Occurring

The federal government and states would reach a compromise on regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) if the parties agreed to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on the issue, a Texas official told a House panel Wednesday.

Low natural gas prices have hit Pennsylvania, where deep-shale drilling fees collected last year fell about 3% from 2011, according to state data.

Barbara Mariner-Volpe of EIA’s Office of Energy Statistics is heading up the project to report Marcellus gas and other states separately, Cogan said. One of the options being considered would add individual reports on 14 states to the current five Lower 48 states and the GOM, said Barbara Mariner-Volpe of EIA’s Office of Energy Statistics.

Naturally occurring methane in New York water wells could serve as a baseline to measure the quality of the water supply if and when natural gas drilling is expanded and high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is allowed, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said in a new report. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is expected to announce any day a decision about whether to allow more gas drilling to proceed.

Utility rates changed at the start of the new year in California, Colorado and Oregon with the biggest shifts occurring at Xcel Energy’s Colorado combination utility. Xcel natural gas utility bills increased 1.55% for residential customers and 5.45% for small businesses, while electric rates dropped 6.48% for residential users and 7.08% for small businesses. In California, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) residential gas charges increased 1.8% as of Jan. 1, compared to December rates, but the new rates are still slightly lower (0.3%) than those in effect in January 2011. PG&E residential electric rates increased compared to December (2.4%) and January 2011 (2.9%). In Oregon, the two electric utilities’ rates went in opposite directions with PacifiCorp’s going up due to its reliance on more coal-fired generation and Portland General Electric’s (PGE) going down slightly due to its greater use of gas-fired and hydroelectric generation. PacifiCorp rates increased 4.4% or $51 million with the “largest single factor” being higher coal costs, said the Oregon Public Utility Commission, which cut $10.9 million from the multi-state utility’s original request. PGE rates dropped 1.3% or $21.8 million due mostly to the replacement of some nonhydro contracts with less expensive gas-fired generation contracts.

Columbia Gas said final testing was occurring Tuesday morning at its Milford location, where a long-running outage has been in place, and it anticipated that intraday nominations might be possible.

Thursday’s July futures dive of 34.9 cents and forecasts for a weekend reversal of modest warming trends that had been occurring in the Midwest and Northeast resulted in double-digit drops at most points in trading for the first weekend of summer Friday. The decline of industrial load that accompanies a weekend market also played a part.

In the back and forth battle occurring recently in natural gas futures the November contract logged a forth day on Wednesday as it gained 14.7 cents to close at $7.010. Despite signs that the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season is on course to be just as underwhelming as the previous year, some traders point to the market’s seasonal tendency to buy at this juncture.

With April expiration occurring during the week and traders suffering from a little spring fever as temperatures moved higher, May natural gas futures ventured lower Friday on low-volume trading. After putting in a $7.120 low on the day, the prompt month rebounded a little to settle at $7.210, down 27.7 cents for the day and 24.7 cents lower than the contract’s close in the previous week.