Question

In a North American landscape increasingly bathed in domestic natural gas supplies, the question is raised more loudly at the end of another calendar year: Why aren’t there more natural gas vehicles (NGV) on U.S. roadways?

Analysts at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service (S&P) are asking themselves the same question that many in the energy industry are: “Will natural gas production ever come down?

Analysts at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Service (S&P) are asking themselves the same question that many in the energy industry are: “Will natural gas production ever come down?

In mid-October North Dakota likely exceeded last year’s record-setting oil and gas production, according to state and industry officials who were quoted in a pre-Thanksgiving report out of Bismarck, ND, by the Associated Press. Separately, other local news reports Sunday depicted state officials as worried about proposed federal rules for hydraulic fracturing (fracking), but they told NGI’s Shale Daily the reports were exaggerated.

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.

A big question mark hangs over global alternative energy markets and U.S. federal stimulus funding in the clean tech space in the wake of Wednesday’s announcement by California-based Solyndra LLC that it was shutting its solar manufacturing operations at a Fremont, CA, plant and seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA), academia, industry and analysts on Tuesday continued to question why the New York Times (NYT) relied on misleading, outdated information — and failed to contact key resources — before publishing damning articles about the U.S. shale gas industry.

The New York Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee this week reported out of committee legislation to suspend until June 1, 2012 the issuance of new permits to drill that use hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) to extract natural gas or oil.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) urged President Obama on Monday to authorize a comprehensive study of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) in the Marcellus Shale of six states and its potential effects on the Chesapeake Bay watershed.