Siting

A regional approach to siting drilling infrastructure in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale is needed to help minimize development in core forest and productive agricultural lands and to decrease potential risk to waterways, according to researchers at Pennsylvania State University. A study conducted by the university’s College of Agricultural Sciences found that shale gas development is causing rapid landscape change. “The development of new roads to support drilling could affect forest ecosystem integrity via increased fragmentation,” said Patrick Drohan, assistant professor of pedology. Drohan estimated that slightly more than half of the well pads in Pennsylvania are on agricultural land and most of the rest are on forestland. The study found that drilling is competing with food production for space on the landscape.

With eight stations under construction and siting identification work begun for 60 more, a national $150 million effort supported by Chesapeake Energy Corp. is on track to have a corridor of 150 natural gas fueling stations in place in the next few years, according to Andrew Littlefair, CEO of Clean Energy Fuels Corp., speaking on a second quarter earnings conference call that reported increased revenues, but a loss in quarter-over-quarter results.

New Jersey officials have told the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) that the state might withhold its dues to the organization if it doesn’t enact rules governing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within the Delaware River Basin by its next meeting in September.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) siting committee provisionally recommended approval of plans by a unit of NRG Energy Inc.to build a 558 MW combined-cycle gas-fired power plant on 23 acres of NRG’s existing 100-acre Encina generation plant site in Carlsbad, CA. The committee is seeking input on determining if the current repowering plans provide “extraordinary public benefit” under the criteria established by the South Carlsbad Coastal Redevelopment Project Area Plan. That enhanced benefit might come from NRG’s plans for removal of the existing 900 MW gas-fired plant. If licensed by the CEC, construction of the plant is expected to take about 25 months. NRG has said construction could begin by the end of the third quarter. Existing gas-fired Units 1, 2 and 3 at the larger site would be retired.

A “world-class” ethane cracker and ethylene derivatives facility, fed by shale gas reserves, is being evaluated by Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. LP for siting in the Gulf Coast region.

After siting several independent underground natural gas storage facilities during the past decade, California’s thirst for storage still has not been quenched, particularly in the northern half of the state. Thus, it is not surprising that a veteran associated with the earlier projects has a new one, but the proposed urban location is a bit eye-popping — in the middle of the state capital’s burgeoning population.

After siting several independent underground natural gas storage facilities during the past decade, California’s thirst for storage still has not been quenched, particularly in the northern half of the state. Thus, it is not surprising that a veteran associated with the earlier projects has a new one, but the proposed urban location is a bit eye-popping — in the middle of the state capital’s burgeoning population.

A proposal that surfaced Monday in the lower house of the Oregon Legislature bids to tighten the state’s authority in the siting process for liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. At least one LNG project proponent has labeled the proposal as unworkable and unnecessary, along with denying the state future economic benefits that could come with LNG imports.

Sempra Energy and the Mexican government have accomplished what California has been unable to do in siting Sempra’s Energia Costa Azul liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal along the Pacific Coast of North Baja California, Mexico, Timothy Alan Simon told his fellow commissioners at the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) Thursday.