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Environmental questions and high costs for water have created a big headache for unconventional oil and gas producers, but it won’t take long before those problems are turned into opportunities for other businesses, according to industry executives.

Total gross withdrawals of domestic natural gas jumped to 28.58 Tcf in 2011, a 6.5% increase from 26.84 Tcf in 2010, and are on pace to easily surpass those numbers again this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Monthly Energy Review for September.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) said Monday that natural gas producers have paid most of about $206 million owed under the drilling impact fee enacted under Act 13, surging past the $180 million the state thought it would take in this year from its new omnibus Marcellus Shale law.

Canada’s natural gas producers on Thursday threw their support behind an indepth study by the British Columbia (BC) Oil and Gas Commission (OGC) on “observed induced seismic activity” in the Horn River Basin, which concluded that operators should conduct more monitoring and data collection to ensure continued community safety.

Elected officials in the Town of Chenango, NY, voted unanimously on Wednesday to schedule a public hearing over whether to enact a one-year moratorium on oil and natural gas activities, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Lenape Resources Inc., an oil and natural gas producer based in New York, is threatening to sue the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) if the agency doesn’t advise three towns in Livingston County that they don’t have the authority to enact local drilling bans.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said Friday the state has appealed to the state Supreme Court a ruling by the Commonwealth Court that struck down portions of Act 13, the state’s new omnibus Marcellus Shale law.

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives Thursday passed an energy bill that could be described as encompassing a producer’s wish list, but those wishes won’t come true unless and until GOP control spreads to the Senate and the White House.

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives Thursday passed an energy bill that could be described as encompassing a producer’s wish list, but those wishes won’t come true unless and until Republican control spreads to the Senate and the White House.