Together

Exploration and production companies have heeded the call to improve transparency and institute better practices, but there’s more to do to address the concerns of stakeholders in the shale plays, a Range Resources Corp. executive said last week.

The American Gas Association, the American Petroleum Institute, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, together with the Canadian Gas Association and the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, have initiated a study to explore safety models and procedures in other sectors for use in the delivery of natural gas and pipeline-transported liquids. The study will complement the investigative initiative of the National Transportation Safety Board and the Department of Transportation’s regulatory initiatives, which currently are under way. The study is expected to be completed as early as February.

Chevron Corp. and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said Monday said they plan to work together to develop technologies to improve oil and natural gas production and recovery.

An agreement to merge with Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE) may be in place, but Southern Union Co. agreed Friday to discuss a higher offer from Williams.

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said he was concerned about the Morgantown City Council’s decision Tuesday night to pass an ordinance banning hydraulic fracturing (fracking) within the city and an adjacent one-mile buffer zone, and requested the city to “confine its governance to its city limits.”

U.S. natural gas and oil reserves ended 2010 with the strongest combined annual growth in five years, according to the fourth annual benchmark study by Ernst & Young LLP.

In its third regional report over the past year, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) found compounds of natural gas constituents near natural gas operations in Bradford, Lycoming and Tioga counties, but none at any level that would trigger health issues.

Active rigs in U.S. shale and tight sands basins gained 1% in the week ending April 1 to hit 981 rigs, up from 972 the previous week, according to NGI’s Shale Daily Unconventional Rig Count.

Utilities and state regulators have joined nuclear industry scientists throughout the United States together to study events unfolding at Japan’s badly damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant complex.