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While there are competing proposals to break through the bottlenecks to bringing rich gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the Bakken formation to market, the Alliance Pipeline and Aux Sable NGL systems think they have the inside track. In the meantime, a substantial amount of NGL movement continues through rail and trucking.

A group of municipal gas utilities has called on Congress to pass legislation to reform Section 5 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) so that shippers can receive retroactive refunds for over-collections of rates by interstate natural gas pipelines. The request was accompanied by a recent study estimating that pipelines over-recovered more than $4 billion from their customers over a five-year period.

A group of municipal gas utilities has called on Congress to pass legislation to reform Section 5 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) so that shippers can receive retroactive refunds for over-collections of rates by interstate natural gas pipelines. Its request was accompanied by a recent study estimating that pipelines over-recovered more than $4 billion from their customers over a five-year period.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich will reportedly unveil a proposal this week to restructure state taxes on oil and gas drilling and pass the savings along to Ohioans in the form of a personal income tax cut, but conventional oil drilling and small producers of natural gas would not be affected.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich will reportedly unveil a proposal next week to restructure state taxes on oil and gas drilling and pass the savings along to Ohioans in the form of a personal income tax cut, but conventional oil drilling and small producers of natural gas would not be affected.

Pennsylvania state lawmakers have apparently reached a deal for the impact fee they hope to impose on natural gas drilling by splitting the difference between two competing proposals.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has called the state legislature into a special session scheduled to begin Sunday (Dec. 11) to discuss, and possibly pass, a compromise Marcellus Shale regulatory reform bill as early as this week. The Joint Select Committee on Marcellus Shale (JSCMS), a 10-member bipartisan committee, has been working on legislation informally known as the Marcellus Draft Bill (MDB) for weeks. The JSCMS used a failed bill called the Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act, also known as SB 424, as the bill’s foundation (see NGI, Aug. 15). The shale gas industry is concerned by an amendment calling for operators to pay a $10,000 permitting fee for the first well drilled on a pad and $5,000 for each additional well well (see NGI, Nov. 28; Sept. 19). The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection also has proposed increasing horizontal drilling fees to $10,000 — up from the current $650 paid by all drillers — to fund additional inspectors (see NGI, Feb. 14).

Total SA wants to cook up some new deals in the U.S. shale patch, either through more joint ventures (JV) or on its own, a top executive said Wednesday.

At the start of Wednesday’s gas day Destin will end a force majeure event and resume normal operations from its Main Pass 260 platform through the onshore Pascagoula Gas Plant in Mississippi (see Daily GPI, Oct. 18). The alternate delivery point to Viosca Knoll Gathering System will no longer be available for transportation services until further notice, Destin said.