Permit

The U.S. Forest Service has issued a temporary special use permit for Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC, a joint venture led by Dominion Resources Inc., to survey more than 17 miles of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has issued a temporary special use permit for Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC (ACP), a joint venture (JV) led by Dominion Resources Inc., to survey more than 17 miles of the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

With more than 1,000 horizontal shale well permits issued to date in West Virginia, and with only about 5% of unconventional oil and gas reserves under development there, state regulators are confronting a pile of paperwork that has created a backlog of pending permit applications and slowed production in some instances.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), charged with overseeing offshore drilling for the Department of Interior, has no standardized procedures in place for reviewing permits nor a program to streamline the process, according to an internal audit.

Sasol Ltd. said it plans to make a decision in the next two years on whether to construct a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in Louisiana, after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) awarded the South African company a wetlands permit to build the plant and an ethane cracker.

For the second time in six months, an environmental group in Pennsylvania has made an appeal to the state’s Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) to challenge a permit issued to a subsidiary of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. for a well in Lycoming County.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reversed approval of a Class II injection well it permitted in central Pennsylvania in February, citing stiff opposition and appeals from local residents and public officials during a public comment period.

Wednesday afternoon, the Dallas City Council voted to deny Trinity East Energy LLC three permits it needed to drill on leases within the city for which it has already paid $19 million, setting the city up for a possible legal challenge from the company that could end up costing it millions before the nearly five-year saga is over.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has finalized its air quality permit criteria, and said it will no longer unconditionally waive operators from the requirement that they submit an air quality plan prior to regulatory approval of unconventional drilling sites.