Process

Looking to increase natural gas demand, Pennsylvania is pushing for more drivers to convert vehicles to run on the fuel. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a guidance document late last month arguing that vehicle conversion is allowed under the state’s existing emissions standards.

The chair of the Railroad Commission of Texas has directed commission staff to look into its existing rules on water recycling in the oil and gas patch. “If we need to streamline our old rules and make amendments where necessary to encourage companies to expand their recycling activities, then that is what we will do,” said Chair Elizabeth Ames Jones. “…[W]e must maintain that hydraulic fracturing can continue to benefit Texas by allowing companies to manage water use and conserve when possible as it relates to this process of energy production.”

Purestream Technology has contracted with Whiting Oil and Gas Corp. to deploy its Avara System, which can process up to 2,000 bbls of flowback water daily, for a water treatment project in Mountrail County, ND, to support Whiting’s operations in the Williston Basin. The clean finished water will be returned for continued use in hydraulic fracturing. The Avara system was developed in partnership with Utah State University’s Energy and Space Dynamics Labs.

Enogex has agreed to acquire natural gas midstream pipeline assets with dedicated rights to gather and process production from a large acreage position in the Granite Wash, Tonkawa and Marmaton plays of northwestern Oklahoma, the company said Friday.

Two technology firms on Thursday partnered to create an engineering and geoscience “solution” to allow unconventional oil and gas operators to incorporate microseismic data and hydraulic fracturing designs to help them model their well fractures.

The current spread between U.S. and European/Asian natural gas prices supports export of liquefied domestic gas from the Lower 48, but it’s likely too uncertain to support the long-term, billion-dollar commitment needed to bring large-scale liquefaction to the U.S. Gulf Coast, according to an analysis by Pan EurAsian Enterprises Inc. released Monday.

Although the city-created project has sputtered at times during its almost three-year permitting process, the Palmdale, CA, hybrid natural gas and solar power generation project has won approval of the California Energy Commission (CEC) Wednesday. However, the approval still doesn’t mean the project will be built.

Federal officials have won permission from a district judge to intervene in a New York lawsuit that would compel a full environmental review of the impact of natural gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin before proposed regulations for Marcellus Shale development are completed.

Attorneys for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and an EQT Corp. subsidiary plan to appeal a Doddridge County judge’s ruling allowing a surface owner to have a gas well permit issued by the DEP revoked.