Spent

New taxes on companies drilling for natural gas and oil in Ohio have the support of a majority of the state’s voters — especially if the resulting revenue would be spent to cut income taxes for residents — according to the results of a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

New taxes on companies drilling for natural gas and oil in Ohio have the support of a majority of the state’s voters — especially if the resulting revenue would be spent to cut income taxes for residents — according to the results of a recent Quinnipiac University poll.

The energy analysts at Raymond James & Associates Inc. spent last week at the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston and concluded two things: offshore activity in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) continues to improve but in the domestic onshore, liquids-weighted drilling should decline next year.

A two-phase approach to the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries should result in a new line from Oklahoma to the Gulf being in place sometime next year, with the XL phase from Canada to Nebraska following by early 2015, the CEO of the project’s sponsor, TransCanada Corp., said Friday. The latter is the only part of the project now requiring a federal Presidential Permit from the U.S. State Department.

While 10% of its 2012 capital program will be spent to maintain dry natural gas activities — in anticipation of better days — EOG Resources Inc.’s focus is on oil and liquids, as it has been for about the last four years, CEO Mark G. Papa told financial analysts Friday during an earnings conference call when he waxed ecstatic about the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas.

Although they deferred action until next month, California regulators Thursday spent considerable time discussing the deployment of advanced natural gas utility metering systems and the fate of a gas-fired generation plant in Northern California that the state’s grid operator claims is essential to reliability. Advocates for the smart gas meters contend that they are essential for upgrades to pipeline system safety.

Gastar Exploration Ltd. will devote $100.5 million of its $134.2 million 2012 capital budget to drilling and completion costs, with 89% of that amount ($88.9 million) to be spent on activities in the liquids-rich window of the Marcellus Shale, the company said Tuesday.

New York’s top environmental regulator on Thursday spent nearly three hours defending his agency’s proposed rules to allow expanded natural gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) before a panel of skeptical state legislators and a raucous audience.

Rex Energy Corp. is joining the ranks of companies pursuing the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio. The State College, PA-based company recently acquired 11,000 net acres in Carroll County, OH, for an estimated $40 million and plans to continue acquiring acreage in preparation for a drilling program in 2012.