Processing

For Marcellus Shale producers, the gift-receiving season begins this week and continues through the end of the year in the form of additional pipeline takeaway capacity. Multiple projects are slated to come online between Thursday and the end of the year, giving Marcellus producers increased access to markets, and presumably better prices for their gas.

Boulder County, CO, officials may need to keep in place longer than expected a moratorium on the processing of development plans for oil and gas permits. County Planning Commission members said Wednesday they need more time to complete new regulations meant to address potential public health and environmental impacts of oil and gas exploration in unincorporated areas of the county, according to news reports. In February Boulder County commissioners passed a resolution that placed a moratorium on accepting applications until Feb. 4, 2013. The Planning Commission asked the Board of County Commissioners to extend the moratorium by three to six months. Government officials from around Colorado have challenged the state’s authority to regulate energy operations (see Shale Daily, Sept. 24; Aug. 17). The state maintains exclusive jurisdiction in this area under the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc has offered to pay localities millions for lost tax revenue affected by its proposed “world-scale” ethane cracker.

Market dynamics will override politics and the job producing and economic stimulus effects of the gas industry will prevail in the years ahead regardless of the outcome of this fall’s presidential elections, according to panelists at the LDC Gas Forum’s mid-continent meeting in Chicago Monday.

Technology and good old “American ingenuity” that have driven the shale gas boom are also prompting responses to a supply glut that make storage and eventual liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports more important than ever, according to Bryan Durkin, COO at CME Group, who addressed the opening session of the LDC Gas Forums mid-continent meeting in Chicago Monday.

Regency Energy Partners LP said it plans to expand its Dubach processing facility in North Louisiana to increase capacity to 210 MMcf/d by adding an incremental 70 MMcf/d of cryogenic capacity and 20 MMcf/d of Joule-Thomson capacity. “We have seen volumes at our Dubach facility continue to grow throughout the first half of 2012 due to increased drilling around our facilities,” said Chief Commercial Officer Jim Holotik. “This expansion will allow us to process new production from the area and provide more efficient liquids recovery across the facility.” The $75 million expansion, expected to come online in the second quarter of 2013, is to include construction of high-pressure gathering lines to bring production to the facility. The project is backed by fee-based contracts and an acreage dedication, Regency said.

The nation’s natural gas resources, which have grown with the expanded potential of shale plays — including as much as 20 years supply from the Marcellus Shale — can be used to cost-effectively generate electricity, and any environmental burdens will come primarily from combustion when the fuel is used, not when it is extracted, according to a report from the Department of Energy (DOE).

EagleClaw Midstream Services LLC, which provides natural gas and crude oil producers in the Permian Basin with gathering, compression, treating, processing and transportation services, has secured a $100 million equity commitment from EnCap Flatrock Midstream of San Antonio (see Shale Daily, Aug. 2). The company, headquartered in Midland, TX, is pursuing greenfield and acquisition opportunities in the region. EagleClaw is led by President Robert Milam, COO Curtis Clark and Executive Vice President of Commercial Development Charles S. Kuss. “While it has been one of the most prolific basins in North America for a long time, there has been a dramatic resurgence over the past year or two, and it’s more active than ever before,” Milam said of the Permian. “There are more than 500 rigs at work in the area, and production is reaching new highs.”

British Columbia (BC) Premier Christy Clark trekked north to see new gas processing and pipeline facilities start work in the resource-rich region where Canada’s western-most province meets the Yukon and Northwest Territories.