Millions

The oil major wants to recover some of the millions set aside for Gulf Coast businesses following the 2010 oil spill because it says some claims may have been inflated or the losses were nonexistent.

States are being shortchanged hundreds of millions of dollars by low-ball royalties for oil and natural gas development on federal lands, a report released Thursday by a Denver-based nonpartisan think tank says, based on an analysis of seven states.

States are being shortchanged hundreds of millions of dollars by low-ball royalties for oil and natural gas development on federal lands, a report released Thursday by a Denver-based nonpartisan think tank says, based on an analysis of five western states, plus North Dakota and Texas.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., whose central operations are in the Marcellus Shale, said Monday it plans to use natural gas to power hydraulic fracturing (fracking) equipment in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Shell Chemical LP is offering to pay western Pennsylvania localities millions for lost tax revenue affected by its proposed “world-scale” ethane cracker. The Beaver County Commissioners said the Royal Dutch Shell plc subsidiary had made an initial proposal to pay localities 110% of the annual property tax revenue currently being paid by Horsehead Holding Corp., which owns the proposed cracker site. State law caps payments-in-lieu-of-taxes at 110%. County tax records show Horsehead, a zinc producer, was assessed around $6.2 million for the 2013 tax year. At 110%, Shell’s offer could amount to an annual payment of about $6.82 million over 22 years, but the county said negotiations are needed. Local stakeholders are preparing to file an application to the state Department of Community and Economic Development for a Keystone Opportunity Expansion Zone for the ethane cracker site. Such a designation would, if approved, give Shell up to 22 years of tax exceptions and abatements.

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc has offered to pay localities millions for lost tax revenue affected by its proposed “world-scale” ethane cracker.

As energy companies begin collecting production data from the few wells drilled so far in Ohio’s portion of the Utica Shale, a picture is starting to emerge that company executives and industry experts agree will determine how, where and when the play will ultimately be developed.

Hurricane Irene turned out the lights on millions of East Coast residents and in doing so cut demand for natural gas by about 2.8 Bcf, according to an analysis by Bentek Energy LLC. The firm on Aug. 29 said the storm dropped gas demand by 1.3 Bcf in the Northeast since the previous Saturday (Aug. 27) and another 0.8 Bcf of demand loss was expected. About 0.7 Bcf of demand had been lost in the Southeast. Analysts at Canaccord Genuity Inc. also noted the storm’s gas demand destruction. “…[G]as-fired generation has declined by 2-plus Bcf/d over the past couple days, with the heaviest declines, not surprisingly, occurring in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions,” the firm said. “At the same time, precautionary refinery shutdowns in conjunction with activity-limiting flooding suggest industrial demand is likely to see some degradation in these regions as well. Putting it all together, Irene was clearly a net bearish event for the gas complex and, depending on the length of outages, will likely lead to a cumulative natural gas demand loss of 30-plus Bcf over the next couple [of] weeks.”

Hurricane Irene turned out the lights on millions of East Coast residents and in doing so cut demand for natural gas by about 2.8 Bcf, according to an analysis by Bentek Energy LLC.