Serious

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) last Wednesday released an assessment in which it raised serious concerns about the ability of an increasingly natural gas-dependent bulk power system to maintain reliability when the capacity to deliver gas supplies to generators is constrained.

The Obama administration’s final decision on the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline is yet to be revealed, but a significant majority of Americans favor its construction, according to the results of a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center.

A Michigan landowner has filed a lawsuit alleging that Chesapeake Energy Corp., Encana Corp. and a state-based operator conspired to rig a state oil and gas leasehold auction in 2010.

More than two years into the aftermath of the San Bruno natural gas transmission pipeline rupture and explosion, PG&E Corp. senior executives said Thursday the company is still feeling the aftershocks on its bottom line. They reported a loss for 4Q2012 due to gas pipeline-related issues.

Helping lead the charge for an eventual bipartisan and serious discussion about the future U.S. energy policy, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said Friday the federal government “doesn’t have a corner on the market” for regulating the oil and natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

A study of data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that showed the percentage of wells with pollution events has declined, thanks at least in part to the state’s regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), was not “peer-reviewed,” as it was originally described, according to an editor’s note issued since the study’s release.

Offering new guidelines on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) said Wednesday its 2012 oil/gas rule changes were approved as of Wednesday and become effective April 1. The revised rules cleared the state’s Administrative Rules Committee Wednesday morning, according to a DMR spokesperson.

Windsor Energy Corp. has found itself on shaky ground in New Brunswick after it allowed a contractor to conduct seismic testing in a town without its consent, violating the province’s Oil and Natural Gas Act.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) wants to ease up on the way related sources of air emissions from industrial operations, including Marcellus Shale developments, are grouped together for regulatory purposes.