Reserved

Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee Wednesday approved legislation that would expand offshore energy production to include the East and West Coasts, and would extend revenue-sharing to all coastal states.

The American Gas Association estimates that more than 500,000 housing units in the Northeast switched from oil to natural gas for their primary heating fuel between 2000 and 2010.

A coalition of five energy associations Friday urged the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) not to lower the $8 billion de minimis threshold of swap dealing activity that a market participant can engage in before it is required to register with the CFTC as a “swap dealer” and become subject to the new Dodd-Frank rules.

Increased domestic natural gas supplies and infrastructure, coupled with lower gas price volatility, has led Oneok Inc. to announce that it will discontinue its energy services segment and release its nonaffiliated, third-party gas transportation and storage contracts to interested parties.

A U.S. District Court judge in Washington, DC, on Friday dismissed Bloomberg LP’s challenge of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Dodd-Frank regulations on the multi-trillion over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market.

The United States last year curbed greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mid-1990 levels in large part to utilities burning more natural gas, but that reduction will be difficult to duplicate globally, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

A marginal increase in natural gas sales by BP plc and significant increases by Tenaska, Chevron and J.Aron & Co. were overshadowed by declines at ConocoPhillips, Shell Energy NA and Macquarie, resulting in a 5% (7.53 Bcf/d) overall decline in gas sales transactions in 1Q2013 compared with 1Q2012, according to NGI’s 1Q2013 Top North American Gas Marketers Ranking.

A marginal increase in natural gas sales by BP plc and significant increases by Tenaska Inc., Chevron Corp. and J.Aron & Co. were overshadowed by declines at ConocoPhillips, Shell Energy NA and Macquarie Energy, resulting in a 5% (7.53 Bcf/d) overall decline in gas sales transactions in 1Q2013 compared with 1Q2012, according to NGI’s 1Q2013 Top North American Gas Marketers Ranking.

ExxonMobil Corp. on Friday launched a workforce training initiative to enable the Greater Houston area’s community colleges to prepare students for high-paying jobs in the re-emerging petrochemical manufacturing industry along the Texas Gulf Coast.