Pressure

Marketed natural gas production of the top-five producing states — Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Colorado — grew 7.5% last year, but their combined share of U.S. gas output fell slightly to about 65%, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Oil and natural gas operators appear to be on the wrong end of a turf war with the coal industry along the length of eastern Ohio, losing “significant” amounts of acreage in coal-bearing townships that also intersect with the state’s portions of the Marcellus and Utica shales.

What would you call a lot of natural gas, ready at a moment’s notice? Some might call it a storage facility. Others might call it the Marcellus Shale.

Under pressure to make its natural gas operations more independent of its electric utility business, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) said it is relocating its newly defined gas operations group in a large office complex in the East San Francisco Bay suburb of San Ramon, CA. Most of a contingent of 800 employees will be moved to the Bishop Ranch business park by October this year, a PG&E spokesperson said. Teams of employees now spread around in separate locations in San Francisco, Fresno, Walnut Creek and Concord, CA, will be brought together for the first time, the spokesperson said. Bringing together engineers, emergency dispatchers, system operators and others, Executive Vice President Nick Stavropoulos, the head of gas operations for the utility, said the utility “expects big gains in communication, efficiency and team building.” A new PG&E gas control center will be located in the San Ramon facilities as of the second quarter next year, Stavropoulos said. Regulators have criticized PG&E’s alleged lack of coordination in its gas operations in the wake of the September 2010 San Bruno transmission pipeline rupture and explosion.

Seven natural gas and electricity trade groups Tuesday called on White House officials to pressure the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) not to broadly define “swap dealer” in such a way as to include end-users and hedge funds, making them subject to regulation under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.

With a portfolio and focus on U.S. unconventional shale plays, Houston-based independent Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. strives to become a “drilling factory,” said CEO Gary Evans, who spoke Wednesday to the Pritchard Capital Partners Energize 2012 Conference in San Francisco.

Bowing to pressure from customers, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) decided Monday to give in to individual customers who insist that they cannot tolerate — for health or other reasons — smart meters, recommending to state regulators that a proposed opt-out provision be expanded to include use of analog meters.

A newly devised state self-generation incentive program can proceed, including waste heat capture (cogeneration), pressure-reduction turbines, advanced energy storage, combined heat-power (CHP) gas turbines, micro-turbines and internal combustion engines.

British Columbia will eclipse Alberta as Canada’s top gas producing province by tapping prolific shale deposits, the National Energy Board said.