Upheld

FERC Thursday upheld a May order to approve the New Jersey-New York Expansion Project, a 20-mile expansion of the company’s Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) and Algonquin Gas Transmission interstate pipeline systems (see NGI, May 28).

Two Republican state senators, key supporters of Marcellus and Utica shale gas drilling in New York, are anxious to see Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration move forward with the process to establish rules for drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF).

Elected officials in the Town of Chenango, NY, voted unanimously on Wednesday to schedule a public hearing over whether to enact a one-year moratorium on oil and natural gas activities, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

Lenape Resources Inc., an oil and natural gas producer based in New York, is threatening to sue the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) if the agency doesn’t advise three towns in Livingston County that they don’t have the authority to enact local drilling bans.

Banking on the possibility that New York will lift its moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the near future, Norse Energy Corp. ASA on Thursday completed a $37 million sale of operated production and other assets in the Empire State to EmKey Resources LLC (see Shale Daily, March 19), giving it cash to focus on core properties in the Marcellus and Utica shales in central New York.

FERC on Wednesday upheld a prior order rejecting Turtle Bayou Gas Storage Co. LLC’s bid to build a salt dome gas storage facility and associated pipeline facilities northeast of Houston.

A local ordinance that bans oil and gas operations in the Town of Middlefield, NY, has been upheld by the Otsego County Supreme Court, the second time in a week that a New York state judge has ruled in favor of such a law.

A federal judge in Colorado has upheld the decisions of two federal agencies approving a natural gas project in the White River National Forest in the northwestern part of the state.

A federal judge in Colorado has upheld the decisions of two federal agencies approving a natural gas project in the White River National Forest in the northwestern part of the state.