Regulatory

Fresh from enacting historic energy market reforms, Mexico on Wednesday announced preliminary rules for oil and gas companies to bid on 14 offshore exploratory blocks in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), with the first round of bidding scheduled to take place in 2015.

Despite an industry full-court press in the past year to head it off, federal officials are proposing to limit future oil and natural gas development in the White River National Forest (WRNF) in northwest Colorado.

Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd.’s Bear Head LNG Corp. has applied to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for authorization to export natural gas to Canada for a 25-year period in support of its Nova Scotia liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project.

Despite indications last month to the contrary (see Daily GPI, Nov. 11), the Obama administration’s goal is to save the threatened sage grouse without listing it as an endangered species, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told a winter meeting of the Western Governors’ Association (WGA) in Las Vegas Saturday.

Proposed federal greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rules are either an economic burden or an environmental necessity, according to millions of comments submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Colette D. Honorable’s nomination to become a commissioner at FERC received bipartisan support during a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Thursday, and members said they hoped to complete the process before the congressional session ends early next month.

FERC has approved Texas Eastern Transmission LP’s request to construct and operate the Ohio Pipeline Energy Network (OPEN) project, which would carry Marcellus/Utica shale gas to Gulf Coast markets and other markets using interconnections with downstream pipelines.

FERC on Wednesday approved the start of a pre-filing process on the first in a series of small-scale liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facilities a consortium hopes to develop starting with a site in Florida.

The shale gas patch is too risky a place for an electric utility to be dabbling with ratepayer money, public interest lawyers and industrial power consumers told Florida regulators considering Florida Power & Light Co.’s (FPL) proposal to take a stake in Oklahoma’s Woodford Shale.