Work

The University of Texas at Austin (UT) has pulled a 2012 report that was supportive of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and shale gas development following a review of the study by an independent panel that found researchers failed to disclose a conflict of interest.

Leases for oil and gas development along the southern fringe of the Piceance Basin in western Colorado are nearing their expiration as a citizens’ action and the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are blocking five exploration/production (E&P) companies, including a unit of Encana Corp.’s U.S. operations, spread over a five-county area.

Constitution Pipeline Co. LLC said Friday it would work with Leatherstocking Gas Co. LLC, a New York-based natural gas supplier, to pursue agreements to design, build and operate delivery interconnects along the natural gas pipeline’s proposed 121-mile route, essentially converting it to an “open access pipeline.”

Dominion Resources Inc. has secured a long-term natural gas gathering service agreement in northeastern Ohio with M3 Ohio Gathering (Momentum) to process wet gas from the Utica Shale and is readying several projects in the Utica and Marcellus shale region to expand capacity services, CEO Tom Farrell said Thursday.

A member of the Pittsburgh City Council has introduced four proposed amendments to the city’s zoning code that would allow 40-acre minimum “mineral extraction districts” for Marcellus Shale drilling.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is proposing to protect six species of aquatic invertebrates native to West Texas as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Such an ESA listing could have implications for the West Texas oil patch, analysts warned.

For global unconventional natural gas to reach its full potential, the energy industry has to be willing to work with regulators and conservation groups to address legitimate concerns, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) told an audience recently at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston.

For global unconventional natural gas to reach its full potential, the energy industry has to be willing to work with regulators and conservation groups to address legitimate concerns, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) told an audience Friday at Rice University’s Baker Institute in Houston.

Gasfrac Energy Services Inc., which has been attempting to muscle into the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) market with its waterless technology, hit some roadblocks in 2Q2012, in part because the pressure pumping market is bursting at the seams, company officials said Thursday.