Regulatory

This week’s Supreme Court ruling in the case of West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be interpreted as a warning to federal agencies not to overstep their explicit statutory authority in crafting regulations, according to legal and energy experts. At the heart of the case was whether EPA had legal authority under section…

PDC Energy Inc. has gained approval by Colorado regulators for a 30-well oil and natural gas development program in Weld County. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) approved the Broe Oil and Gas Development Plan (OGDP), PDC said Wednesday. The Denver-based producer acquired the Broe OGDP in Weld County during May, when it…

“We firmly believe that Mexico can take much better advantage of its national natural gas basins to compensate for the imports and at the same time attend to the increased demand for natural gas,” Juan Manuel Delgado, President of Mexico’s Hydrocarbon Companies Association, AMEXHI, told NGI’s Mexico GPI.  “Mexico has to make a change to…

Prices of North American natural gas continued to soften this week with U.S. storage levels set to build healthily for the upcoming winter. After recently barreling toward $10/MMBtu, the 2 Bcf/d available to the North American market following the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal shutdown in Texas, is loosening supply and bringing down prices.…

The spring of 2017 promised a change in the natural gas industry in Mexico. An open season to allocate capacity on the Sistrangas national pipeline system, together with an auction of capacity in the main gas entry pipeline into the country, paved the way for private traders to offer supply proposals to Mexican consumers. At the time, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) was barely able to meet half of national demand through its production. Energy regulator Comisión Reguladora de Energía (CRE) and Energy Ministry Sener knew that depending on Pemex as the only intermediary capable of importing gas was not the best practice to benefit users.

FERC on Thursday issued a proposed rule that aims to speed up the process for linking new electric generation to the power grid. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s unanimous vote advances a notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) that could ease interconnection queue backlogs. Commission staff said the rule would add certainty to the process and…

Global natural gas prices embarked on a juddery ride this week on news that the Freeport liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Texas would be shut for months. Initially, New York Mercantile Exchange July prices tumbled $1.40 toward $7/MMBtu as 2 Bcf/d would now be available to the market. However, prices have since rallied…

Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico natural gas market reform, is offering the following column by Eduardo Prud’homme as part of a regular series on understanding this process. With the constitutional reform proposal for the energy sector shot down, President López Obrador will find it hard to reverse the structural…

An environmental watchdog group in a letter to President Biden is arguing that a joint task force formed by the White House and European Commission (EC) to help Europe secure more liquefied natural gas (LNG) and displace Russian imports is operating secretly and violating federal law.  UK-based Global Witness said the task force’s three meetings…