People

Two people were killed in a blast that occurred at a natural gas well in Indiana Township, northeast of Pittsburgh, at about 9:50 a.m. Friday, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

Houston’s Apache Corp. is in talks to buy $10-12 billion of BP plc’s properties, including some of its Alaskan assets, two people familiar with the discussions told NGI.

Six people were appointed to Utah’s citizen Resource Advisory Council (RAC), which will advise the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on public land issues. The RACs, composed of citizens chosen for their expertise in various fields of natural resource use and management, help BLM carry out its stewardship of 253 million acres of public lands. Utah’s newly appointed members are Gary Kofford of Castle Dale, who was selected to represent Utah’s elected officials; Bill Hopkin of Woodruff to represent grazing interests; Mike Roberts and Ray Bloxham, both of Salt Lake City, to represent environmental groups; Stuart Sprouse of Sandy to represent dispersed recreation; and John Malechek of Logan, who will represent academia.

Six people were appointed Thursday to Utah’s citizen Resource Advisory Council (RAC), which are to advise the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on public land issues.

With people in Canada and the northern half of the U.S. waking up Tuesday morning to temperatures in the vicinity of freezing or lower, and such conditions expected to continue through Wednesday for the most part, it was hardly surprising to see prices rising again Tuesday at a large majority of locations. However, a significant decline by November futures appears likely to nip this week’s cash rally in the bud.

Lawmen in East Texas last week arrested more than a dozen people accused of stealing or conspiring to steal condensate from gas drilling operations in the area in a large-scale conspiracy. More arrests are expected as the investigation continues, officials said.

Summer has officially gotten under way, and many people are feeling it. With hot weather starting to pervade most of the U.S. except the Northeast and the upper half of the West, prices managed to rally Monday at most points in the Midcontinent and West and saw little change either up or down in the rest of the East.

The recession has surely driven a few people to dig under their couch cushions for loose change. In cash-strapped Kentucky one lawmaker has proposed that the state look under its own property for oil and gas deposits that might be extracted and monetized.

The moderate earthquake that shook a width swatch of Southern California inhabited by more than 20 million people last Tuesday was felt throughout the region, but did little or no significant damage to the area’s energy and other infrastructures. Local energy utilities reported scattered outages but no major impact on the electricity and natural gas infrastructure. Caltech seismology experts placed the quake’s magnitude at 5.4 on the Richter Scale. By comparison, the 6.7 magnitude Northridge event of January 2004 caused widespread death, injury and damage to infrastructure. The quake was centered in the eastern part of the San Gabriel Valley near the Chino Hills, which is about 20-25 miles east of downtown Los Angeles and was described as a “shallow” temblor about seven miles below the earth’s surface. Southern California Edison Co., headquartered in Rosemead, CA, less than 15 miles from the presumed epicenter, reported scattered outages in about a half dozen communities closest to the quake’s center. Subsequently, Edison did report a fire in a La Habra substation that is within a few miles of the quake’s epicenter. Distribution problems were reported in the immediate Chino Hills-Pomona-Brea area in the far eastern end of Los Angeles County caused by the power lines swinging together and touching. At least one fire in a local distribution substation was also reported. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Los Angeles-based Southern California Gas Co. reported no problems.