The decision means the State Board of Land Commissioners will now be involved in deciding whether state royalties should be charged on natural gas flared on state-leased wells.

The state board includes the governor, secretary of state, auditor, treasurer and state superintendent of public instruction.

The board unanimously approved the policy on a 4-0 vote. State Treasurer Joe Meyer is currently recovering from cancer surgery. Read more

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At a meeting in Jackons for the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority in Jackson, Steve Black said both a grant program and a loan guarantee program for renewables have already expired.  He adds that a tax credit that encourages wind projects is due to expire this year. Black says now is not the time to tax an industry that’s just getting off the ground.

“America needs to diversify its energy resources. We need all domestic sources of energy, and so now is not the time to make it financially more difficult for wind in Wyoming or solar in the desert southwest.”

Black says President Obama is asking Congress to extend the tax credit for wind projects.

Minnesota has spent more than $11 million in taxpayer and utility funds to advance technologies that burn biomass for heat and electric generation or convert it to a synthetic gas. Now, it’s getting difficult for the technology to compete.

“The era of low-priced natural gas has blunted opportunities for biomass and other renewables,” said Doug Tiffany, an agricultural economist at the University of Minnesota.

Natural gas prices have dropped by half since their peak in 2008 as exploration using hydraulic fracturing opened new gas fields in shale formations beneath Texas, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. MORE …

The more than 3,000 acre tract is next to the North Antelope Rochelle Mine operated by Powder River Coal, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy.

Coal royalties in the Cowboy State totaled $590 million last year, according to the federal agency.The revenue was shared nearly equally between the state and federal governments.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced yesterday that it has okayed Chevron to expand the Table Rock Field east of Rock Springs.

The energy giant’s plan calls for 33 shallow new oil wells and 20 deep gas wells. In addition,  35 water injection wells are part of the expansion. The BLM says just over 300 acres would be disturbed and the wells would have a lifespan of between 40 and 55 years.

The federal agency said that all concerns have been addressed in the environmental assessment which the public has been commenting on since last November.

Topics covered will include transmission updates for the following:

Energy Gateway Project
TransWest Express Project
Zephyr Project
Wyoming Colorado Intertie Project

MORE …

“Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years,” said Obama. “Not only that — last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.”

Obama has indeed presided over a boom in domestic energy production since taking office.

From 2008 to 2011 U.S. crude oil production has jumped 14%, going from 5.1 million barrels per day at the start of 2008 to nearly 5.8 million barrels per day currently, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

President said he stood behind increased development of natural gas, but said he will require the full disclosure to all the chemicals energy companies use in the fracking process when done on public land. “America will develop this resource without putting the health and safety of our citizens at risk,” he said. MORE …

In its monthly report released on Friday, the Consensus Revenue Estimating Group (CREG) revised its revenue projections for the 2013-14 biennium budget due to a drop in estimated prices of natural gas (which consists primarily of methane) from what was predicted in October’s report.

“That was the biggest change in the January CREG forecast compared to October,” Senior State Economist Jim Robinson said on Monday.

Forecasted prices for Wyoming methane were reduced from $4 per million cubic feet (mcf) in the October CREG report to $3.25 for the 2012 calendar year, $3.50 in 2013 and $3.75 in 2014.

Robinson said the drop in estimated natural gas prices could result in more than $100 million in lost projected revenues for the state. MORE …

The report is authored by the 20-member BPC Energy Project board that includes CEOs from the oil and gas industry, former top government officials from both parties, environmental group representatives and economists, among others.

It articulates opportunities associated with newly accessible and economically recoverable domestic shale gas resources, and highlights the critical need to develop those resources efficiently and responsibly.

Read the Report: Shale Gas: New Opportunities, New Challenges

“New domestic natural gas supplies could have a transformative effect on U.S. energy policy, our economy and our energy security,” said former Senators Trent Lott and Byron Dorgan, who co-chair the Energy Project. “Because natural gas has many diverse end-uses, including in the residential, commercial, power, industrial, chemical, and even a small portion of the transportation sectors, any expansion of low-cost domestic supply has far-reaching positive economic impacts. It is critical that this resource be developed responsibly so that we can gain these benefits.”

Key points from the report include:

• Natural gas prices declined approximately 37 percent from February 2008 to January 2010. In addition, recent forecasts by the U.S. Energy Information Agency estimate that the spot market price of natural gas will not exceed $5.00 per million Btu until 2020.
• The price of natural gas has decoupled from the price of crude oil for the first time in over twenty years—and is projected to remain on this trajectory for decades to come.
• Lower natural gas prices could reduce costs for integrating intermittent renewable power generation, and offer an opportunity for co-location of natural gas and renewable facilities.

“Long-term lower prices for natural gas, should they continue, can bring appreciable economic benefits to many average residential electricity consumers, to key gas-intensive industries, and to the broader economy. It is also important to note that renewable energy can benefit from low cost shale gas if generation from those different sources can be integrated efficiently,” Lott and Dorgan said.

• The BPC report finds that natural gas supply could support as much as 100 years of domestic gas demand at present levels of consumption. Natural gas extraction from shale formations has exhibited rapid growth, and currently comprises approximately one quarter of total U.S. natural gas production.
• The report also shows that employment in oil and natural gas extraction and support services is up 11 percent since October 2008 (pre-recession) according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Factors contributing to the increase in oil and gas employment in recent years include not only high oil prices, but also new shale oil and gas production and technology,” Lott and Dorgan said.

• The expanded U.S. natural gas supply outlook is prompting interest in gas export opportunities, which are likely to be modest (less than 5 percent of the market) for at least the next decade.
• In describing opportunities and issues associated with shale gas development, the report identifies some key parallels with oil shale. A recent private study suggests that oil production from the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas could potentially meet 7.8 percent of domestic demand by 2015 at present consumption levels.

“Shale oil and gas development is helping to alter America’s energy equation, boosting domestic production, and in the case of oil, reducing imports,” Lott and Dorgan said.

• Capturing the benefits of shale gas requires prudent and responsible development that engenders public confidence and mitigates community impacts.
• Concerns persist about the potential for fracturing fluids or methane gas to migrate into drinking water if wellbore integrity is not assured, or if proper surface handling procedures are not followed. In addition, impacts on water resources in water-constrained areas must be addressed.
• The average shale gas well requires about 3 to 5 million gallons of water for both drilling and hydraulic fracturing—significantly less than coal production. On a life-cycle basis, natural gas-fired electric power generation uses less water than coal or nuclear generation.
• Air emissions and methane leakage are also issues that must be addressed for responsible production.

“Adequately addressing environmental challenges necessitates a technically-sound state oil and gas regulatory framework with effective enforcement mechanisms,” Lott and Dorgan said.

• The National Petroleum Council (NPC) and the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board (SEAB) studies make valuable recommendations regarding environmental performance issues, including: sharing best practices, transparency and disclosure, air emissions, groundwater protection, and regulatory resources.
• Industry has issued its own standards and best practices, and states have been adapting or updating regulations and participating in a voluntary program for review of state regulatory processes.
• The BPC Energy Project will track the implementation of those recommendations, and examine how new shale gas supplies impact other fuels, sectors, and infrastructure.

The full report is available here.

The members of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Energy Project are:

Co-Chairmen:
Former Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
Former Senator Trent Lott (R-MS)

Energy Security Chair:
General James L. Jones (USMC-Ret), former U.S. National Security Advisor; President and CEO, Jones Group International

Energy and Environment Chair:
William K. Reilly, former U.S. EPA Administrator

Ralph Cavanagh, Energy Program Director, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

Clarence Cazalot, Chairman, President and CEO, Marathon Oil Corporation

William M. Colton, Vice President, Corporate Strategic Planning, Exxon Mobil Corporation

David Cote, Chairman and CEO, Honeywell International, Inc

Mark Gerencser, Executive Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton

James T. Hackett, Chairman and CEO, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation

Edwin D. Hill, International President, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW)

William A. Von Hoene, Jr., Executive Vice President, Finance and Legal, Exelon Corporation

Colette Honorable, Chairman, Arkansas Public Service Commission

Thomas O. Hunter, Former President and Lab Director, Sandia National Laboratories

Ellen J. Kullman, Chair of the Board & CEO, DuPont

VADM Dennis V. McGinn, President, American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE)

Matt Rose, Chairman and CEO, BNSF Railway Company

Richard Schmalensee, Ph.D., Economist, Professor of Applied Economics & Dean Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Susan Story, President and CEO, Southern Company Services, Inc.

Susan Tierney, Ph.D., Managing Principal, Analysis Group; Former Assistant Secretary for Policy, U.S. Department of Energy