Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Jan 4, 2012

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:

Energy Giants Undeterred by Quakes Seek Shale Growth Runway
Bloomberg Businessweek
Asian and European energy producers are spending billions of dollars to amass stakes in oil and natural-gas discoveries from Ohio to British Columbia even as earthquakes and tainted water threaten to stall the biggest drilling boom in at least two decades.

Pa., Ohio and W.Va. vie for Shell plant
PittsburghLive.com
Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia officials are waiting to hear which will be the home for a huge new chemical plant that could bring thousands of jobs and millions of tax dollars to the winning state.

Fracking leases may be harder to acquire
Steuben Courier
Marcellus Shale natural gas production is expected to keep rising in 2012, yet landowners may find that signing lease deals isn’t as easy as in years past.

Several Marcellus Shale firms left off pollution reporting list
Post-gazette.com
The Pennsylvania DEP didn’t notify several big companies involved in Marcellus Shale gas development that they must monitor and report emissions, and an environmental organization said that could render an ongoing, federally mandated state air pollution inventory inaccurate.