Energy & Fuel

"The [March 31] incident at Williams Co Inc's massive gas storage site is a rare safety-record blemish among the dozens of U.S. LNG plants and storage sites, including towering tanks in packed neighborhoods of New York City, and near Boston.

Energy industry experts and opponents of new LNG plants alike said it may spur debate about safe handling of gas for cities increasingly reliant on the clean-burning fuel. At least a dozen new U.S. LNG export facilities are seeking government approval, and some have faced opposition on safety grounds.

"Exxon Mobil Corp, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, has agreed to disclose more information about the environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing, the process known as fracking."

"Citing the sharp increase in the transportation of crude oil by rail, a group told Congress on Wednesday that most of the country’s fire departments lack sufficient training to respond to hazardous materials incidents."

"A tax credit for wind-energy production made it after all into a Senate bill that would revive a host of expired breaks for numerous industries."

"People in natural gas drilling areas who complain about nauseating odors, nosebleeds and other symptoms they fear could be caused by shale development usually get the same response from state regulators: monitoring data show the air quality is fine. A new study helps explain this discrepancy. The most commonly used air monitoring techniques often underestimate public health threats because they don’t catch toxic emissions that spike at various points during gas production, researchers reported Tuesday in the peer-reviewed journal Reviews on Environmental Health. The study was conducted by the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, a nonprofit based near Pittsburgh."

"SEATTLE — A Coast Guard investigation into the 2012 grounding of the Kulluk, an offshore drilling rig operated by Royal Dutch Shell in the harsh Arctic, blasted the oil company for legal violations, poor management and taking undue risks, according to the final report released Thursday."

"Even when pollution discharges from shale gas well pads and impoundments contaminate private water supplies, those violations often go unrecorded or publicly reported by state environmental regulators, according to documents filed in the Pennsylvania Superior Court case challenging the constitutionality of the state's oil and gas law, Act 13."

The U.N.'s climate chief called on the oil and gas industry on Thursday to make a drastic shift to a clean, low-carbon future or risk having to leave three-quarters of fossil fuel reserves in the ground."

"The Senate Finance Committee’s abrupt move to take up “tax extenders” legislation is testing the lobbying clout of the renewable energy sector and other special interests in Washington."