Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Apr 11, 2012

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

Road use near wells concerns Trumbull engineer
Youngstown News
Recent discussions between the Trumbull County Engineer’s Office and a company making plans to drill a gas well in the county have exposed some road-use issues that need to be addressed, Engineer Randy Smith says.

Burdette: Gas surplus not bad news for shale development
Parkersburg News and Sentinel
The glut of natural gas surplus is good news for consumers who could see prices as low as a $1 this summer, and it’s not necessarily bad news for shale drilling in the area, according to a state development official.

Separating natural gas liquids: fancy distillation
WV State Journal
"Fractionation" may be about to become a household word in the upper Ohio valley, as plants spring up to separate the liquids that come up with methane in the rich-gas corridor of the Marcellus and Utica shales.

Environmental group sues state agency for failing to turn over public records of new drilling program
Cleveland Plain Dealer
An environmental group sued the Ohio Department of Natural Resources this week because the agency has not turned over public records related to a new program that allows oil and gas drilling at state parks.

Man pleads guilty to damaging Marcellus Shale pipeline
Westmoreland County Times
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that Henry Virgil Benton, 44 years of age, of Bradford, Arkansas, pleaded guilty before United States District Court Judge John E. Jones, III to a felony information charging him with knowingly engaging in an excavation activity resulting in damage to a natural gas pipeline exceeding $50,000.

The Keystone Pipeline Fallout: Canada Makes Over a Billion New Friends
Money Morning
You can forget about energy independence for now. Without Canadian oil it is nothing but the latest American pipe dream. In the wake of the Keystone Pipeline decision, Canada has decided to play ball with China instead.

One Economy to Rule Them All
BrothersJudd Blog
The second force behind export growth will be the recent discoveries of very large shale oil and natural gas deposits in the United States. Come 2030, the United States may well be the new Saudi Arabia of energy markets.

Lease signing begins with BP for drilling
Tribune-Chronicle
After losing his job of 37 years at Denman Tire, Gary Armstrong knows not to squander a once-in-a-lifetime windfall in the form of a natural gas drilling lease on his family farm in Gustavus.

Fayette County adopts impact fee on shale gas drilling
Valley News Dispatch
Fayette County commissioners on Tuesday adopted an ordinance imposing impact fees on Marcellus shale natural gas wells.

Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley Visits Wellsboro
WENY
Pennsylvania’s Lieutenant Governor comes to Wellsboro to talk about the role of natural gas drilling in the state’s economy.

Fracking not so black and white – Lower East Side discussion with ProPublica
Examiner.com
Longtime investigative fracking journalist, Abrahm Lustgarten (ProPublica) is seeing light that the process may be able to be done safely enough, these days.

Climate Coalitions Crumble, Economic Worries to Blame
National Review Online
In recent months, major coalitions of big business/big labor/green lobbyists , formed to combat climate change, have begun unravel.