Opened

Encana Natural Gas Inc. has opened a compressed natural gas fueling station in Coushatta, LA, its first, to serve the company’s fleet of vehicles in Red River Parish. Starting next year the Encana Corp. subsidiary expects to offer the station’s fueling service to other corporate fleets in the region. The company said plans to open its next four natural gas fueling stations, one in each of the states of Wyoming and Colorado and two in Western Canada next year.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. has opened a $7 million oilfield services and training center in the heart of the Marcellus Shale that offers all of the comforts of home — and then some.

Natural gas production in August in the Lower 48 states of 65.79 Bcf/d marked a 1.8% increase over July and nearly a 5% increase over August a year ago, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its monthly report. Production from the federal offshore Gulf of Mexico (GOM) advanced for the first time in six months.

A power glitch at the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) natural gas terminal in Milpitas, CA, opened up a pipeline control valve, which in turn caused a surge in pressure before the San Bruno, CA, gas pipeline ruptured last month, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reported Wednesday.

The Obama administration opened up federal lands to alternative energy development this month in the first of what promises to be a series of similar announcements. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the federal government’s willingness to put aside environmental criticism and allow two large-scale solar projects to be built on Bureau of Land Management (BLM)-controlled lands in Southern California.

With strong incentives from both the public and private sectors, California stakeholders in the alternative transportation fuel space opened a new research center on Tuesday aimed at cutting fuel consumption in the trucking industry by 50% in the next 10 years. Funding from the California Energy Commission (CEC) is supporting the new center.

Reinforcing a growing trend toward dual natural gas transportation fueling outlets, a Los Angeles industrial suburb, the City of Commerce, on Monday opened a fueling station offering both compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG). The new term is LCNG fueling, according to Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Inc., which is providing the LNG and operating/maintenance at the station under contract to the city.

June natural gas futures fell Tuesday as the market opened up but was unable to muster sufficient momentum to break higher. Some traders are still optimistic of an advance, however.

While events in energy markets in 2009 did not resemble the roller-coaster ride of 2008, technological innovations that opened the floodgates for gas production out of shale plays changed the paradigm for the gas market, according to a state of the markets report issued Thursday by FERC’s Division of Energy Market Oversight.