Research

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) “recently began serving” subpoenas on producers active in natural gas shale development, according to Baird Equity Research, which cited an “attorney advertisement” issued by Houston law firm Fulbright & Jaworski as its source.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) last Friday announced allocating $29.6 million collectively to seven separate research and demonstration projects aimed at developing cleaner transportation fuels through applications of natural gas and biofuels.

Bayer AG continues to discuss the lease or sale of acreage it owns in West Virginia for potential locations for ethane crackers, but at least one company has dropped out of those talks. “An affiliate of ours had been looking at a project in that area for an ethylene facility, but they are no longer doing that,” a spokesman for Houston-based PetroLogistics told NGI’s Shale Daily. In December, Bayer said a trio of sites it owns in industrial parks in New Martinsville, Institute and South Charleston, WV, totaling about 1,480 acres were available and would be ideal locations for thermal crackers (see Shale Daily, Dec. 23, 2010). Bayer wouldn’t discuss “speculation or market rumors” about possible deals, but has been in “serious discussions with several interested companies” that are looking at the West Virginia properties, Bayer spokesman Bryan Iams told NGI’s Shale Daily.

The value of fugitive natural gas and condensate air emissions in the Barnett Shale of North Texas is about $52 million a year, according to research paid for by a clean air group, which asserts that “simple air pollution control devices” would capture this lost revenue if they were installed in the nine-county nonattainment area around Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW).

After months of conducting their own research into the booming oil and gas industry, thousands of landowners with the Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley (ALOV) have recently signed Marcellus Shale lease agreements with Chesapeake Energy Corp.

After months of conducting their own research into the booming oil and gas industry, thousands of landowners with the Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley (ALOV) have recently signed Marcellus Shale lease agreements with Chesapeake Energy Corp.

The New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) said it would deliver to Gov. Andrew Cuomo a petition calling on the state to protect drinking water from the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking). New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is due to complete work on a supplemental generic environmental impact statement on hydrofracking this summer (see Shale Daily, April 13). The NYPIRG, a student-run organization with chapters on 20 college campuses in the state, told the Associated Press its petition had been signed by more than 10,000 New Yorkers.

The U.S. power industry saw several senior executive appointments recently, including a new chairman at Palo Alto, CA-based Electric Power Research Institute, which tapped Edison International CEO Ted Craver to head its board. In the public power sector, the Nebraska Public Power District named Pat Pope CEO. In the Pacific Northwest, Portland General Electric named Bill Nicholson senior vice president for customer service, transmission and distribution. Nicholson replaces Steve Hawke, who is retiring in July after 38 years with the utility.

The Maryland Senate ended its 2011 legislative session without voting on a bill that would have frozen the permitting of Marcellus Shale drilling until 2013 while state agencies reviewed the results of various studies into Marcellus development and hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking).