Times

The administration of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is drafting legislation for an impact fee on natural gas drillers in the state, according to the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. Over the past week Corbett said he could support a fee for mitigating local impacts and some statewide issues, but not for unrestricted revenue.

Although the city-created project has sputtered at times during its almost three-year permitting process, the Palmdale, CA, hybrid natural gas and solar power generation project has won approval of the California Energy Commission (CEC) Wednesday. However, the approval still doesn’t mean the project will be built.

Penn Virginia Corp. CEO H. Baird Whitehead admitted to financial analysts last Thursday that the company is “essentially a one-trick pony at this moment” due to its heavy focus on the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. However, he said, “we think it’s a pretty good-looking pony.”

“Summertime, and the livin’ is…way too hot,” would likely be how George and Ira Gershwin would revise their classic for contemporary times. But despite a heat wave continuing to envelop several market areas, prices retreated to either side of flat in most cases Tuesday and even saw some dives at the previously high-flying Northeast citygates.

With both tight gas sands and oil shale development emerging in the state, a California legislator has introduced a bill (AB 591) seeking to require public disclosure of any chemicals used in oil/gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Participants in the Canadian energy industry are signaling that its switch of drilling targets to oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) will continue and accelerate.

Natural gas is mostly methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas, especially in the short term, with 105 times more warming impact pound for pound than CO2, said Cornell ecologist Robert Howarth. He added that “even small leaks make a big difference” and estimated that as much as 8% of the methane in shale gas leaks into the air during the lifetime of a hydraulically fractured shale gas well, which is up to twice what escapes from conventional gas production.

A hydrogeologist from Penn State says companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale play through hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) are recycling about two-thirds of the wastewater that returns to the surface.

The government of Canada’s top natural gas-producing jurisdiction is braced for a long spell of lean times from oversupplied North American markets.