Taking

Rediscovered as an oil/gas industry practice that hasn’t been high on California’s radar, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is taking on a higher profile among state and local elected officials as the state’s legislature considers a new law (AB 591) that would require operators to disclose chemicals they use in the fracking process.

The head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Wednesday toured the site of last September’s gas transmission pipeline explosion in San Bruno, CA, taking time to criticize Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) and offering additional recommendations for improving communications between pipeline operators and communities.

In the wake of a well blowout last month in the Marcellus Shale, a Pennsylvania Senate committee has approved a bill (SB 995) that would require companies to provide to state and local authorities detailed emergency contact information for all of their wells in the state.

El Paso Corp. last week said it is taking its rebuilt exploration and production (E&P) business for a spin as a publicly traded company by the end of the year.

While the story of shale gas to date is one of crafty independents like Devon Energy Corp., Southwestern Energy Co. and Range Resources Corp. taking exploration risks in the Barnett, Fayetteville and Marcellus shales, those plays will increasingly belong to big players like Chevron Corp. and ExxonMobil Corp., Lynn Bass, a principal at GasRock Capital LLC, said during Steel Business Briefing’s Shale Plays Tubular Conference.

Power generation developers may be taking new looks at added natural gas- and coal-fired plants as an outgrowth of the reaction to the continuing disaster unfolding at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear generating plant, according to the CEO of NRG Energy Inc.

Royal Dutch Shell plc is taking a bigger bet on future growth of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by agreeing to become a natural gas supplier and equity partner in Chevron Corp.’s Wheatstone, one of two mega projects now under way in Australia.

Encana Corp. is taking a 30% stake in the planned Kitimat liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal on the west coast of central British Columbia (BC) and its associated gas pipeline, the Calgary-based company said last Friday. Encana is joining units of Apache Corp. and EOG Resources Inc. in the project, which will target Asian markets with western Canadian gas supplies.

A trade group representing oil and natural gas producers is taking steps to create a Center for Offshore Safety, which mirrors the industry-managed offshore safety institute proposed by the presidential commission on the BP plc oil spill earlier this year (see NGI, Jan. 17). At the same time, the Interior Department has picked members of an ocean energy advisory panel who have been tasked with providing advice on how best to establish a safety institute within the department. The industry and Interior safety efforts are separate, but related.