Marcellus

Canada’s top natural gas transmission and distribution companies have completed a deal that calls for three cooperative pipeline expansions to improve Ontario and Quebec access to U.S. shale gas flowing north through border crossings from Michigan and New York State near Sarnia and Niagara Falls in Ontario over at least the next 16 years.

To accommodate increasing Appalachian Basin natural gas volumes, a 9.5-mile, 16-inch diameter pipeline that would run parallel to an existing line has been proposed to carry Pennsylvania-produced gas through Broome County, NY, to East Coast markets.

As a clearer picture emerges from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s recent ruling that struck down key provisions of the state’s most comprehensive oil and gas legislation, the court’s decision is likely to have repercussions for a decade or more, sources say, with the impact extending across the spectrum and touching more than just the pace of the industry’s operations in the Marcellus Shale.

Shell Chemical LP has signed an amended purchase agreement that extends the period of time it has to buy a 300-acre site in Western Pennsylvania, which it continues to evaluate for a long-awaited ethane cracker that would convert ethane from the Marcellus Shale into ethylene.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a foundational provision of the state’s most comprehensive oil and gas legislation has put a rather large question mark over just how the new regulatory framework could hinder future Marcellus Shale development, leaving the industry scrambling for answers.

In one of the largest fees ever assessed by the federal government for violating the Clean Water Act, both the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said Thursday that Chesapeake Appalachia LLC, a subsidiary of onshore oil and gas giant Chesapeake Energy, would pay a civil penalty of $3.2 million for violations that occurred in West Virginia.

FERC issued a certificate Thursday authorizing Columbia Gas Transmission LLC (CGT) to build and operate a compressor station in Pennsylvania and to add compression to an existing station in neighboring West Virginia.

The use of natural gas for power generation will continue to expand, the industrial sector of the U.S. economy will see a modest revival, and the demand for natural gas vehicles (NGV) will continue to rise through 2035, according to analysts at Navigant Consulting Inc.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. said it was encouraged by early well results in the Appalachian Basin, where it continues to focus on accelerating drilling. Inclement weather, coupled with heavy liquids volume and a bevy of infrastructure activity in the region has delayed midstream construction in Ohio and West Virginia.