State

A California Superior Court judge in Alameda County recently upheld the state’s ongoing program for underground injection control (UIC) wells, which has come under criticism the past two years.

After more than a year of conducting volumetric and price audits, the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) has recovered more than $1 million in natural gas royalty payments from land it has leased in state forests.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Secretary of State Jon Husted and the election boards from three counties did not violate the law when they rejected proposed county charters that, if successful, could have led to local bans on oil and natural gas development.

Commissioners in one of Pennsylvania’s leading shale gas producing counties have voted to spend $15,000 for a public relations campaign that would tell how landowners are being cheated out of royalty payments.

The Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association (PIOGA) has lost a lawsuit in which it alleged the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is overstepping its authority by enforcing permit requirements for oil and gas wells that it contends were invalidated in 2013.

A state representative from Southeast Pennsylvania has introduced legislation that would increase the bonding requirements for unconventional natural gas wells to ensure more resources are available to clean up any environmental problems if they occur after drillers cease operations.

Alaska’s top oil/natural gas producers told state lawmakers Thursday afternoon that the proposal on the table to pipe, liquefy and export North Slope natural gas is uneconomic and they won’t move forward as partners. However, they said they would sell their natural gas to a state-developed project if it comes to fruition, which is more in doubt than ever.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin announced this week that startup US Methanol Corp. intends to move a methanol production facility to Kanawha County in the southwestern part of the state.

An oil/natural gas industry-backed measure to make it more difficult to amend Colorado’s state constitution has qualified for the November ballot, the Colorado secretary of state’s office said.