Stages

Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP is in the early planning stages for its Northeast-to-Gulf Coast natural gas liquids pipeline with Williams, but the partnership has been talking with prospective customers “at both ends of the pipe.”

Boardwalk Pipeline Partners LP is in the early planning stages for its Northeast-to-Gulf Coast natural gas liquids pipeline with Williams, but the partnership has been talking with prospective customers “at both ends of the pipe.”

Despite disappointing earnings at Consol Energy Inc. during the first quarter, the company reported 10.7 Bcfe of production in the Marcellus Shale, a 60% increase that signaled that the play is becoming increasingly important for the coal and natural gas producer.

Houston-based Halcon Resources Corp., which became a public company about a year ago, has been building acreage positions in several unconventional oil and gas plays and last year grew proved reserves to 108.8 million boe, an increase of 417% from the end of 2011.

Patterson-UTI Energy Inc. did something in the final three months of 2012 that no other onshore oilfield services provider has announced yet: hydraulic fracturing (fracking) services climbed and sales surpassed expectations — surprising even company executives.

As part of a continuing effort to stretch Bakken and western Canadian oil supplies into new markets, Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. on Thursday outlined a $6.2 billion, four-year effort to expand several of its pipelines to access light oil markets in the eastern United States and Canada.

With production out of the nation’s shale plays holding down natural gas prices and electricity generation becoming ever more dependent on inexpensive gas, coordination between the two markets will continue to be a top priority and a series of other issues need to be resolved, according to panelists at the Energy Bar Association (EBA) Mid-Year conference in Washington, DC, Friday.

Researchers at Duke University have added their voices to the debate on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), saying in a report released Monday that the practice probably is not the cause of brine migration in the Marcellus Shale, but it could increase the potential for contaminating drinking supplies in the future.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is seeking stakeholder comments on eight planned lease sales scheduled in the Central and Western Gulf of Mexico (GOM) over the next five years, excluding Lease Sale 229 in the Western GOM and Lease Sale 227 in the Central GOM because information for those sales has been completed. In late June Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued the final version of the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017, which includes 10 potential lease sales (see NGI, July 2) and BOEM now is asking stakeholders for information about potential leasing and development of these areas, including geological, environmental and biological conditions; archaeological resources, socioeconomic factors and potential concerns about conflicts with other uses. BOEM also is initiating the next stage of environmental and socioeconomic analysis for Western GOM Lease Sale 233 and Central GOM Lease Sale 231, proposed for 2013 and 2014, respectively, by publishing a notice of intent to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement to build on the final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for the Western and Central GOM lease sales. The FEIS provides baseline analysis in support of 10 lease sales scheduled in the Central and Western GOM, and it evaluates baseline conditions and potential environmental effects of leasing, exploration and development in those two offshore regions.