Regulatory

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has adopted a mill levy rate increase in order to balance its budget amid revenue shortfalls caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent downturn in commodity pricing. Mill levies, the regulator’s main source of revenue, are property taxes whose rates are expressed in mills, which are equal…

As the original expiration date has expired for most moratoriums on utility shut-offs for nonpayment, several companies within the oil and gas industry continue to support their customers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since March, NGI has reported on the efforts of more than 57 domestic and international corporations, foundations and utilities as they responded to…

Noble Corp. plc, one of the top offshore drilling rig experts in the world, has secured a restructuring support agreement to eliminate all bond debt and reorganize via Chapter 11. Subsidiaries of the London-based operator filed Chapter 11 petitions in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in Houston. The company expects…

San Diego Gas and Electric Co. (SDG&E) last month distributed $64 in credits to all residential customers, similar to actions earlier this year by the state’s other investor owned utilities (IOU) as part of the annual payoff from the quarterly cap-and-trade auctions. Since the program kicked off in 2012-2013, the IOUs have received $7.36 billion…

The Alberta government launched a long-range campaign last week to make oil and gas companies pay for cleaning up a generations-old and growing backlog of 96,969 depleted and inactive wells. Energy Minister Sonya Savage announced a stiffened polluter-pay policy that requires producers to devise five-year cleanup plans and act on them under supervision by the…

Editor’s Note: NGI’s Mexico Gas Price Index, a leader tracking Mexico natural gas market reform, is offering the following column by Eduardo Prud’homme as part of a regular series on understanding this process. Prud’homme was central to the development of Cenagas, the nation’s natural gas pipeline operator, an entity formed in 2015 as part of…

Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture) is calling on the commonwealth to explore “green initiatives” for the oil and gas industry, which could help in the economic recovery from Covid-19. In a report titled “A Green Stimulus and Recovery Platform for Pennsylvania,” PennFuture said Pennsylvania’s economy will need to recover from the ongoing pandemic, and officials…

Calgary-based TC Energy Corp. on Wednesday was granted a Presidential Permit by President Trump to increase oil exports by about 6% on the 10-year-old but stalled Keystone XL pipeline system, which is designed to move Canadian crude to Gulf Coast markets. The approval follows a 2019 open season that would add 50,000 b/d to the…

Southern California Edison Co. (SCE) is facing the current wildfire season with renewed confidence while sweating out the unknowns of the ultimate financial and legal liabilities of separate 2017 and 2018 wildfires in which the utility has been implicated. Parent company Edison International CEO Pedro Pizarro spoke about both sides of the issue during a…