natural gas data

Sanchez Energy Corp., which is focused exclusively on the Eagle Ford Shale and the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS), kicked its total production volumes up nine-fold for the fourth quarter, more than seven-fold for the year, and saw gas production increase more than 3,000% in the fourth quarter.

North America’s unconventionals, oilfield services and midstreamers offered nice paybacks to investors last year, according to IHS Inc.

Two of the natural gas industry’s major organizations said Monday they have merged their efforts to promote natural gas vehicles (NGV) into the Washington, DC-based NGVAmerica organization, moving a more recent collaboration known as the “Drive Natural Gas Initiative” into the longer-established advocacy organization headed by industry veteran Richard Kolodziej.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell on Friday introduced legislation to advance the state’s Alaska liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which would commercialize the state’s long-stranded North Slope gas.

David Hochschild has been reappointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Energy Commission (CEC) to a full five-year term. Brown had appointed Hochschild last year to fill out a term on the five-member CEC as its environmental representative. Hochschild was a vice president at Solaria Corp. 2007-2013. The appointment requires state Senate confirmation.

FERC said it had requested authorization by Southwest Gas Storage Co. to abandon in place a 1,110-horsepower compressor unit and related equipment at its Waverly Storage Compressor Station in Morgan County, IL (Docket No. CP14-46). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said Southwest wants to abandon the unit “because it does not anticipate needing it at its present location for the foreseeable future [and] it has become increasingly expensive to maintain.” FERC said the unit has not been used for over twelve months, and that it would cost Southwest $8.5 million to replicate the compressor unit elsewhere. If no motion to intervene is filed with 60 days the proposal will be deemed authorized.

Spot natural gas prices advanced across the board in Monday’s trading, with Northeast and East points earning double-digit gains as the polar vortex kept temperatures well below normal all along the Eastern Seaboard. Forecasts called for no slowdown until the weekend. Supplies into the Midwest were reduced by a fire at a compressor station bringing gas from Canada, and Midwest spot prices soared to record levels.

Hess Corp. plans to spend $5.8 billion on capital expenditures (capex) in 2014, and will devote nearly half of that amount to developing its assets in the Bakken and Utica shales, with emphasis on the Bakken.

CGG, a geological and reservoir services company, has completed a three-year, 1,566-square-mile seismic survey program for multiple clients in the Marcellus Shale fairway. The Paris-based company said the program is believed to be the largest combined onshore seismic survey ever conducted in the United States. It was completed in six phases that covered Lycoming, Tioga, Clinton, Centre and Clearfield counties in central Pennsylvania. The survey was aimed at providing a multi-client data library of shale acreage in the play to optimize drilling and completion programs. By the end of 2014, the company expects to make data from all six phases available, which draw from more than 118,000 shots and millions of receiver locations.