Proceed

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is urging the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to proceed with a proposal to revise water quality regulations, a move that could ultimately open the basin to expanded Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling.

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc has signed a second, six-month extension that gives it more time to decide whether to purchase property in western Pennsylvania that could ultimately be used for a “world scale” ethane cracker in the heart of the Marcellus Shale region.

Sunoco Logistics Partners LP has received enough binding commitments to enable its Mariner South Pipeline project to proceed. Mariner South will transport export-grade propane and butane from Lone Star NGL LLC’s storage and fractionation complex in Mont Belvieu, TX, to Sunoco Logistics’ terminal in Nederland, TX. A binding open season continues to solicit additional business (see Shale Daily, March 22). In addition to propane and butane, the pipeline will be available for other natural gas liquids and petroleum products depending on shipper interest, Sunoco Logistics said. It is expected to have initial capacity of 200,000 b/d with the potential for expansion. Operation is expected during the first quarter of 2015.

Range Resources Corp. won permission from a Texas appeals court to proceed with a defamation lawsuit seeking $3 million in damages from a man who accused the company of tainting his drinking water with drilling activities in the Barnett Shale (see Shale Daily, April 4). Two of the company’s claims against Steven Lipsky were allowed to stand by the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth. However, it ordered the trial court in Weatherford, TX, to dismiss Range’s claims against Lipsky’s wife, Shyla, and environmental consultant Alisa Rich, who was hired to assist in the lawsuit. The plaintiffs have claimed that Range tainted the Lipsky water well, but the Railroad Commission of Texas found otherwise after it investigated. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency also had blamed Range for contaminating the well, the agency later backed down (see Shale Daily, Feb. 13; Feb. 21, 2012).

In rebuttal comments filed at the Department of Energy (DOE), producers have called on the department to proceed with review and approval of liquefied natural gas (LNG) export applications expeditiously, saying the nation has more than enough natural gas to meet domestic demand and supply exports.While producers favor exports, large gas users and environmentalists are mostly opposed to them.

A Pennsylvania driller has bought more than 56,000 acres of leasehold, hundreds of producing natural gas wells and nearly 200 miles of natural gas pipeline and other infrastructure in New York state from a subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corp. It said it plans to drill vertical wells on the acquisition acreage this year.

Dominion said Friday it will proceed with engineering, marketing and regulatory review processes for proposed natural gas liquefaction and export facilities at its Dominion Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal on the Chesapeake Bay in Lusby, MD, following a favorable court ruling on the project.

Dominion said Friday it will proceed with engineering, marketing and regulatory review processes for proposed natural gas liquefaction and export facilities at its Dominion Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal on the Chesapeake Bay in Lusby, MD, following a favorable court ruling on the project.

The fate of the northern portion of the multi-billion-dollar Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) in the hands of the Obama administration will be the bellwether this coming year, determining if the U.S. technology-driven abundance of hydrocarbons is going to be cashed in as part of a North American-wide energy transformation, according to a former private equity energy star and now senior think tank fellow.