_

The state House of Representatives granted final passage to five local bills Thursday, and now Gov. Bobby Jindal has the choice to veto the proposals or sign them into law.

They range in scope from defining the Houma police chief’s job classification and regulating Bayou Lafourche to expanding oyster research in Grand Isle and permitting ultra-deep drilling.

With the regular session slated to adjourn June 4, there’s a little more than a week for lawmakers to finish their work. That creates a fast-paced environment in the session’s closing days, and Thursday’s action in the House showed how quickly proposed laws can near the proverbial finish line.

House Bill 504 would allow the Department of Natural Resources to consolidate leased lands so operational costs for ultra-deep drilling exceeding 22,000 feet could be shared.

The proposed act by House Natural Resources Chairman Gordon Dove, R-Houma, gives an investor or oil company the right to petition for the creation of a unit of up to 9,000 acres.

It’s a process known as “unitization,” and it allows for the price tag of a costly ultra-deep operation to be shouldered by leaseholders around the drilling site.

If the petition is approved, following public hearings and a waiting period, the petitioner would be allowed to approach the other leaseholders inside the unit about paying for their proportional share of the drilling operations.

Dove’s bill details a payoff model based on what level leaseholders decide to participate, and the Senate inserted protections for landowners that the House agreed to Thursday.

Chris John, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, said the legislation essentially updates existing state law in a way that recognizes advancements in drilling technology.

“Increased drilling from ultra-deep exploration will bring a significant economic boost to all of Louisiana, specifically south Louisiana, revitalizing oil and gas activity in the region,” John said.

He added that the resulting projects will generate “thousands of much-needed, well-paying jobs and increase revenues for the state and landowners through severance taxes and royalties.”

Dove is also the sponsor of House Bill 106, which was one of the most hotly debated local issues of the session — a temporary departure from the civil service system for Houma’s police chief.

Terrebonne Parish officials initially removed the police chief from the system in 2009 with permission from the Legislature, but that law is set to expire July 1. Dove’s legislation would extend the provision until July 2016.

While the Terrebonne Parish Council voted unanimously to extend the provision for another four years, the Houma Police Association and others argued against the change.

Under classified service, an employee can only be fired for wrongdoing after a hearing and due process. But in the case of Houma’s police chief, which is an unclassified position, the Terrebonne Parish president can hire and fire at will.

Dove said he wanted the state law to mirror the Parish Charter, which grants the parish president the authority to hire and fire the police chief.

“This is important to the region,” Rep. Joe Harrison, R-Napoleonville, told the House Thursday before it gave final approval.

Harrison, meanwhile, passed his own House Bill 413 through the lower chamber to create a new management structure for one of the most recognizable bayous in the nation.

If Jindal endorses the proposal, members of the Bayou Lafourche Fresh Water District Board could gain the authority to regulate a wide range of activities along the banks of the bayou.

More specifically, the board would have the ability to “regulate the location, construction, or use of any building or structure within the district where such structure or building may interfere with water resources development or integrated coastal protection.”

The state recently spent $20 million on rehabbing the Donaldsonville-to-Belle Rose stretch and has dedicated another $20 million to continue the clean up to the Gulf of Mexico. Harrison said his proposed legislation would help leverage that money.

The bill also transfers engineering responsibility and other tasks from the Department of Transportation and Development to the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. In turn, the CPRA would have the final say over any decisions the local board makes in regard to activities that take place along the banks of Bayou Lafourche.

Rep. Truck Gisclair, D-Larose, pushed two of his bills through the final legislative hurdle Thursday as well.

House Bill 317 would authorize the state to begin using salvage materials from construction projects to bolster coastal restoration and protection initiatives. Gisclair said there are a number of places where the proposed law could be beneficial, like in Grand Isle, where pieces of an outdated bridge can be leveraged.

Existing state law already allows the secretary of the Department of Transportation and Development to donate to any political subdivision “salvage recovered from the reconstruction or repair of any state road or bridge, or from any other work performed by the department.”

Gisclair’s bill would allow the same material to be used on coastal protection and restoration projects, as long as state officials deem them of “no salvage value.”

As proposed, the salvaged materials would be donated to the nearest coastal project. Gisclair said the concrete and metal could be used for breakwater materials and other purposes.

House Bill 478 expands the oyster research being conducted by the Louisiana Sea Grant program in conjunction with the Grand Isle Port Commission.

The seafood production research is located in the vicinity of Caminada Pass and focuses on new oyster culture methods, meaning those that don’t involve wild seed or on-bottom production. Gisclair’s proposal seeks to leverage these methods, which have been proven to improve survival rates.

John Supan of the LSU AgCenter, who is heading up the research, said the legislation would expand the research area from 5 acres of water bottoms to about 25 acres. Alternative oyster culture activity, which the research supports, is generally defined as any method of growing oysters that doesn’t involve harvesting directly on reefs or other water bottoms.

Supan’s research shows oyster crops actually grow faster and more successfully when they’re suspended high up in the water column, in part to improve water flow. He said the method is more efficient and faster to harvest. It also speeds up the growth rate to one year, compared to two or three with traditional methods, research shows.

He said that’s especially important to remember in light of recent oil spills, hurricanes and freshwater diversions.

original article

_

State senators Wednesday unanimously endorsed a House-passed bill that addresses the civil court side of cleaning up abandoned oil and gas exploration and production sites that polluted landowners’ property.

HB618 by Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans, drew considerable opposition from landowners when it was considered in the House.

Landowners frustrated with not getting their land restored once production was completed have brought civil actions, known as legacy lawsuits, against producers, and some of the suits involve millions of dollars. Often, the drilling leases have been passed among several companies, so identifying the original polluter could be difficult.

There was no opposition in the Senate, where Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, said the bill deals with “the civil side that sets up the environmental management” of the legacy lawsuit issue.

Adley’s SB555, considered a compromise between landowners and industry officials dealing with the physical side of cleaning up polluted sites, is awaiting a hearing in the House.

Abramson says the purpose of his bill is so “oil and gas companies can admit fault and go out there and clean it up as soon as possible.”

The bill says that if an oil or gas company involved in a lawsuit admits liability for the pollution, the Department of Natural Resources’ Office of Conservation is to draw up a cleanup plan and submit it to a judge for approval.

Sen. Francis Thompson, D-Delhi, questioned Adley about a major difference between the two bills — involvement of the Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Agriculture in approving a cleanup plan.

Adley said the two bills work together, so the departments mentioned in his bill would be involved in approving the actual cleanup plan that’s submitted to a court.

Adley attached a two-page amendment to Abramson’s bill in the Senate Natural Resources Committee, so it now goes back to the House for concurrence.

The amendment deals with the landowner granting access to the property so an investigation of the pollution can be performed, doing the environmental testing and setting a 30-day timetable for the testing to be done. It also requires that the responsible party pay all costs of testing and cleanup.

Those provisions were in the original bill but have been restated.

The new provisions would not affect any case that went to court on or before May 15.

original article

_

When making his all-but-declared race against fellow Republican Rep. Charles Boustany official last week, freshman Rep. Jeff Landry also made it clear that this high-profile contest in south Louisiana’s newly formed 3rd District is going to get as hot and muddy as a bayou boat trip.

Landry wasted little time painting Boustany as a Washington insider who had abandoned his conservative principles, going so far as to tie his fellow Republican to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“When Democrats controlled Congress, under Nancy Pelosi, Charles voted with her allowing his pay to increase. Now, do you believe that was a conservative vote?” he asked.

Landry also used his opening campaign speech to try to undercut Boustany on an issue on which the four-term congressman has prided himself — his support for the region’s all-important oil and gas industry.

In fact, Landry touted himself as the true champion of oil and gas jobs in the contest.

His evidence?

During President Obama’s jobs speech before Congress last September, Landry conducted a one-man protest from his seat on the House floor that became one of the take-away images of that evening’s address.

“While others sent out press releases, I took action, holding a ‘DRILLING = JOBS’ sign up at the president’s jobs speech,” Landry said in one of the few subtle shots he took at Boustany during the speech.

With no Senate race on the ballot in Louisiana and little doubt about the outcome of the presidential race there, the Landry-Boustany primary — caused by the state’s loss of a seat in the decennial redistricting process — is shaping up to be the main political event in the Bayou State this fall. And the state’s nonparty blanket primary system means the contest won’t be over until Election Day in November — or later if another candidate joins the race and a December runoff is required.

In an interview this week, Boustany, a member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, scoffed at the notion that Landry can do more for the region’s oil and gas industry than he can.

“My record goes well beyond just holding up a little sign on the House floor,” Boustany said Monday. “This race is going to be about trust, about character, and it’s going to be about effective conservative leadership that fits the district.”

If Landry wants to talk about helping the oil and gas industry, Boustany is happy to point to the freshman congressman’s work to incorporate a provision into the House’s “Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Act” that would require a “standby vessel” within 12 miles of offshore platforms or drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Landry has said the bill would apply the lessons of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and help guarantee the safety of offshore workers.

But Boustany called the provision “completely unnecessary” and “out of touch” with modern emergency, safety and communications systems. He equated the provision, which has passed the House but has yet to be approved in the Senate, to another costly federal regulation imposed on the oil and gas industry.

“It’s going to be a problem for him” in the campaign, Boustany predicted.

Landry campaign manager Brent Littlefield bristled at that suggestion, and in an interview yesterday questioned why Boustany had chosen to make an issue of the standby vessel provision now rather than objecting to the provision when it came up on the House floor late last year.

“Charles Boustany is desperate to come up with some issue to ding Landry with because he has nothing,” Littlefield said.

But Don Briggs, the head of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, in an interview this week agreed with Boustany’s assessment.

“We’re absolutely opposed to it,” Briggs said of the standby vessel provision. “The legislation was absurd; it was ridiculous.”

Briggs said that Gulf drillers already have vessels capable of responding very quickly to accidents, along with helicopters and various safety systems on the rigs themselves that make the standby vessels unnecessary.

Landry “has met with several of the companies that operate in the Gulf of Mexico and has been told of the immense cost it would cause the companies unnecessarily,” said Briggs, who said he knows and is personally supporting Boustany in the race.

But one place where the standby vessel provision hasn’t hurt Landry is with the sea vessel industry.

According to campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Landry is the top recipient of campaign donations from the sea transport industry — which includes shipping, boat building, repair, operation and rental service companies — during the 2012 cycle. His $75,000 in donations from the industry even surpasses the $70,000 total that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has collected from the industry.

Boustany has received $17,000 from sea transport companies.

Money and interest groups

But Boustany, who was unopposed for re-election in 2010, also holds a sizable lead in the overall money chase.

According to the latest Federal Election Commission reports, Landry raised about $327,000 in the first quarter of the year and had $820,000 on hand as of March 31. Boustany raised a similar amount in that time period — about $349,000 — but showed just over $1.5 million on hand at the end of the reporting period.

Boustany’s cash advantage and his closer connections to the party establishment, including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), are considered two of his biggest advantages heading into the fall.

But one X factor that could shake up the race is the potential involvement of powerful outside interest groups that could level the playing field for Landry.

A tea party champion, Landry has played up the fact that Boustany was one of 175 House Republicans who voted last summer to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion. He has already earned the support of the Tea Party of Louisiana and the conservative group Citizens United.

But one interest group that could tip the balances in the race is the powerful and well-funded anti-tax group Club for Growth, which is not shy about playing in GOP primaries.

Club for Growth spokesman Barney Keller would only say this week that the group is “watching the race” and offered no time frame for when or even if a decision would be made to get involved.

Still, Keller pointed out that when it comes to the group’s score card on how well a member voted to cut spending and limit the size of government, Landry received a 94 percent rating. Boustany’s lifetime score is 68 percent.

“Certainly a lifetime score of 68 percent would indicate Congressman Boustany has not voted a pro-growth agenda during his time in Congress,” Keller said.

original article

_

Goodrich Petroleum Corporation GDP +4.48% today announced a Tuscaloosa Marine Shale well result, updated acreage position and development plans.

WELL RESULT Goodrich Petroleum Corporation today announced its participation in and the completion of the Encana – Anderson 17H-1 (5% WI) well in Amite County, Mississippi, with a 72-hour production rate of 1,082 barrels of oil equivalent per day (975 Bopd, 425 Mcf/d) on a 15/64 choke with 2,119 psi flowing casing pressure.

ACREAGE UPDATE The Company has acquired an additional 17,000 net acres in the play, bringing its total to approximately 120,000 net acres, at an average price of approximately $225 per acre.

DEVELOPMENT PLANS The Company is participating with Encana for an estimated 25% working interest in the Joe Jackson 4H-2 well, which is currently drilling in Amite County, Mississippi. In addition, the Company plans to commence operated activities by June 1st on its Denkmann 33H-1 (75% WI) well in Amite County, Mississippi, followed by the Crosby 12H-1 (75% WI) well in Wilkinson County, Mississippi.

OTHER INFORMATION Initial production rates are subject to decline over time and should not be regarded as reflective of sustained production levels. Thirty-day average production rates provide a more representative and credible indication of future well performance. In particular, production from horizontal drilling in shale resource plays and tight gas plays that are stimulated with extensive pressure fracturing are typically characterized by significant early declines in production rates.

Certain statements in this news release regarding future expectations and plans for future activities may be regarded as “forward looking statements” within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. They are subject to various risks, such as financial market conditions, changes in commodities prices and costs of drilling and completion, operating hazards, drilling risks, and the inherent uncertainties in interpreting engineering data relating to underground accumulations of oil and gas, as well as other risks discussed in detail in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct.

Goodrich Petroleum is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

original article

_

A compromise between the oil and gas industry and landowners who want energy production pollution cleaned up on their property on how to clean it up is headed to the House for consideration.

The Senate voted 30-0 Monday for Senate Bill 555 by Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, which spells out steps that enable energy producers to admit fault and clean up “legacy” sites — ones that have existed for years and possibly were caused by oil or gas companies that are no longer in business.

Their admission for cleanup purposes, though, could not be used as an admission in a civil suit for damages.

The compromise bill includes items both sides of the issue want.

Oil and gas companies have complained that they have been dragged into court and had to pay lawyer fees when no actual damage exits. The bill allows for them to go to court and have an investigation of the property to determine if there is damage.

Landowners have complained that the Office of Conservation in the Department of Natural Resources is too close to the industry, so any cleanup plan they developed could be less than the landowner desires.

SB555 calls for DNR, the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Agriculture to serve on a committee to judge whether cleanup plans are appropriate. With their approval, a plan would go directly to the court handling the lawsuit.

Adley told the Senate that it needs to also approve a House-passed bill, HB618, by Rep. Neil Abramson, D-New Orleans.

“The Abramson bill deals with what goes on in the courtroom,” he said. “Mine deals with developing the plan.”

Adley said that there’s no conflict between the bills because SB555 deals with natural resources law and HB618 is deals with civil suits.

Sen. Gerald Long, R-Winnfield, chairman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, said “countless hours went into making this workable plan.” He credited freshman Sen. Bret Allain, R-Franklin, for standing up for landowners and helping forge the bill.

original article

_

While Pennsylvania, northwestern Louisiana and gas-rich areas around the Gulf of Mexico are losing jobs and revenue as the fracking industry shrinks after a price collapse, oil-rich North Dakota and Texas are in the midst of a boom.

Other winners in the fracking lottery include central and southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Wyoming, where the economy is expanding and revenues are climbing.

As oil prices are expected to stay around $100 a barrel for at least a couple of years, the success of these states may last longer. But the high volatility of energy prices may give local economies a headache.

With natural gas prices touching 10-year lows three weeks ago, there could be more pain ahead for gas-rich communities and states where fracking was until recently a growth industry.

The forerunners in fracking natural gas are a case in point.

Parts of northwestern Louisiana, where the Haynesville shale is located, already have been hit as gas rigs left. In Bossier City-Parish, one of the communities in the Haynesville area, the rural district tax revenue fell 25 percent to $2.5 million from January to April, according to tax administrator Ken Kirspel.

Economists warn that this type of reduction in local revenues could spread throughout Louisiana as natural gas output falls, cutting more jobs and revenue.

In the last two years, the oil and gas extraction industry added 36,000 jobs around the nation. Most of those jobs were in natural gas fracking, according to Dean Baker, an economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.

Those jobs could move elsewhere, other experts said.

Fracking is a drilling technique that extracts oil and gas from shale by blasting it with water, sand and chemicals. Environmentalists have raised concerns about possible air and water pollution. Due to these concerns, Vermont is set to ban fracking, and New York has placed a moratorium on it.

How many jobs will be lost in gas production and gained in oil drilling is difficult to estimate, economists say, but local communities in gas-rich areas will feel the pain.

The estimated number of jobs lost could reach 72,000 – or double the jobs added during the fracking boom, said Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. This assumes that each fracking job created one more job in related areas, such as trucking and steel manufacturing, and in other sectors, from hotels to shops, where oil and gas workers spend their wages.

GOODBYE GAS, HELLO OIL

The decline in gas rigs happened swiftly in Louisiana’s gas-rich Haynesville shale. The number of rigs has dropped to about 40 from over 140 over the past 18 months, said Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association.

“These rigs are moving to Texas or other places to drill wells … for oil instead of natural gas,” he said.

Caddo Parish, which enjoyed the fracking boom, is getting squeezed now. Sales tax revenue fell 18 percent in 2011, and has kept slipping this year, said Erica Bryant, director of finance. “We will have to monitor the situation to determine its effect on our operations.”

Some of the economic damage comes from the lost payments that landowners hoped to get from drilling companies.

Suzanne Stinson, the court administrator for Bossier Parish, said a company that leased property from her family for three years has not renewed the contract.

North Dakota’s oil production in January averaged 546,284 barrels a day and “I think it’s very realistic to assume this becomes a million barrels-a-day production,” said John Harju, associate director for research at the University of North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks.

“It didn’t come as a surprise to us,” she said, noting other landowners had the same experience.

The metropolitan area around Shreveport, a Haynesville drilling hub, had 6,800 mining and logging workers in March 2012, down from a year-ago peak of 7,200, according to the Louisiana Workforce Commission.

The state’s severance tax, its natural resource levy, has yet to recover from the Great Recession. It only produced $764 million in 2011 versus a 2008 peak of $1.047 billion. The state’s budget last year was about $25 billion.

Natural gas drilling could remain depressed for a couple of years, economists say, because that is how long it could take to work off the oversupply created by fracking.

The price of natural gas has fallen to about $2.50 per million British thermal units from around $13.70 in July 2008. Output fell in February, and the decline was the bigger of two monthly drops in 12 months.

Drillers have reacted. The number of gas rigs fell last week to 598, the lowest in a decade. Yet the total number of oil rigs rose to 1,372, a 25-year high.

Pennsylvania, which opened its doors to fracking, has started to see gas rigs leave the state. The number last week fell to 95 from 108 a year ago.

“I think Pennsylvania will see some moderation and there probably will be some short-term adverse effects on jobs,” said Eric Smith, a professor at the Tulane Energy Institute, in New Orleans.

The state, whose oil and gas revenue leaped to $419 million in 2011 from $176 million in 2006, could see that windfall shrink as more rigs leave, economists said To put that figure in perspective, the state’s budget last year totaled $27 billion, with gambling alone producing $1.4 billion in 2011 tax revenues.

NORTH DAKOTA’S OIL RUSH

Many rigs have moved to North Dakota because of its oil-rich Bakken shale formation.

Its mining and logging sector rose to 21,000 workers in March 2012 from 15,500 in December 2007, and its oil output topped California’s in January. Economists expect more gains.

North Dakota’s oil production in January averaged 546,284 barrels a day and “I think it’s very realistic to assume this becomes a million barrels-a-day production,” said John Harju, associate director for research at the University of North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks.

The state’s 3 percent jobless rate could fall further, and might even be lower in a few drilling hotbeds, like Williston.

“There’s no unemployment here, everybody’s home values have gone up, but at the same time, there is a lot more traffic,” said Tom Rolfstad, the town’s economic development director.

North Dakota’s oil tax revenue – which totaled $1.027 billion from July 1, 2011 to March 3, 2012 – is expected to keep rising. Its budget is about $4.2 billion.

The state is aiding its booming localities, planning to send them about $1.2 billion by the time its two-year budget ends on June 30.

“They certainly have been our Big Brother through this whole thing … but it is kind of hard to keep up,” Rolfstad said.

original article