Signing

Energy companies based in Japan and India further increased their interests in the United States with the signing of tolling agreements for natural gas liquefaction services at Dominion’s proposed Cove Point liquefaction facility in Lusby, MD.

Citizens for Property Rights (CPR), a five-member group that opposes what members believe are too-strict restrictions on gas drilling imposed by the city of Southlake, TX, failed to get enough signatures on a petition to relax some of the rules. However, CRP Chairman Stephen Oren said the group will try again.

Representatives from a unit of BP plc began signing agreements with landowners in Trumbull County, OH, as the company readies to begin exploring its Utica/Point Pleasant Shale leasehold in 2013. In March BP completed an agreement with the Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley to lease close to 84,000 acres in an unexplored area of the county, which is in the northeastern part of the state (see Shale Daily, March 28). With the agreements now in place, BP is executing individual terms with landowners, which may take up to six months. BP’s Ohio shale purchase moved it into ninth place among Utica/Point Pleasant leaseholders, according to data compiled from company reports by NGI’s Shale Daily. The top leaseholder is Chesapeake Energy Corp., which has an estimated 1.2 million net acres, followed by EnerVest and EV Energy Partners, which together lease an estimated 760,000 net acres. Chevron Corp. follows with 600,000 net acres.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed a landmark Marcellus Shale regulatory reform bill — also known as the Natural Gas Horizontal Wells Control Act — into law on Thursday.

Tulsa-based Williams Partner LP is negotiating to buy Delphi Midstream Partners LLC, which among other things would give the natural gas operator ownership of the Laser Gathering System and other facilities that serve the Marcellus Shale.

In what’s become a larger-than-life drama, natural gas is the energy growth engine for the next 20 years, and hydraulic fracturing in North America is the driver, according to ExxonMobil’s Paul Greenwood, vice president for Americas gas marketing, in keynote remarks at a gas industry meeting in Los Angeles Tuesday.

It’s all about not standing in the way of cheap energy, economic growth, jobs and energy security, according to more than 100 groups representing U.S. industry, from North Dakota grain growers to Dow Chemical to the Ohio Bowling Association, that petitioned Tuesday to keep the federal government from erecting barriers to hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead has been busy in the past few weeks signing a long list of bills into law, including a half-dozen energy measures dealing with a state energy improvement program, microbes use in natural gas drilling, natural gas vehicles (NGV), wind project property owners’ rights, and even a nuclear energy production study.

Houston-based Swift Energy Co.’s 2011 capital budget includes an accelerated drilling program to increase production and reserves, primarily targeting its liquids-rich acreage in the Eagle Ford Shale and the Olmos Sands in South Texas, the company said.