Working

A heavy equipment operator working on the four-state, nearly 1,200-mile Dakota Accessoil pipelinein North Dakota died at a hospital in Minot, ND, Friday following head injuries sustained on the job. The man, whose identity has not been released, was working as a subcontractor for the $3.7 billion Energy Transfer Partners’ pipeline project being built by Dakota Access Pipeline LLC. The incident occurred nearly 200 miles north and west of ongoing protests against the project by the Standing Rock Sioux Native American Tribe and some environmental groups near the South Dakota border. The man apparently was working alone and was found by co-workers.

Two contract workers were hurt, one critically, on Wednesday in far western Colorado’s Mesa County while working on a valve at an Encana Corp. gas well that ruptured, a Denver-based company spokesperson told NGI Thursday.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is proposing a change to the format of itsWeekly Natural Gas Storage Report(WNGSR), adding an estimate of the implied flow of working natural gas into or out of underground storage facilities to its WNGSR summary table.

Rockies Express Pipeline LLC (REX) is working to remake itself for the shale gas world — to become an east-to-west shale gas expressway — but legacy shippers are balking.

Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) Chairman Michele Sierkerka said the organization is working to advance natural gas regulations in the basin, with “thousands of hours” logged so far by its staff and those of its member states on the process since November 2011.

Utility developers working on combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) projects in the Marcellus and Utica shales are looking for a “power price appreciation” that will come from the excess natural gas, according analysts with Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Inc. (TPH).

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee put the spotlight on two important shale policy issues during its third and final forum on natural gas Thursday: the FracFocus chemical registry and whether a middle ground can be found in the dispute between the states and federal government over regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking).

How to space wells in the Bakken Shale remains the “question of the day” for exploration production (E&P) operators working in the play, according to the CEO of Bismarck, ND-based MDU Resources Group Inc.

The Bakken Shale and Three Forks formation in the Williston Basin in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota contain a combined estimated 7.4 billion bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil, 6.7 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 530 million bbl of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids (NGL), according to an assessment released Tuesday by the United States Geological Survey (USGS).