Surging

Bluegrass Pipeline, which if sanctioned would carry surging mixed natural gas liquids (NGL) from the Marcellus and Utica shales to Northeast markets and Gulf Coast petrochemical complexes, faces some hurdles before it would be sanctioned, the project partners said Tuesday.

Surging winter cold and constrained pipeline throughput throughout the Northeast teamed up this week to send northeastern natural gas cash prices into the stratosphere, and if projections from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) hold up, there may be no relief until the middle of next week.

Cash prices on average skidded about another dime overall on Friday as surging prices at a couple of points in the Northeast couldn’t balance an overall weak tenor to an oversupplied market. Midwest points slipped less than a dime, but Gulf and eastern points suffered double digit losses. At the close of trading January futures had made it five straight losses in a row for the week and settled at $3.314, down 3.3 cents and February lost 3.1 cents to $3.358. January crude oil added 84 cents to $86.73.

Surging shale oil reserves in the United States led BP plc to apparently secure permission, and Royal Dutch Shell plc to apply, for export licenses to ship U.S. crude oil supplies to Canada and possibly elsewhere.

Aggregate U.S. pressure pumping supply exceeded demand late last year and in the first three months of 2012 capacity utilization averaged 93.4%, a big turnaround in a market that had been undersupplied for two years, according to a new analysis. The shift is challenging oilfield service operators, which already were noting the squeeze in quarterly conference calls.

With its drilling rig count creeping up above 200, North Dakota ended 2011 on the high side of all-time production totals for oil and natural gas in December, according to the state’s Department of Mineral Resources. More than 95% of the production was from the Bakken and Three Forks formations.

Wages are up and confidence in future hiring is surging despite lingering concern for the global economy, an annual survey of employees in the oil and natural gas industry has found.

Eastern markets used to look like the Promised Land to Rockies producers. But surging production growth from the Marcellus Shale amounts to a “keep out” sign planted along the side of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP’s (KMP) Rockies Express Pipeline (REX).

With U.S. natural gas supplies surging, a Des Moines, IA, automobile entrepreneur says he is only a few months away from importing and converting a Chinese-made passenger car, the Noble, to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.