Ourselves

Although it will take another year or more to fully assess the value, Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp. is staking a lot of its long-term oil and natural gas value on its Mancos Shale acreage in both the Piceance and San Juan Basins, CEO David Emery said during a 3Q2012 earnings conference call Thursday.

New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joseph Martens has rejected a call to conduct an independent review of the public health impacts of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and instead asked the New York State Health commissioner to assess DEC’s health impact analysis to determine whether to permit fracking in the state.

Continuing its basement-to-the-penthouse rise in the energy sector, North Dakota’s latest oil/gas production statistics make the state that had no drilling rigs operating in 1999 now the second biggest oil producer in the nation, trailing only Texas.

A relatively late entrant in the growing national debate about shale formations and how much long-term domestic reserves they bring to the United States, the Monterey Shale in California is an extensive old oil play that some analysts are predicting will experience a rebirth in today’s shale-dominated domestic energy world.

Officials with the City of Morgantown, WV, said the city might take Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) to court if the city passes an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) and the company subsequently starts using the practice at two Marcellus Shale gas wells.

Former Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard, who now serves as president of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association (QOGA), said the organization welcomed the provincial government’s response to a report on hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) in the Utica Shale play.

The town of DISH, TX, and some of its residents are suing several midstream energy companies, claiming that noise and pollution from nearby natural gas compression and related facilities have eroded property values and hindered economic development in the town of about 200 residents, which is named after a satellite television service provider.

Despite meetings that brought together members of both chambers and both sides of the aisle in Pennsylvania’s General Assembly and representatives from the gas industry at the Governor’s Mansion in Harrisburg Monday and Tuesday, agreement on a proposed natural gas severance tax bill remains elusive, according to Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati (R-Jefferson).

FERC Chairman Pat Wood III said last week that if the Commission can “get ourselves out of the way, then we can move to a deregulated market” that offers more responsive customer service and more technological innovation. Speaking in Washington, DC, before a meeting sponsored by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) and Accenture, Wood said he wanted to let the Commission become a “much more distant referee,” and hopes his tenure leads to an “urgency to end the debate” that will lead to full competition within the power market.