Recently in Natural gas Category

The gold business card -- that's gold, not gold-colored paper -- said it all about where the money is coming from for a new kind of gasification industry. The small but growing area is a fairly low-emission process that turns carbon feedstocks, mainly coal, into synthetic gas for multiple uses -- including turning power turbines -- without burning them. It is especially expected to take off in China, with that country's abundance of cash, coal and carbon dioxide emissions.

The card came out of the wallet of gasification entrepreneur Robert Walker, who said it came from a Chinese business contact.

The natural gas industry may be more ready than anybody to gear up for the newly constituted Congress -- at least when it comes to advertising and advocacy.

Not only has the industry had TV commercials and print ads running, it also has Capitol Hill covered -- at least all those congressional office minions who are forced to ride the Metro to and from work.

The folks at Tudor Pickering Holt are not so impressed, but we kind of are: US shale-cracking techniques are making their overseas debut.

Services giant Halliburton fracked the first horizontal shale well in Poland recently, the Houston company announced Thursday. The Markowola-1 well in Kozience, about 50 miles south of Warsaw, is an exploratory well to see if the Polish shale holds commercial gas.

It's one of the first instances of US shale cracking technology being used abroad. ExxonMobil has more than 3 million acres of leasehold in Poland, Hungary and eastern Germany, potential gas smack in the middle of markets served by that not-so-reliable supplier, Russia's Gazprom.

National Grid believes it can help meet energy demand in the Northeast -- and reduce carbon emissions -- if it can deliver a lot more biogas to customers in its four-state service territory in the US Northeast. But the utility giant knows it has a lot of hurdles to overcome -- including getting the government to pay attention.

"From a policy perspective, the biggest challenge for renewable gas is that it is not currently on the radar screen of US policymakers," Chris Mostyn, head of corporate media relations for National Grid, said in an e-mail Friday, following up on the company's white paper: "Renewable Gas -- Vision for a Sustainable Gas Network."

A few weeks ago, the legislatures of Pennsylvania and New York were considering bills legislation that would place moratoria on drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale formation. Here's an update on what is NOT happening.

Technically, the New York Legislature has adjourned, although Governor David Paterson has called them back to address budget issues, such as Medicaid. There were several bills pending that would place a moratorium on Marcellus drilling for various lengths of time.

One by one, members of Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell's administration are quietly resigning and taking jobs with the state's fast-growing natural gas industry.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Tuesday that Sarah Battisti, a deputy chief of staff, has taken a government affairs position with BG Group, a British gas company that recently bought a stake in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale, where a gas drilling boom is in full swing.