total U.S. natural gas production was nearly flat in August compared to the previous month, but in the Other States category, which includes shale-heavy Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, output reached 27.02 Bcf/d, a 2.4% increase from 26.38 Bcf/d in July and a whopping 17.1% increase from 23.08 Bcf/d in August 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Monthly Natural Gas Gross Production Report.

A House bill’s requirement that FERC act on border-crossing pipeline applications within 120 days of their filing has been roundly criticized by an agency staffer tasked with approving pipeline projects.

Houston Pipe Line Co. LP (HPL) has filed an application seeking FERC authorization to build border-crossing facilities at the international border between the United States and Mexico to export and/or import natural gas between the two nations.

The Senate on Saturday passed legislation that would give the Interior Department secretary authorization to implement a transboundary agreement between the U.S. and Mexico governing the development of oil and natural gas resources along the two countries’ maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM).

Mexico is greatly expanding its natural gas pipeline and gas-fired power infrastructure while in the upstream sector, state-controlled Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) focuses on more-lucrative oil and allows non-associated gas production to dwindle. Increasingly, it will be gas from U.S. shales that comes to the country’s rescue.

Natural gas pipelines on Destin Pipeline Co.’s system operated by BP Pipelines in the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) were in phase 2 of their severe weather contingency plan with all nonessential personnel preparing for evacuation in preparation for what could be the first real tropical storm threat to U.S. energy interests this year, Destin said Wednesday.

Interests that are long natural gas won’t have to wait too much longer for some demand dynamism to come to the gas market, according to analysts at PIRA Energy Group, which recently completed a client-sponsored study of “demand implications of the shale revolution.”

At a Capitol Hill hearing Tuesday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) expressed support for approving a transboundary agreement between the United States and Mexico that would govern the development of oil and natural gas resources along the two countries’ maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM).

Natural gas production in the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Other States category, which includes Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia — and, with them, some of the nation’s booming shale plays — reached 26.37 Bcf/d in July, compared with 26.13 Bcf/d in June and 22.67 Bcf/d in July 2012, EIA said Monday.