Requirement

Officials in the Canadian province of New Brunswick unveiled new rules for oil and natural gas development in the prospective Frederick Brook Shale on Friday, including a requirement that operators disclose all of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead is considering a pre-drilling water testing requirement for oil and natural gas operators in the state.

Preliminary draft rules for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) were unveiled Tuesday by California’s state oil and natural gas drilling regulators who indicated the development process will take at least all of next year.

A pair of attorneys with extensive knowledge of New York’s regulatory, business and geological climates said the rules proposed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) governing high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) won’t hamper development of the state’s shale plays, and they believe permits will be issued soon.

Incremental Northeast gas production during September will be driven by gathering system tie-ins, Bentek Energy LLC said in a Natural Gas Production Monitor market note. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. (Transco) is expected to add connections to two Penn Virginia Resource Partners LP gathering systems and additional compression on Williams’ Springville system is to come online this month, Bentek said. “Combined delivery capacity to Transco from the new tie-ins and compression upgrades will amount to more than 1 Bcf/d; however, Transco will likely not be able to accept more than 0.4 Bcf/d with a substantial portion of the Leidy Line capacity reserved for no-notice service,” the firm said. It expects Northeast production to add 0.2 Bcf/d during September, with the remainder of the Transco capacity filling through October. In November, the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Northeast Supply Diversification and the National FuelGas Co. Northern Access expansions are expected to support a winter production growth rate of about 0.2 Bcf/d each month through January (see Shale Daily, July 18), Bentek said.

Canadian energy merchants will break out of North America and into overseas markets within six years, predicts the nation’s biggest pipeline empire. Exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) will begin from new tanker terminals on the Pacific Coast of British Columbia (BC) at Kitimat in late 2017, TransCanada Corp. has told the National Energy Board (NEB).

As producers turned up the volume on their opposition to the federal government’s regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on public lands, they caught a break in the long-awaited proposed rule that Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued Friday.

A judge in New York State has ruled that an ordinance and a zoning requirement enacted last year by the town of Dryden, NY, essentially banning all Marcellus Shale oil and gas activities in the municipality, are not preempted by state law and can remain in effect.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally announced Friday that it has reinstated a requirement that oil and gas companies — and other industries — disclose the amount of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) their operations release into the environment.