NYMEX

A district court judge in Utah Monday overturned a Bush-era resource management plan (RMP) that opened more than 4,200 miles of dirt roads and trails in part of the state to off-road vehicles.

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is not the culprit in methane emissions, but other parts of the drilling process are, and they are fixable, according to a panel of industry, academic and environmental representatives.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. still has a way to go before it reaches optimal flying altitude, but CEO Doug Lawler has set the management team on a course designed to strip the portfolio to those that perform the best, which means more assets likely will be sold into 2014.

Voters in three Colorado towns voted to place moratoriums on natural gas and oil exploration and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) Tuesday, and a moratorium on the ballot in a fourth town failed by just a few votes. The ballot initiatives were seen as largely symbolic efforts, since there is little to no drilling being done in any of the towns.

Physical gas for Thursday delivery jumped on average 8 cents nationally in Wednesday’s trading, with only a handful of individual points in the loss column surrounded by widespread gains. A large cold front was dropping temperatures well below normal as it moved out of the Plains and Midwest into the Great Lakes and into Texas.

Capacity to move growing production of condensate and natural gasoline out of the Marcellus/Utica Shale region to diluent markets in Canada is being offered by Unity Pipeline Co. LLC, which is proposing a system of new pipeline, as well as pipeline to be converted from natural gas service.

Phillips 66 is planning to expand its midstream business with a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) export terminal to be built at its existing marine terminal in Freeport, TX, the Houston-based company said.

George P. Mitchell and crew long have been credited with finding the trigger to unlock unconventional natural gas, but it was in fact a colorful cast of visionaries, oddballs and take-no-prisoner pitchmen who helped launch the United States on the road to energy independence, as told in the insightful, and at times suspenseful, new book by bestselling author Gregory Zuckerman, The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters.

Within days of a regulatory judge’s recommending a lesser penalty, one of the five members of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) late Monday issued an alternate proposed decision, slapping a $17.25 million fine on Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) for “calculated dishonesty” related to a natural gas pipeline safety issue.