Safety

New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG) Tuesday received approval from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) to implement its Safety Acceleration and Facility Enhancement (SAFE) program, which will replace 276 miles, or about 50%, of the cast iron and unprotected steel mains and associated services in its delivery system over the next four years.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has launched an enhanced natural gas safety technology available to the industry that it said would validate the maximum allowable operating pressure (MAOP) for safe gas operations. The MAOP Validation Calculator is the result of a four-year license agreement between PG&E and Coler & Colantonio Inc., a privately owned firm that specializes in, among other things, pipeline software and services. The technology is incorporated into a geospacial information system, or GIS, and the software performs calculations to validate the MAOP for each pipeline component. The calculator output allows for standardized report generation and the engineering analysis of MAOP validation issues.

Just one day after it began, Royal Dutch Shell plc on Monday halted drilling in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea for safety reasons as sea ice began moving toward a drillship.

In what it said would be its final update of evacuation and shut-in production statistics related to Hurricane Isaac, the Bureau of Safety Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said Tuesday that two production platforms and a single rig remained evacuated in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CDT Tuesday, BSEE estimated 4.73% (213 MMcf/d) of natural gas production and 4.16% (57,439 b/d) of oil output in the GOM was shut in. All of those statistics peaked in the immediate aftermath of Isaac, when BSEE reported 509 production platforms and 50 rigs evacuated, and an estimated 75.52% (3.264 Bcf/d) of gas production and 94.99% (1.311 million b/d) of oil production was shut in (see Daily GPI, Aug. 31).

Independent oil and natural gas producers Monday called on the Obama administration to meet with them face-to-face to discuss their concerns with the federal government’s proposed rule on hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CDT Monday, the Bureau of Safety Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) estimated that about 6.11% (274.85 MMcf/d) of current natural gas production, and 7.98% (110,144 b/d) of oil output in the GOM was shut in.

As Canadian producers line up to export liquefied natural gas (LNG), an effort has formed to answer safety questions about hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which is built into industry plans to make British Columbia (BC) shale deposits the prime supply source for LNG exports.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) issued its first two nonbinding advisory opinions on local drilling ordinances, part of its new responsibilities to ensure that localities are in compliance with Act 13, the state’s new omnibus Marcellus Shale law.

As Canadian producers line up to export liquefied natural gas (LNG), an effort has formed to answer safety questions about hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which is built into industry plans to make British Columbia (BC) shale deposits the prime supply source for LNG exports.