Threat

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who is in her second week on the job, signaled Monday that new rules governing federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) are imminent.

The cyber security threat to the energy sector is alive and well as evidenced by a just released Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report, which details a “spear-phishing” campaign last fall targeting 11 energy companies.

The “threat of regulatory overreach” in not allowing liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports “is tantamount to introducing price controls on natural gas,” ExxonMobil Chemical Co. President Stephen Pryor said last week, directly countering the campaign of another chemicals giant, Dow Chemical Co., which has been heavily lobbying to protect its domestic feedstocks.

Despite the threat of legal action from Gov. John Hickenlooper, the city council of Fort Collins, CO, has adopted a resolution banning hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within city limits.

The “threat of regulatory overreach” in not allowing liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports “is tantamount to introducing price controls on natural gas,” ExxonMobil Chemical Co. President Stephen Pryor said Tuesday, directly countering the campaign of another chemicals giant, Dow Chemical Co., which has been heavily lobbying to protect its domestic feedstocks.

Despite the threat of legal action from Gov. John Hickenlooper, the city council of Fort Collins, CO, has adopted a resolution banning hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within city limits.

As the Pine Ridge fire in Colorado expanded Friday, up to 50 natural gas wells were shut in by three operators along the Western Slope in the Piceance Basin. In one case, wells were shut before operators were asked to do so by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA).

Offering new guidelines on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) said Wednesday its 2012 oil/gas rule changes were approved as of Wednesday and become effective April 1. The revised rules cleared the state’s Administrative Rules Committee Wednesday morning, according to a DMR spokesperson.

As tensions between Iran and the western world increase, the country’s threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz weighs increasingly on energy markets. While most of the attention has focused on what a closure would mean for oil transport, analysts at Raymond James & Associates Inc. said last week on a percentage basis, the implications would be greater for liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments.