Sector

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has launched a natural gas vehicle (NGV) website to help public- and private-sector fleet operators decide if they want to convert part or all of their operations to NGVs. The website offers information on both compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) options. Inspired by the state’s booming shale gas play, Pennsylvania’s new state law (Act 13) passed earlier this year (see Shale Daily, May 11) authorized DEP to establish the Natural Gas Energy Development Program to distribute $20 million in grants during a three-year period to help pay for the purchase and conversion costs of NGVs. The website (www.dep.state.pa.us) section on the “Natural Gas Vehicle Grant Program” offers more details on the grants as well as information on NGV conversions and fueling.

In confirming that Wall Street is embracing natural gas in the transportation fueling sector, an investment banker and major energy and automotive stakeholders agreed that for the most part natural gas vehicles (NGV) aren’t a “science project” anymore, the bulk of their research and development work has been completed, the experts said as part of a wide-ranging panel discussion Thursday at the ACT Expo 2012 conference in Long Beach, CA.

Lifted by prices and successful well tests from an extension of the emerging Mississippian Lime play, oil production in Kansas rose last year, according to new estimates by the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas. Natural gas production in 2011, however, declined by more than 6%.

Climate change impacts are lessened when power plants burn natural gas instead of coal, but the same is not necessarily true when vehicles burn natural gas instead of traditional fuels because methane leakage more than offsets the clean-burning benefits of gas, according to a methane leakage model developed by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and university researchers. However, the gas industry countered that the model relies on “outdated and incomplete” data.

Private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Riverstone Holdings LLC took another bet in the energy sector on Wednesday by launching a Gulf Coast-focused exploration and production company with up to $600 million of equity commitments.

Don’t like today’s low natural gas prices? Hang on, they will change, eventually, ConocoPhillips Gas & Power’s Jim Duncan, manager of market research, told a Houston audience Thursday.

TransCanada Corp. on Monday notified the U.S. State Department that it intends to file in the “near future” a Presidential Permit application for a cross-border permit for part of the original $7 billion, 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline project running from the U.S.-Canada border in Montana to Steele City, Nebraska. The Calgary-based pipeline company said it eventually would file a supplement to the new application with an alternative route in Nebraska.

Shortly after Idaho local government and oil/gas associations agreed on a proposed state law to cover regulation of the state’s fledgling natural gas exploration and production (E&P) sector, a conservation group raised concerns about local authorities ceding their authority to the state.

Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. on Friday applauded President Obama for his support of natural gas in the transportation sector, which he underscored this week in his State of the Union address.