Reducing

The continued uptrend in North America’s unconventional natural gas and oil supplies and global demand dynamics suggest that the outlook for pipeline and storage infrastructure development may not only be bullish but also long-term, according to analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc.

Liquids-rich onshore plays from a stable of better-known assets, including the San Juan Basin, and an emerging portfolio of unconventionals will “almost double” domestic liquids production this year, Encana Corp. U.S. chief Jeff Wojahn said Tuesday.

The U.S. oil rig count will continue to “drift slowly lower” in 2013 and 2014 in part because of technology and in part to balance the market, according to an updated analysis by Raymond James & Associates Inc.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. can see some daylight following the deluge of U.S. natural gas, but it won’t be until the end of the year that the producer is able to report a decline in domestic output, CEO Aubrey McClendon said Friday.

An appeals court in Washington, DC, Tuesday vacated an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule aimed at reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from coal- and natural gas-fired power plants in 28 upwind states located primarily in the East and Texas.

In what eventually could be a breakthrough in reducing the carbon footprint of natural gas-fired and other fossil fuel power generation, the Shaw Group Inc. and Exelon have announced a project with an emissions control technology provider to demonstrate a potential zero-emissions process on a small-scale gas-fired plant during the next three years.

A study of data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that showed the percentage of wells with pollution events has declined, thanks at least in part to the state’s regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), was not “peer-reviewed,” as it was originally described, according to an editor’s note issued since the study’s release.

With the aim of reducing truck travel and pollution, while increasing efficiency for Marcellus and Utica shale oil and natural gas producers, Eureka Resources LLC said Thursday it plans to construct a centralized wastewater treatment facility in Standing Stone Township in Bradford County, PA, the epicenter of Marcellus development.

The decline in U.S. unconventional natural gas drilling this year may create an unintended consequence: reducing the amount of flowback water that operators reuse at well sites.