natural gas prices

Clean Energy Fuels Corp. continues to make progress toward wider commercialization of natural gas vehicles with projects in Florida, Kentucky, Texas, Oklahoma and California.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office has fired back at ExxonMobil Corp. subsidiary XTO Energy Inc., saying in a court filing that the company’s efforts to dismiss criminal charges against it are “nothing more than weak attempts to obfuscate the truth.”

Chesapeake Energy Corp. is facing a criminal trial for allegedly rigging a Michigan lease sale in 2010 with competitor Encana Corp.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has renewed her call for expanding exports of crude oil condensates, saying the U.S. Commerce Department should align itself with the practices of a half-dozen other federal agencies that differentiate between crude and condensate.

U.S. land drillers have increased “only modestly” the number of rigs used from a year ago, but more efficient designs are resulting in more production, a trend likely to continue, a Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P) analyst is forecasting.

Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled a spending bill Tuesday that slashes funding for the Department of Interior (DOI) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and includes a provision barring the EPA from working on any rule to limit emissions from power plants.

Two private equity giants are merging some energy assets to form Trinity River Energy LLC, an exploration and production (E&P) operator that would have a big presence in the venerable Barnett Shale.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is considering examining the link between horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and seismic activity after Ohio recently tied a series of small earthquakes to stimulation operations at a well near the state border and issued new permitting requirements for wells near fault lines.

FERC has given Cameron LNG LLC the go-ahead to begin site preparation work for its planned Cameron Liquefaction Project in Louisiana’s Cameron and Calcasieu parishes. Cameron LNG has received all federal authorizations; committed to uniform traffic control, if needed; and plans to comply with environmental condition 20 (filing a traffic control plan) in October, prior to heavy project traffic affecting LA-27, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in a letter dated July 9. Sempra Energy would have an indirect 50.2% ownership interest, with the remaining portion owned by affiliates of GDF Suez SA, Mitsubishi Corp. (through a related company jointly established with Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha) and Mitsui & Co. Ltd., each with 16.6% stakes. FERC approved the liquefaction project in June (see Daily GPI,June 19).