natural gas prices

Chevron Corp.’s Permian Basin, and specifically the Midland and Delaware play, helped increase North American shale and tight resources production year/year by 23,000 b/d in the third quarter.

The natural gas market has seen gas-on-gas competition before, but the mix-up coming between low-cost molecules from Appalachia with gas from liquids plays such as the Bakken Shale as well as the Permian and Anadarko basins will be something on a grand scale, according to a new analysis.

Late Friday, a state judge in Louisiana ruled unconstitutional a bill passed earlier this year by lawmakers intended to block a mega-lawsuit against energy infrastructure companies for coastal wetlands damage. The lawsuit was brought by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (see Daily GPI, July 25, 2013).Judge Janice Clark said the law aimed at blocking the lawsuit failed, in part, because it violated the state constitution’s separation of powers clause as it sought to retroactively nullify an earlier court decision. Clark’s decision could be appealed to the state supreme court. Gov. Bobby Jindal and the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association (LOGA) support the legislation blocking the lawsuit. Jindal’s office did not respond to a request for comment Monday. LOGA said, “We have known that this case would be appealed to the First Circuit Court, and now to the Louisiana Supreme Court, for some time…We look forward to having our appeal heard at the appropriate time.” Before Clark’s ruling last Friday, two of the companies named in the lawsuit agreed to settle for $50,000 (see Daily GPI,Oct. 31).

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has quadrupled its estimate for the amount of oil and gas recoverable from a Chukchi Sea lease sale that was held in 2008.

Perth, Australia-based Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd.’s (LNG Ltd.) Bear Head LNG Corp. plans to double the capacity of its proposed natural gas liquefaction and export terminal on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, to 8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) from 4 mtpa.

The United States produced, consumed and delivered for consumption record levels of natural gas in 2013, and imports fell for the sixth consecutive year, according to an annualreport by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The Philadelphia City Council, after what it called an “exhaustive review,” has ruled out a nearly $2 billion sale of the Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) to Connecticut-based UIL Holdings Corp., announcing last week that it would forgo a vote on the matter and not introduce a bill to sell the city-owned utility.

Physical gas prices for Tuesday delivery fell hard in Monday’s trading as a warming trend was forecast for key eastern population centers.

With moves to back away from coal-fired generation and the pending acquisition of Chicago-based Integrys (see Daily GPI,June 23), Wisconsin Energy’s (WE) CEO outlined a number of natural gas advances for the Milwaukee-based combination utility holding company.