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The Illinois Senate approved legislation Tuesday that supporters say could accelerate rebuilding aging natural gas delivery infrastructure over the next 10 years while maintaining regulatory oversight.

Natural gas exports from the United States to Mexico have doubled in the past three years and are likely to continue to grow for at least the next few years, according to an analysis by Barclays Capital.

Exports of natural gas from the United States to Mexico have doubled in the past three years and are likely to continue to grow for at least the next few years, according to an analysis by Barclays Capital.

The House has introduced legislation to open federal waters off the coast of Virginia to oil and natural gas development, and the Senate is expected to offer a companion bill in the coming weeks. Virginia lawmakers in Congress and at the state level have pressured the Interior Department to open the coastal waters to offshore development for years (see NGI, July 11, 2011). The Virginia Jobs and Energy Act (HR 1782), introduced by Rep. Scott Rigell (R-VA), mandates that Lease Sale 220 be conducted within one year and that one lease sale be held in subsequent five-year oil and gas leasing programs. Co-sponsors are Virginia Republican Reps. Rob Wittman, Robert Hurt and Morgan Griffith. During the last Congress, Rigell introduced similar legislation (HR 3882) after the Obama administration shut down exploration off of Virginia’s coast. Provisions of the bill passed the House in 2012 as part of a larger energy package, but it failed to make it out of Congress.

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple on Monday signed into law a measure (HB 1134) offering tax breaks to oil and natural gas operators as an incentive to cut flaring of associated gas at the wellhead on oil wells. HB 1134 was passed last week by the North Dakota legislature. It will be effective July 1.

Shareholders once again are urging ExxonMobil Corp. to report how its natural gas operations in shale formations impact the environment. The oil major once again is recommending the proposal be defeated.

LyondellBasell has contracted with TexStar MidStream Services LP for TexStar to install two natural gas liquids (NGL) fractionation units next to affiliate Equistar Chemicals LP’s Corpus Christi, TX, plant. The units will process NGLs from the Eagle Ford Shale.

A district court judge wants the highest court in West Virginia, the Supreme Court of Appeals, to certify whether existing state law allows a company to drill on land where it doesn’t own the surface rights, but it owns the underlying mineral rights.

The Northeast has seen a run of colder-than-normal weather through March Madness, but the next three months should bring the region a considerable warm-up, according to forecasters at Andover, MA-based Weather Services International (WSI).