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The “reality and potential” of expanding natural gas and liquids from shale continues to have a dramatic impact on the regional and global balances for both economies, PIRA Energy Group said Monday in a new report.

Spectra Energy has been busy building out infrastructure in the Northeast, where capacity is needed to get Marcellus and Utica gas to market. However, the Southeast and Gulf Coast regions are ripe for billions of dollars of investment as well, said Spectra’s Bill Yardley, president of the U.S. transmission and storage business.

Based on the most recent state data for this year, New Mexico is on track to bust the 80 million bbl oil production level for the first time since the late 1970s, and natural gas is expected to stay level at about 1.2 Tcf, according New Mexico Oil and Gas Association (NMOGA) officials.

Lacking anything like the Bakken to its north and not seeing a major new play on the horizon, South Dakota oil and natural gas authorities nevertheless have begun the process for upgrading the state’s exploration and production (E&P) regulations, including adding provisions addressing hydraulic fracturing.

Canada’s natural gas industry will see a difficult market over the next several years, marked by lower prices, falling production and a decline in exports to the United States, but unconventionals will turn around the economy once new export terminals are completed in British Columbia (BC), the Conference Board of Canada said Monday.

Although many of its nations have so far spurned their own shale development, European chemical and energy service companies are benefiting from the U.S. shale gas development and the resulting low natural gas prices on this side of the Pond, according to an American Chemistry Council (ACC) economist.

Mining giant Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. last week put a $9 billion cash-and-stock transaction — $20 billion total including debt — on the table to buy U.S. producers Plains Exploration & Production Co. (PXP) and McMoRan Exploration Co., a deal that is expected to vault Freeport into the upper ranks of domestic producers but initially with faltering shareholder support.

In an effort to avoid having to restart the process from square one, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will file for a 90-day extension on Thursday to finalize rules governing high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

Colorado stakeholders in an ongoing voluntary water testing program related to oil and natural gas extraction activity support a statewide mandatory program, they said earlier this month, two days after the state government held its first public hearing on a proposed baseline groundwater monitoring program.