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Tennessee Gas Pipeline has launched an open season through July 31 for firm natural gas transportation capacity on the Connecticut Expansion Project, which would deliver gas from its existing interconnect with Iroquois Gas Transmission in Wright, NY, to Zone 6 delivery points on Tennessee’s 200 and 300 Lines in Connecticut. The project, which would require upgrades and modifications to the existing pipeline system in New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, is slated for service by November 2016. Available capacity would be about 72,100 Dth/d. The pipeline has entered into binding precedent agreements with three anchor shippers. Inexpensive shale gas has recently caught the attention of the Constitution State. In June Connecticut gas distribution utilities Yankee Gas, Connecticut Natural Gas and Southern Connecticut Gas, filed a joint gas expansion plan with the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (see NGI, June 24). The plan outlines how the utilities would meet expansion goals proposed in the Gov. Dannel Malloy’s comprehensive energy strategy and the the recently enacted HB 6360 (see NGI, March 18). The utilities plan a “structured approach” to add 280,000 new gas heating customers over the next 10 years.

The Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC) is voicing support for Utica Shale development, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking), but it wants to see the industry, landowners and other stakeholders come to an agreement over developing the eastern Ohio portion of the play, the CEO said.

Nearly two months after securing Mitsubishi Corp. as its foundation shipper, Tennessee Gas Pipeline is holding an open season through Aug. 9 for its Southwest Louisiana Supply Project, which is designed to provide transportation from various supply basins in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Louisiana to Cameron Interstate Pipeline, which connects directly to the proposed Cameron LNG export terminal in Hackberry, LA.

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has thrown out a lawsuit brought by Fayette County family, which wanted an oil and gas lease agreement voided by claiming that some drilling activities weren’t contemplated when the contract was executed. However, similar lawsuits in the state and in Ohio are facing new scrutiny as well.

With most of the pipeline’s original 15-year term natural gas transportation agreements ending on Nov. 30, 2015, Alliance Pipeline is offering capacity on its system effective Dec. 1, 2015.

The United States continued to crush the global merger and acquisition (M&A) market between April and June, but deal values in the first half of 2013 (1H2013) represented the lowest six-month period since at least 2007, according to a survey by PLS Inc. and partner Derrick Petroleum Services.

In order to make a living in the shale gas world, Rockies Express Pipeline LLC (REX) wants to offer westbound capacity from the Marcellus/Utica region, but legacy shippers are balking at its plan to offer lower rates for customers headed west on a portion of the pipeline.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., a one-quarter partner in BP plc’s ill-fated Macondo well, is facing a lawsuit that claims a top executive misled investors about the well’s impact, a Houston district judge has ruled.

FERC on Thursday issued a draft notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR) that would allow interstate natural gas pipelines and electric transmission operators to share nonpublic operational information that they believe would promote reliable service and better planning on their systems. The proposal is the first concrete step that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has taken toward coordinating the two markets.