University

Darrell Royal, the revered former head coach for the University of Texas football team, used to explain his team’s success by paraphrasing a line from a 1920s song, “You dance with the one that brung ya.” Ultra Petroleum Corp., which has stuck with natural gas while others have moved along, is discovering that gas can be one expensive date.

Darrell Royal, the revered former head coach for the University of Texas football team, used to explain his team’s success by borrowing a line from a 1920s song, “You dance with the one that brung ya.” Ultra Petroleum Corp., which has stuck with natural gas while others have moved along, is discovering that gas can be one expensive date.

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports could cut residents and businesses oil-based energy bills in Hawaii substantially during the next 20 years, according to a University of Hawaii study. Potential savings were classified as “huge,” given gas-indexed pricing, but the report also acknowledged that LNG exports carry various risks, given sources, oil-gas price differences over time and the state’s level of energy demand reduction in future years.

With $2.375 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) is working on two projects with Northwestern University researchers and a startup they have created, NuMat Technologies to develop lightweight, affordable natural gas vehicle (NGV) fuel tanks for passenger cars, along with natural gas compressors that can fuel the vehicles in the home or office settings. The projects are part of DOE’s Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy program. GTI plans to develop “a low-pressure adsorbent material” to be used in gas storage tanks designed exclusively for NGVs to overcome the current heavy, large tanks that must withstand pressures of up to 3,600 psi, which adds to the cost and weight of the NGVs compared to gasoline and diesel vehicles. GTI received $1.5 million from DOE to develop the advanced adsorbed natural gas technology for fueling tanks and $875,000 to develop a unique low-pressure NGV fueling technology.

Changes in fossil fuel use in recent decades contributed to methane and ethane levels in the atmosphere dropping, according to a research report by University of California at Irvine (UCI) professors that was published Thursday in the journal Nature. Since 2007, however, methane levels have begun to climb again.

Forecasters at Colorado State University (CSU) expect a total of 14 named storms in the Atlantic Basin this year, including six hurricanes, two of them major (Category 3 or higher), a slight increase from activity they predicted at the beginning of the 2012 hurricane season (see Daily GPI, June 4) and about the same numbers experienced in a typical season over the past six decades.

A Colorado State University (CSU) team led by former Gov. Bill Ritter briefed California’s oil and natural gas officials about how Colorado’s drilling rules that encompass hydraulic fracturing stipulations were able to satisfy environmental concerns — an issue California faces as legislators consider whether to establish a fracking moratorium or not (see Shale Daily, June 28).

Houston-based independent Eagle Ford Oil & Gas Corp. has acquired an 85% working interest in prospective acreage in Frio County, TX, in the “heart” of the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas, the company said Monday.

Two graduate students at The Ohio State University say their state’s policymakers should levy appropriate taxes on the oil and gas industry, be wary of hidden shale extraction costs and commit to good governance if they want to avoid the perils of boom-and-bust cycles common to other regions of the country rich in natural resources.