Resource

Idaho Power Co. has filed an integrated resource plan (IRP) with Idaho and Oregon regulators calling for a near-doubling of its natural gas-fired generation with the completion next year of a third plant. The utility’s 300 MW combined-cycle gas-fired Langley Gulch generation plant is set to open in June 2012. The plant was identified as needed in Idaho Power’s 2009 IRP. Two existing gas-fired plants provide 345 MW of nameplate capacity collectively. Part of the new plant’s development includes construction of a connecting gas transmission pipeline and a 230-kV electric transmission line and substation. Idaho Power said in addition to boosting its power supply portfolio, Langley Gulch is expected to help the utility integrate ever-larger amounts of wind-powered generation into its system. The gas-fired generation is expected to be increased and decreased quickly in response to the intermittent wind supplies.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said he was concerned about the Morgantown City Council’s decision Tuesday night to pass an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within the city and an adjacent one-mile buffer zone, and requested the city to “confine its governance to its city limits.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett on Monday signed into law amendments to the state’s 1984 Coal and Gas Resource Coordination Act, which will require natural gas drillers to coordinate their activities with active coal mine operations.

Unconventional plays in North America will be ConocoPhillips’ priority going forward, with the focus on fields rich in liquids and oil, CFO Jeff Sheets said Wednesday.

Last year “large overseas companies” invested more than $15 billion in U.S. shale plays, and they weren’t putting down the money to “expect juicy margins at $4/Mcf gas,” analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc. said Monday.

Demand for oilfield services from North America’s unconventional resource drillers continues unabated and Halliburton Co. could complete contracts “in any terms we wanted to dictate at this point in time,” CEO Dave Lesar said Monday.

After rebranding itself last year and finishing a transformation into “a significant resource play company,” SM Energy Co. plans to step up development in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas and the Bakken-Three Forks formation while it hopes to sell down Eagle Ford assets, secure a joint venture (JV) partner in the Haynesville Shale and exit the Marcellus Shale.

After rebranding itself last year and finishing a transformation into “a significant resource play company,” SM Energy Co. plans to step up development in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas and the Bakken-Three Forks formation while it hopes to sell down Eagle Ford assets, secure a joint venture (JV) partner in the Haynesville Shale and exit the Marcellus Shale.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and a unit of Korea National Oil Corp. (KNOC) have struck a joint venture (JV) agreement that gives KNOC one-third of Anadarko’s interest in its southwest Texas Maverick Basin assets in the Eagle Ford Shale for about $1.55 billion.