Archive for 'Industrywide Issues'
The talk coming from the largest drillers in the Marcellus Shale is that they will scale back drilling activities in the dry (methane only) portions of the Marcellus Shale play and instead focus on the wet (liquids-rich) portion. Ever wonder where, exactly, the liquids-rich area can be found? We now know where it is for [...]
Dr. Gary G. Lash, Department of Geosciences Professor at SUNY Fredonia and Director of the SUNY Fredonia Shale Research Institute, doesn’t often grant interviews. But he recently opened up with reporter from the Dunkirk (NY) Observer about the science, and politics, of hydraulic fracturing. Dr. Lash is an international authority on the Marcellus, so when [...]
In the complicated, ongoing story of fracking wastewater treatment in Warren, Ohio, the existing permit that allows the Warren Water Pollution Control Facility (sewage treatment plant) to dispose of treated brine water in the Mahoning River expires today. But because the renewal of the permit is something that has been appealed, according to Ohio EPA [...]
Pipelines are a necessary part of drilling for and transporting shale gas. But they can also be one of the most contentious parts—especially when the government confers the power of eminent domain to a pipeline company who then can force landowners to accept the pipeline, weakening their bargaining position. A recent example is the MARC [...]
Last September, Dominion Resources filed an application with the Department of Energy (DOE) to begin exporting liquefied natural gas from its Cove Point terminal in Maryland—up to 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day (see this MDN story). Dominion Resources CEO Thomas Farrell said last Friday he believes the permit will be issued later [...]
It looks like a $520 million Marcellus Lateral Project pipeline that Kinder Morgan wanted to build spanning 240 miles from the West Virginia panhandle to Toledo, Ohio, and the 2,500 jobs it would have provided, is dead.
It seems that MDN is not the only skeptic when it comes to President Obama’s election year conversion to supporting shale gas and fracking. An article in yesterday’s Washington Times asks the question, “Is the natural gas sector set up by Obama to be sabotaged?” Some industry observers believe the administration is publicly supporting fracking [...]
Cabot Oil & Gas President & CEO Dan Dinges sent a letter yesterday to federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson about the EPA’s sudden change of plans concerning the situation in Dimock, PA (the full letter is embedded below). The upshot of the letter? You need to rethink your recent decision to interfere [...]
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this week (We Don’t Need More Foreign Oil and Gas), Obama supporters and long-time Democrat flacks John Podesta and Tom Steyer tried to make the argument that we don’t need Canada’s oil (and natural gas) because we now have enough of our own, thank you very much. Apparently [...]
Less than 24 hours after President Obama called for full disclosure of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, the drilling industry held its first public meeting to roll out FracFocus.org, an online database that does just what the President requested. The meeting, held in Williamsport, PA, brought together drilling companies, environmental engineers and other experts, along [...]
In 2008, a homeowner located near gas wells drilled in Westmoreland County, PA by Atlas Energy says his well water turned muddy immediately after drilling was done. At the time, Atlas told him to stop drinking the water and supplied him with a water buffalo, making fresh water deliveries ever since. That is, until two [...]
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, in which he openly supports drilling for natural gas and the “safe” use of hydraulic fracturing, has given a glimmer of hope to landowners in New York State that perhaps the President’s support for fracking will finally end the moratorium on drilling in New York.