With 125 days left in 2014, we find ourselves looking at What’s Next for the oil & gas industry in the Marcellus and Utica Shale Plays. It has been an eventful year and with just four months until 2015, we look forward and identify key conferences, symposiums and issues that are top of mind.
The NY State Assembly voted to enact legislation that would extend the moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracturing until 2015, aiming to facilitate additional health and environmental impact assessments.
On March 6, 2013, the New York State Assembly passed a bill to further suspend issuance of permits for high volume hydraulic fracturing until May 15, 2015. The bill passed with a vote of 95-40 and marks the Assembly’s third moratorium, following similar measures in 2010 and 2011. The industry currently awaits the release of DEC’s Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) and a subsequent ruling for permit issuance. Keep reading →
Foreign firms, hungry to cash in on the American energy boom, have invested nearly $6 billion in U.S. gas and oil drilling in the last few weeks. Energy giants from China, France and Spain have snapped up stakes in fields in Ohio, Mississippi, Colorado and Michigan. These investments will likely add to the recent boom in U.S. natural gas production, pushing already low natural gas prices even lower. Low domestic prices could drive natural gas producers to seek out European and Asian markets, according to analysts, where the fuel commands three or four times the price. “Of course that will” lead to more exports, said Nansen Saleri, president of the oil field consulting firm Quantum Reservoir Impact. “And it will be a tremendous opportunity.”
Chesapeake Energy said on Thursday it plans to raise $3.4 billion by selling a share of its stake in the Utica Shale to an unidentified joint-venture partner and floating shares in a new entity that owns acreage in the field.
The Utica is believed to hold billions of barrels of oil and significant reserves of natural gas. Keep reading →
