Technological

General Electric (GE) on Wednesday unveiled plans for a $110 million Global Research Center in Oklahoma dedicated to driving innovation and technological advancements in the oil and gas sector, which in turn would allow products to be brought to market faster.

As a formal set of proposed rules on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) moves through preliminary public review in California, Gov. Jerry Brown last Wednesday expressed confidence that his state’s oil and gas regulators would apply “science and common sense” to frack regulations.

Portions of the Susquehanna River Valley aquifer in an area of New York that overlies the Marcellus and Utica shales are among the most favorable for potential large-scale groundwater supply, according to a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study.

As the state of New York missed Wednesday’s deadline to create regulations for high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF), supporters and opponents of the practice took aim at Gov. Andrew Cuomo, anti-fracking lawmakers sought a one-year moratorium, and a landowners group said it would sue the state over the delay.

The largest supercomputing complex for commercial research in the world, designed to provide a technological cutting edge in the global hunt for oil and natural gas, is under construction in Houston and will open by the middle of next year, officials with BP plc said Thursday.

Two municipalities in upstate New York have decided to remain neutral on the issue of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) and will wait until the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issues its report on the practice.

While the potential is widely recognized, a shale boom in Mexico akin to the rest of North America is unlikely any time soon, an analyst with the Houston office of Wood Mackenzie told NGI.

Legislators and regulators in New York are hinting that should high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) be permitted in the Empire State, localities that are the most receptive to the practice may be the first — and, possibly, the only — areas to allow it.

New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joseph Martens said there currently is no timeline for a decision on whether hydraulic fracturing (fracking) will be permitted in the Empire State’s portions of the Marcellus and Utica shales, but he predicted a long summer of work ahead.