natural gas

The Obama administration’s proposed guidance for considering climate change in federal agency project reviews overreaches existing statute, oversimplifies the analysis of project impacts and could contradict administration objectives for clean power, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade association said.

Resolute Energy Corp. (REN) has agreed to sell noncore assets in the Midland Basin in West Texas to a private party for $42 million and use the proceeds to pay down debt. The Midland is a sub-basin of the Permian Basin.

The bodies of two missing men were found Sunday at the site of an explosion possibly caused by natural gas in New York City, according to New York City Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro, and investigators are reportedly looking into allegations of pipeline tampering prior to the accident.

Hadrian South, a natural gas-rich prospect in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), has started up with full capacity targeting gross production of 300 MMcf/d of natural gas and 3,000 b/d of liquids, operator ExxonMobil Corp. said Monday.

Preserving liquidity has become the name of the game, as U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies continue to look for ways to remain viable in the current oil/gas price downturn.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has completed its review of a 715-page air quality permit application submitted by Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC for a proposed multi-billion dollar ethane cracker, and the agency is one step closer to approving it, pending a public comment period.

Genscape Inc. is projecting that total natural gas demand for the Lower 48 this summer is estimated at about 64 Bcf/d, which is higher than last year. That’s about 2.4 Bcf/d more than that demand averaged in 2014, said senior natural gas analyst Rick Margolin. And it’s 1 Bcf/d more than in the “remarkably high” demand year 2012. NGI regrets the errors in the original piece, and they have been corrected.

Bidweek volatility, a bearish storage picture and expectations of low hydro supplies sparked a handful of movers and shakers in an otherwise dull natural gas forwards basis market this week.

A federal judge has sentenced a former Consol Energy Inc. manager to 30 months in prison and ordered him to pay a $5,000 fine for a royalties scheme in which he stole $440,000 from the company’s interests at parcels in West Virginia and Illinois. Scott D. Hamilton, 38, who worked as a land records manager for Consol, pleaded guilty to 60 counts of mail fraud in November after federal prosecutors filed charges against him (see Shale Daily, Sept. 23, 2014). He has also paid back the $440,000 in restitution. From 2009 to 2011, Hamilton established a fake company to file deed transfers that turned Consol’s royalty interests over to him. He forged signatures of a notary public and made up names for a company representative and attorney to ensure that the deeds appeared genuine, according to prosecutors.