Tier

Ohio Gov. John Kasich unveiled his proposed biennial executive budget on Monday, which includes a two-tier severance tax structure that would, for the first time, differentiate between horizontal and vertical wells drilled into the emerging Utica Shale.

A subsidiary of EmKey Energy LLC has acquired the rights to a 75-mile right-of-way (ROW) through three counties in New York’s Southern Tier, in the heart of the state’s portions of the Marcellus and Utica shales.

Several municipalities in the Southern Tier of New York have adopted nonbinding resolutions that take a stand that would allow high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking), a position that dovetails with an assertion by state officials that the drilling stimulation practice, if eventually approved by regulators, only would be permitted in communities that allowed it.

A new coalition of 16 community, landowner and business groups — including several construction companies — has organized to convey the message that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) can be performed safely in New York state and would provide jobs and economic growth.

With the first freezes of the season forecast in parts of the Midwest in the next couple of days and even the southern tier of states due to feel some significant chill by midweek, cash prices rose at all but one point Monday. The advance also got major support from the previous Friday’s spike of 17.2 cents by November futures and — to a much lesser extent — the return of industrial load from its usual weekend decline.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has released a proposed rulemaking that would impose additional regulations on natural gas drillers using high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state, and has scheduled a series of hearings on the proposed rulemaking.

Voters in New York still support natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale by a thin margin, 45-41%, because they believe the economic benefits outweigh environmental concerns, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.

Carrizo Oil & Gas Inc. has agreed to purchase more than 13,000 net acres in the Eagle Ford Shale in a deal valued at about $71.5 million, and it has temporarily moved one of its rigs from the Barnett Shale to the Eagle Ford in order to speed up production.

As 2010 got under way biting cold settled in across the northern tier of states, sending prices spiking in the Northeast, while pipelines began tightening restrictions with an eye to an extended period of below-normal temperatures and peak demand.