Safety

Shale’s market eruption and regulatory responses to recent safety breaches have combined to put some strain on the U.S. natural gas pipeline industry’s usually staid credit ratings, according to a report released Tuesday by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (S&P).

In letters to developers of proposed well control and containment systems, the federal agency overseeing offshore safety has made it clear that it will not approve new permits for drilling in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico unless operators have access to systems that can “quickly and effectively contain” future underwater well blowouts.

In letters to developers of proposed well control and containment systems last week, the federal agency overseeing offshore safety made it clear that it will not approve new permits for drilling in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico unless operators have access to systems that can “quickly and effectively contain” future underwater well blowouts.

A U.S. subsidiary of Calgary-based Talisman Energy Inc. has been fined by Pennsylvania regulators for a large diesel fuel spill that occurred last year at a Marcellus Shale natural gas well pad.

While there is no direct impact from Monday’s National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) urgent pronouncement related to natural gas transmission pipelines, TransCanada’s new Bison Pipeline between Wyoming and North Dakota is still not in service because of some final commissioning work, some of which relates to the monitoring of pipeline pressures, a Houston-based TransCanada spokesperson told NGI Tuesday.

The debate over hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is sparking concerns about drinking water safety in the Marcellus Shale area and nationwide, according to the results of a trio of surveys released by the nonprofit Civil Society Institute (CSI).

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued another preliminary report Tuesday on the deadly San Bruno, CA, natural gas transmission pipeline rupture last September, eliminating external corrosion, excavation damage or a pre-existing leak as possible causes.

The members of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) likely knew what would happen once they issued their 83-page proposed rulemaking to conditionally allow natural gas drillers to tap into the watershed.

In a move that could be seen as retribution for state Senate Republicans’ negotiating tactics and opposition to a proposed natural gas severance tax, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell Tuesday signed an executive order placing an immediate ban on leases for oil and gas development on any land owned and managed by the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).