Quickly

While state senators in Pennsylvania continue to wrangle over an impact fee on natural gas drillers, the state House is moving quickly on a competing bill.

Officials with Inergy subsidiary Central New York Oil & Gas Co. LLC (CNYOG) have called on FERC to quickly issue a certificate so the company can begin construction of its MARC Hub Line project in northeastern Pennsylvania, saying failure to do so “would have significant adverse commercial consequences for CNYOG and its shippers.” The project would give northern markets greater access to Marcellus Shale gas.

Kitimat, a coastal community in northwestern British Columbia (BC), which has its roots as a company town planned and built in the 1950s by the Aluminum Co. of Canada, is quickly becoming the company town for liquefied natural gas (LNG). Royal Dutch Shell plc on Thursday confirmed that it has purchased an marine import terminal there and now is exploring — with its Asian partners — its potential as an LNG export facility.

Environmental groups have told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) they plan to sue the federal agency unless it quickly takes steps to invoke an ozone nonattainment designation in western Wyoming in the Upper Green River Basin, the site of natural gas drilling activity.

Pennsylvania policymakers should “watch the rigs” as they make decisions, Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) President Kathryn Klaber told a Pittsburgh audience Thursday.

Environmental groups have told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) they plan to sue the federal agency unless it quickly takes steps to invoke an ozone nonattainment designation in western Wyoming in the Upper Green River Basin, the site of natural gas drilling activity.

West Virginia believes it can support a chemical industry even if plans to ship Appalachian ethane to Canada and the Gulf Coast come to fruition, an official told a Pittsburgh-area audience Wednesday.

Early reaction to the Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission’s (MSAC) final report is mixed, with environmental groups praising some recommendations while criticizing omissions, industry promising cooperation and lawmakers offering a skeptical shrug.

For the time being at least, Marcellus Shale producers are paying the price for too much of a good thing. Concentrated development in the nation’s preeminent shale gas play has made for basis-inverting constraints on Tennessee Gas Pipeline. However, the industry has seen this sort of thing before (in the Rockies more than once, for instance), and the market will work it out, eventually, a Marcellus producer told NGI’s Shale Daily.