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The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) says it will consider short-term water sales from two lakes in eastern Ohio to oil and natural gas operators drilling in the Marcellus and Utica shales.

Raymond James & Associates Inc. energy analysts last week modestly reduced their near-term outlook for U.S. drilling activity and raised expectations for 2013, but only slightly. Drilling activity in the coming year still is “much lower than consensus expectations,” but the natural gas rig count should begin to stabilize.

Raymond James & Associates Inc. energy analysts on Monday modestly reduced their near-term outlook for U.S. drilling activity and raised expectations for 2013, but only slightly. Drilling activity in the coming year still is “much lower than consensus expectations,” but the natural gas rig count should begin to stabilize.

The Democrats’ national energy platform is heavy on clean energy, but it leaves the door open for the safe and responsible development of the nation’s “cheap, abundant natural gas” reserves.

Based on production data verifiable to date, the Marcellus Shale will become the “King of the Gas Shales” by 2015 at the latest, U.S. energy analysts with Raymond James & Associates Inc. said in a new report.

FERC Friday gave Dominion Transmission Inc. (DTI) the go-ahead to place into service its Appalachian Gateway pipeline, which will loosen a bottleneck to allow for the transportation of shale and conventional natural gas production from West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania to growing markets in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. The facilities were to begin service on Saturday (Sept. 1), said DTI spokesman Dan Donovan.

Shale gas is a doubled-edged sword for power generators in the Mid-Atlantic region, supplying them with abundant, low-cost gas while at the same time putting pressure on an already over-taxed pipeline infrastructure, generators said Thursday at the fifth and final FERC conference on gas-power coordination issues.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) within the oilfield services sector should pick up steam over the next one to two years, with most of the activity centered in North America, according to a survey by Ernst & Young.

Low prices have made dry gas from shales a producers’ problem and an end-user’s dream. But interests at both ends of the market do agree that the right gas price — the equilibrium price — would make shale gas a boon for the country.