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The New York Times (NYT), chastised last year for, among other things, describing the shale gas industry as a “Ponzi” scheme whose future would match that of Enron Corp., continues to focus exclusively on the negative risks of gas drilling and has hyped the research of questionable sources, according to a Forbes magazine contributor.

The New York Times (NYT), chastised last year for, among other things, describing the shale gas industry as a “Ponzi” scheme whose future would match that of Enron Corp., continues to focus exclusively on the negative risks of gas drilling and has hyped the research of questionable sources, according to a Forbes magazine contributor.

The New York Times (NYT), admonished last year for, among other things, describing the shale gas industry as a “Ponzi” scheme whose future would match that of Enron Corp., continues to focus exclusively on the negative risks of gas drilling and its “institutionalized bias concerns appear to be spreading,” according to a Forbes magazine contributor.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Monday would not say whether it plans to appeal the appellate court decision tossing out the agency’s rule on limiting speculative trading, but some in industry are keeping their fingers crossed that the CFTC will take another route: start all over again on the rule.

A legislator in the Maryland House of Delegates announced Wednesday that she plans to introduce a bill next year that would impose a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state’s portion of the Marcellus Shale until a comprehensive scientific study is completed.

In what it said would be its final update of evacuation and shut-in production statistics related to Hurricane Isaac, the Bureau of Safety Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said Tuesday that two production platforms and a single rig remained evacuated in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Based on data from offshore operator reports submitted as of 11:30 a.m. CDT Tuesday, BSEE estimated 4.73% (213 MMcf/d) of natural gas production and 4.16% (57,439 b/d) of oil output in the GOM was shut in. All of those statistics peaked in the immediate aftermath of Isaac, when BSEE reported 509 production platforms and 50 rigs evacuated, and an estimated 75.52% (3.264 Bcf/d) of gas production and 94.99% (1.311 million b/d) of oil production was shut in (see Daily GPI, Aug. 31).

Investment funds affiliated with Riverstone Holdings LLC, and Kaiser Midstream, a midstream services company owned by Tulsa, OK, billionaire George B. Kaiser, are partnering with Sage Midstream LLC to form a new company with up to $500 million of equity commitments.

Encana Corp.’s board of directors has concluded that the producer did not collude with “competitors” on land leasing in Michigan two years ago.

Shale gas is a doubled-edged sword for power generators in the Mid-Atlantic region, supplying them with abundant, low-cost gas while at the same time putting pressure on an already over-taxed pipeline infrastructure, generators said Thursday at the fifth and final FERC conference on gas-power coordination issues.