Opportunity

July natural gas is expected to open a penny higher Monday morning at $2.65 as traders and risk managers mull a missed opportunity and assess trading strategy for the week. Overnight oil markets eased.

July natural gas is expected to open a penny higher Monday morning at $2.65 as traders and risk managers mull a missed opportunity and assess trading strategy for the week. Overnight oil markets eased.

Natural gas prices have moved higher in recent months, and some producers are taking the opportunity now to tweak their capital expenditures in preparation for better returns in 2014 and beyond, a Genscape Inc. executive said last week.

Favorable price spreads for U.S. produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) will continue for some time creating an opportunity for LNG to grow in importance in the long-haul trucking sector and other stationary operations, such as oil/gas drilling operations, according to Pace Global, a Fairfax, VA-based energy management consulting business that is part of Siemens.

There appears to be no scarcity of global shale gas opportunities, but it may be two years — or longer — before drilling progresses to commercial success, according to Raymond James & Associates Inc.

Tulsa-based midstream operator SemGroup on Wednesday agreed to a $300 million cash price for Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s interests in subsidiary Mid-America Midstream Gas Services LLC, that comes with a 20-year gathering and processing contract for 540,000 net acres in the Mississippian Lime play.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) independent Science Advisory Board (SAB) has formed a Hydraulic Fracturing Research Advisory panel of independent experts to peer review the EPA’s 2014 draft report of results for its national study on potential health and environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources. EPA said the SAB panel will provide scientific feedback on EPA’s research in “an open and transparent manner.”

Noting that it wants to give the public an adequate opportunity to review and comment, the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) said Wednesday that it is extending the public comment period on two proposed rules: to list as endangered the gunnison sage grouse, which is found south of the Colorado River in Colorado and Utah, and to designate 1.7 million acres of critical habitat for the bird under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

In two separate but related cases in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, a judge has ruled that energy companies can’t use the state’s de facto moratorium against high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) as an excuse to invoke force majeure to extend expiring oil and natural gas leases.