Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Mar 14, 2012

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

County wants fees set in case Utica shale tapped
Reading Eagle/Reading Times
Northern Berks County has been identified as an area with natural gas beneath its surface, so an ordinance is needed to make sure that an impact fee could be levied if drilling takes place, the county commissioners agreed Tuesday.

Gas well shuts down heating at Laurel Valley elementary
PittsburghLive.com
Laurel Valley Elementary School reopened on Tuesday after work on a Marcellus shale natural gas well caused water to enter the school’s gas line and made it impossible to heat the building.

Drilling impact fee up for consideration in Fayette
PittsburghLive.com
Commisssioners Angela Zimmerlink and Vincent Zapotosky on Tuesday voted to place the proposed ordinance on the agenda for the board’s possible approval at its regular meeting on March 20.

Marcellus: How much change
Charleston Gazette
Industrial booms always cause upheavals, good and bad. When oil drilling erupted in Sistersville a century ago, wooden rigs sprouted in vacant lots and front lawns; mud and brine were everywhere; inpouring workers lived in shantyboats "four and five deep" along the Ohio River bank; illegal saloons, bordellos and gambling joints proliferated.

Sure Thing: Gov. confident W.Va. will land cracker plant along with new jobs
Martinsburg Journal
Establishing incentives to attract a natural gas refinery, known as a cracker plant, to West Virginia was one of Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s achievements during the recently concluded legislative session.

On An Energy-Equivalent Basis, Natural Gas Falls To New Lows Vs. Oil
Seeking Alpha
Here’s an update of a chart I’ve featured before comparing prices for oil and natural gas on an energy equivalent basis.

Chevron Targets 20% Oil, Gas Output Growth by End of 2017
The Washington Post
Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. energy company by market value, plans to boost oil and natural-gas output by one-fifth through the end of 2017 with new wells from Australia to the Gulf of Mexico.

Tioga County, Pa Impact Fee Approved
WETM-TV Elmira
The fee is based on the number of wells a gas company has in the county and the price of gas from the previous year.

$2 Nat Gas Blues: Preparing for the Bottom – Cook’s Kitchen
Stock Market Review
If clean-burning, abundant natural gas is the efficient energy of the future, why is it so darn cheap, hitting 10-year lows this week near $2.20 per million British thermal units?

Jeff’s Bitch
Weekender
Are you enjoying that $3.79 per gallon gas? Enough is enough already. People should be really pissed off, but not just at the oil companies.

NY Assembly calls for fracking health impact study
PressConnects.com
Environmental and health groups are praising the New York State Assembly for including an independent health impact study of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in its budget proposal on Monday.

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