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Controversial former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz left his job at the end of April, but his fingerprints are on an agency rule calling for stricter ozone standards that would affect Barnett Shale natural gas interests in Wise County, TX, energy companies and industry groups said.

The village council of Carrollton, OH, has voted in favor of a nondevelopmental oil and natural gas lease agreement with Rex Energy Corp. that was valued at $938,000 on Monday.

Devon Energy recently completed its fourth horizontal well in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) and the initial production test figures show the strongest oil production results of the company’s TMS wells drilled to date” at 384 b/d, according to the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Natural gas industry representatives were granted early access to New York’s preliminary unconventional drilling regulations up to six weeks before the rules were made public, the public health advocate Environmental Working Group (EWG) claimed on Thursday, citing documents obtained under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

United States natural gas production is expected to increase every year through 2035 thanks to increased shale development, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) complete version of the Annual Energy Outlook 2012 (AEO2012). Just as the preliminary report released in January found (see Shale Daily, Jan. 24), the EIA also believes the United States will transition from being a net importer to a net exporter of natural gas in approximately nine years.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the requests of ANR Pipeline, Trunkline Gas Co. and Southern Natural Gas Co. LLC [CP11-543, CP12-5, CP12-4, respectively] to abandon by sale all or virtually all of their pipeline facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. FERC gave ANR the green light to abandon by sale to subsidiary TC Offshore LLC about 600 miles of pipeline and associated facilities onshore; Southern Natural Gas to abandon to High Point Gas Transmission LLC 604 miles of pipe facilities offshore and onshore; and Trunkline to abandon to affiliate Sea Robin Pipeline Co. LLC about 533 miles of pipeline and most of its offshore interests. Several producers, including Apache Corp., LLOG Exploration Co. LLC, Indicated Shippers, W&T Offshore, McMoRan Exploration Co. and the Producer Coalition protested ANR’s abandonment proposal, calling it an inappropriate attempt to charge higher rates without having to file a Section 4 rate case under the Natural Gas Act.

The administration’s multi-agency approach to hydraulic fracturing (fracking) studies and the appearance of mission-creep is causing confusion within the oil and natural gas industry, according to some critics on Capitol Hill.

BP plc on Thursday accused the U.S. government of withholding evidence that could show that the Macondo well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) two years ago was smaller than federal officials claim.

It is a matter of when, not if, additional testing will be done in Pavillion, WY, where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has two test wells that turned up suspected chemicals tied to the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of natural gas wells in the area. Gov. Matt Mead’s spokesperson has confirmed that additional tests are coming, but they are still not scheduled.