An explosion of natural gas from shale is swamping the market with an abundance of new gas, upsetting investment models for LNG terminals and making gas cost-competitive with coal. More at The Hill.

Who owns the mineral rights beneath your property? That can determine what drilling companies can do and what rights a landowner has when drilling begins. More in an article on the ArkTimes.com website.

An article at Platts.com reports on the 17-person emergency response team that will be located in Pennsylvania to respond to natural gas well emergencies.

“Since March 2009, the premium for natural gas liquids over the price of natural gas has grown. NGLs, which include propane, ethane, butane, pentane and natural gasoline, are produced in conjunction with natural gas, and the quantity of liquids varies from basin to basin and often from well to well. To take advantage of the NGL price premiums, producers are now seeking out liquid-rich shale plays—such as the Eagle Ford and the Marcellus.” Quoted from the EIA Natural Gas Update.

The New York Senate passed a bill that will further delay the approval of permits for drilling the Marcellus Shale. The state assembly and the governor must approve before it would go into effect. More at Reuters.

Talisman Energy is increasing its activity as a producer of natural gas from shale with growing production in the Marcellus Shale and several wells drilled in the Utica and Montney Shales.

Encana has an informative video on their website that illustrates and explains the horizontal driling / hydraulic fracturing techniques used for many natural gas wells drilling in shale. Look for the video link on the right of the page – the video file is very large but worth waiting for the long download.

An article on the Gerson Lehrman Group website by Michael Lynch suggests that some companies are responding to low natural gas prices by drilling in areas where a high liquids content will provide additional income.

Natural gas liquids include: propane, butane, pentane, hexane and heptane.

During 2009, the economic downturn cut the use of natural gas by commercial and industry customers while the amount of gas used for electricity generation increased. Production levels continued to increase even though prices remained weak. See the review at the Energy Information Administration website.

An article on the PressConnects website explores how drilling for the Marcellus Shale is changing the landscape and lives of people in rural Bradford County, Pennsylvania. A few years ago no wells were being drilled, but 119 wells were drilled in 2009. So far this year 81 have been drilled and 367 drilling permits have been granted.

“The number of horizontal natural gas rigs totaled 605 as of May 14, 2010, according to Baker Hughes Incorporated data. This level is the highest over the last roughly 2½ years for which data are available. Currently, horizontal rigs comprise 64 percent of the natural gas rig count, which totaled 951 as of May 14. Vertical and directional rigs account for 20 percent and 16 percent of this total, respectively. ” Quoted from the Energy Information Administration’s weekly natural gas update.

ConocoPhillips plans to drill their first shale gas well in Poland next month in partnership with Lane Energy Poland. More at SFGate.com.

North Dakota now has a record number of active oil and gas wells and is producing record volumes of oil and gas each day. The state will probably displace California as the #3 state for oil production. More in the Washington Post.

Haliburton CEO, Dave Lesar, says that activity in the oil and gas shale plays is allowing his company to increase prices. However, he sees uncertainty in natural gas prices that could reduce the current increase in activity. More at NASDAQ.

Natural gas rigs are at their highest level in more than 13 months. Much of the increase in the natural gas rig count over the past several months has been attributable to growth in the number of horizontal rigs. As of March 26, horizontal natural gas rigs totaled 567, an increase of about 24 percent since the beginning of 2010. Directional and vertical natural gas rigs totaled 159 and 215, respectively. Horizontal natural gas rigs comprised about 60 percent of natural gas rigs, while directional and vertical rigs accounted for 17 and 23 percent, respectively. The portion of natural gas rigs attributable to horizontal rigs has steadily increased over the last 2 years for which data are available. For example, horizontal rigs in January 2008 totaled 25 percent of the total number of natural gas rigs. Growth in horizontal rigs is related to growth in natural gas production from shale formations. More at the EIA website.