Send

El Paso Corp. and Spectra Energy Corp. said their Marcellus Ethane Pipeline System (MEPS) (see Shale Daily, Oct. 26, 2010) is holding a 30-day binding open season for shippers that desire ethane transportation service from West Virginia and Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale supply areas to destination interconnect points with third-party ethane pipelines or storage facilities in the Gulf Coast area. The MEPS project is being designed to transport up to 90,000 b/d and has an anticipated in-service date of 4Q 2014. The open season will close at 5 p.m. EDT on July 27. For more information visit www.elpaso.com/midstream.

The debate over generating revenue from the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania took a linguistic turn this week when a national tax opponent said that an impact fee working through the General Assembly is actually a tax.

Pennsylvania’s shale plays “are an incredible opportunity” for the job-starved state, according to incoming Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, who declared that he and Gov. Tom Corbett “will send a message that Pennsylvania is open for business.”

New York’s ban on permitting for drilling operations involving hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has prompted Norway’s Norse Energy Corp. ASA to send notices of force majeure to landowners covering its leased acres, thereby extending its leases and awaiting shale developments under the incoming state administration.

A cold start to the winter season could snap natural gas storage inventories lower and send prices higher, but it will take a lot more to bring the overflowing storage situation back to a neutral level, Barclays Capital analysts said late Tuesday.

While the economy continues to send shivers through various clean fuel sectors, California’s budding electric and natural gas transportation space remains healthy and optimistic, according to major utilities in the state. Several officials told NGI in January that both the infrastructure and the vehicles (dedicated and converted) are taking shape in the nation’s most automobile-dense state.

One of the first official acts of the Obama White House Tuesday was to send an order to all federal agencies and departments freezing pending regulations until they can be reviewed by new administration staff. The list of review no doubt will be topped by the recently published draft proposal for future lease sales in federal waters.

While the economy continues to send shivers through various clean fuel sectors, California’s budding electric and natural gas transportation space remains healthy and optimistic, according to major utilities in the state. They told NGI that both the infrastructure and the vehicles (dedicated and converted) are taking shape in the nation’s most automobile-dense state.

Wall Street’s credit influenza will send shivers through the energy patch before long, and the FERC is prepared, Commission Chairman Joseph Kelliher said Thursday. Meanwhile, financial markets continued triage, with players aligning to deliver life-giving capital transfusions to the stricken.