reliability

An additional $250 million could become available for Texas highways impacted by energy sector traffic in counties that are seeing heavy energy development, such as Atascosa, Duval, Guadalupe, Karnes, La Salle, Live Oak, McMullen, Wilson and Webb. At a recent hearing of the Texas Senate Select Committee on Transportation Funding, State Sen. Tommy Williams (R-The Woodlands) directed the Texas Department of Transportation to request the funding for 70 projects that had not been funded in a recent appropriations bill. On Oct. 9, the agency made the request to the Legislative Budget Board, which must approve it. The $250 million is in addition to $225 million for 39 energy sector-impacted state highway projects that the Texas Legislature approved during the 83rd legislative session (see Shale Daily, May 30).

Physical natural gas for Tuesday delivery advanced overall on average 13 cents in Monday’s trading. Midwest locations were especially strong as pipelines reported constraints and eastern points jumped with weather forecasts calling for below normal temperatures by midweek.

Ten lawsuits seeking class action status have been filed by mineral rights owners against North Dakota oil/natural gas operators alleging the loss of millions of dollars in royalties due to large amounts of flared associated gas during the past six years.

North America proved a winner for Schlumberger Ltd. in the third quarter, with revenue rising 7% sequentially, an all-time high, and margins expanding 57 basis points (bps), or 0.57%, to reach 20.3% on a year/year basis. New shale technology tested in several basins helped to lower drilling costs, and it’s now being given a look in other areas.

The average U.S. rig count in the final three months of this year should decline by about 2.5% from 2Q2013, a typical seasonal slowdown around the holidays, and above the pronounced drop in the same period of 2012, when the rig and well count fell by more than 5%, Baker Hughes Inc.’s CFO said Friday.

An anti-shale drilling protest in New Brunswick turned violent Thursday after authorities moved in to enforce an injunction to end an ongoing demonstration.

With natural gas-fired and renewable generation assets as an attraction, Princeton, NJ-based NRG Energy Inc. said Friday it has entered a $2.5 billion “planned sponsor agreement” with Edison Mission Energy (EME) and some of its subsidiaries to eventually acquire the Chapter 11-mired independent power generation company. NRG said it hopes to close the acquisition in the first quarter next year.

FERC Friday approved Texas Eastern Transmission’s (Tetco) and Algonquin Gas Transmission’s request to place into service an expansion of their systems that would deliver 800,000 Dth/d of Marcellus Shale gas to markets in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

In the midst of many unsettled regulatory permitting issues from the local to federal levels, the two proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects in Oregon are stepping up the pace of their marketing efforts for both customers and gas suppliers to their envisioned tolling facilities.