Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

NY Gov Cuomo Omits Money for Drilling Inspectors in 2013 Budget
January 23, 2013January 23, 2013

We believe we’ve seen this movie before… NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo released his proposed 2013 budget yesterday. Not included in the budget was money to hire new inspectors for the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to inspect oil and gas drilling—inspectors that will be needed if shale drilling finally begins in the state this year.

Is the omission of money for new inspectors important, and does it indicate which way the governor is leaning with his career make-or-break decision? According to the governor himself, don’t read too much into it…

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Regulation | Statewide MD

MD Marcellus Drillers Withdraw Applications, No Drilling for Now
January 23, 2013January 23, 2013

Will there be Marcellus Shale drilling any time soon in the two western Maryland counties that have Marcellus Shale? The short answer: no. You need to have drillers who want to drill, and as of now, applications to drill in the Marcellus from the four drillers who filed them with the state Department of the Environment have all been withdrawn.

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Energy Services | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Mahoning County | Ohio | Santrol

New Frack Sand Terminal Opens Near Youngstown, OH
January 23, 2013January 23, 2013

Hydraulic fracturing uses sand—a lot of sand—during the process of drilling for natural gas. The sand is a special kind of very pure sand called silica. It’s used to “prop open” tiny fractures in the shale so gas can drain out—hence it’s referred to as a “proppant.” Most silica is mined in the Midwest, in states like Wisconsin and Minnesota, so getting it from point A to point B for use in drilling can be expensive. Terminals are created to bring in sand by railroad and truck and to store it, making it less expensive.

Santrol, a subsidiary of Fairmount Minerals company, announced today they have just opened a new proppant terminal for Marcellus and Utica Shale drillers. The new terminal is located just south of Youngstown, OH—close the border areas of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. From the Santrol announcement:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

New USGS Study Proves Fracking Does Not Contaminate Water Wells
January 22, 2013January 22, 2013

An important new scientific study was released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) on Jan. 9 that tests 127 water wells in the Fayetteville Shale area of north-central Arkansas. Fracking for natural gas began in the Fayetteville Shale in 2004, and since then, some 4,000 wells have been drilled. There were good historical records available for the 127 water wells to compare pre- and post-drilling results. Who woulda thunk we would actually use science to determine whether or not fracking is safe? What a novel concept.

The study is titled “Shallow Groundwater Quality and Geochemistry in the Fayetteville Shale Gas-Production Area, North-Central Arkansas, 2011” (full copy embedded below). What did the USGS find? They found that fracking didn’t affect water wells. No chemical contamination. Nada.

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Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Jobs

IHS Report from Davos: U.S. Shale Energy is Changing the World
January 22, 2013January 22, 2013

Research company IHS, which has produced many excellent reports over the year, particularly in the area of energy, is releasing a brand new report titled Energy and the New Global Industrial Landscape: A Tectonic Shift later this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A copy of the Executive Summary for the new report is embedded below.

According to the new report, unconventional energy in the U.S.—shale gas and tight oil plays—is changing not only the U.S. but the world by reviving U.S. manufacturing, creating 1.7 million jobs here at home and adding $62 billion to federal and state coffers—and that’s just for 2012!

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Portage County | Regulation

Anti-Drilling Fervor Heats Up in Kent, OH
January 22, 2013January 22, 2013

Anti-drillers in and around Kent, Ohio have some helpful suggestions for elected officials in Kent: ban fracking. And if you can’t ban it, make zoning so onerous that the practical effect would be to ban it. And if you can’t do that, be sure to pass a law that blocks access to all water supplies around Kent so drillers have no way of fracking. And if you can’t do that… See a theme developing here?

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Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Guernsey County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Noble County | Ohio

OH Muskingum Watershed District to Sign Drilling Lease in Feb.
January 21, 2013January 21, 2013

Last November, MDN told you that the Ohio Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD), the largest watershed district in the state covering about 20% of Ohio’s landmass, had entered negotiations with Antero Resources to allow drilling and fracking under MWCD land around Seneca Lake (see OH Muskingum Watershed District Seeks Lease with Antero). Everything but the final price is now done, and the proposed lease (copy embedded below) will be voted on at the next board meeting of the MWCD on Feb. 15.

The lease, as written, will allow drilling under but not on 6,700 acres of property in Guernsey and Noble counties. Antero will have to drill from adjacent properties to reach the land—no disturbance of the surface will be permitted. How much will the MWCD get for a signing bonus and royalties?

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Auditor General Targets State’s Marcellus Drilling Industry
January 21, 2013January 21, 2013

Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP): Prepare for a painful anal exam, coming courtesy the newly elected PA Auditor General Eugene DePasquale. That was the gist of a letter sent by DePasquale to Michael Krancer, Secretary of the DEP, on DePasquale’s first day on the job (a copy of the full letter is embedded below).

The DEP’s response to DePasquale? Bring it on…

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Energy Companies | Energy Services | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pennsylvania General Energy | Statewide PA | Universal Well

PA Frack Pumps Converting to Use LNG for Fuel
January 21, 2013January 21, 2013

EQT was the first driller in the Marcellus Shale to convert a drilling rig to run on electricity produced by engines using an LNG/diesel mix (see this MDN story). CONSOL was next to experiment with converting some of their rigs to use LNG/diesel (see this MDN story). Then Seneca Resources, the gas drilling arm of National Fuel Gas Company, announced two of their drilling rigs will use 100% LNG as fuel (see this MDN story).

What started as a trickle is turning into a flood in Pennsylvania and throughout the Marcellus/Utica region and beyond. More companies are in the process of converting fleets to run on LNG or a mix of LNG/diesel. These new conversions will not only power initial drilling, but will also power the massive pump engines and heavy equipment used in the fracking process itself…

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Looney Toons Anti-Fracking Celebrities Visit Montrose, PA
January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Yesterday John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono and son Sean Lennon, along with reliably left movie star Susan Sarandon, boarded a Mercedes tour bus in New York City (burning gobs of diesel, a hated fossil fuel) and headed to the Montrose area of northeastern PA to “tour” drilling and compressor plant sites, visit with the commoners, and make pretentious pronouncements about how gas drilling is killing everyone and everything.

Ono and Lennon, in a bid to boost their non-existent public profiles, started a group last year called “Artists Against Fracking,” which is really kind of funny. Neither Ono nor Lennon can hold a tune in a bucket (see this hysterically funny video of them singing a song about fracking). But perhaps the “art” in “artists” comes from the pornography the 79 year-old Ono creates (see this story about her 2012 “fashion line for men”).

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

NJ Fracking Moratorium Expires (Yawn) – Junior Still Wants Ban
January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Yesterday a one-year temporary moratorium on fracking in New Jersey expired—hardly anyone noticed. Nobody wants to drill in New Jersey. The Marcellus Shale that clips one small corner of the state most likely has no gas in it (being on the outer fringe of the Marcellus). But that doesn’t stop anti-drillers from continuing their insistence that the state adopt a full-out ban on fracking.

RINO NJ Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, Jr. (“Junior”) is still pushing his “ban it until the EPA says it’s OK” bill in the legislature (see NJ Bill Would Ban Fracking Until EPA Report is Done). Of course the real aim for Junior and other anti-drillers, as expressed by Environment NJ’s Doug O’Malley, is a permanent ban that will “send a strong message.” The now expired one-year moratorium? That was just a “fig leaf” according to O’Malley…

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Broome County | Chemung County | Chenango County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Steuben County | Tioga County (NY)

Anti-Fracking Group Mails Propaganda Brochure to 190K NYers
January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy is mailing an anti-fracking brochure (killing precious trees from the Catskills to provide the paper, no doubt) to 190,000 residents throughout the Southern Tier area of New York—a region that desperately wants and needs drilling, and the area that will see drilling when/if the current moratorium is lifted. The brochure is pure propaganda and full of outright lies, but hey, this is still Ameritopia where the First Amendment is alive and well, for people on the left anyway.

An electronic copy of the brochure is embedded below so MDN’s fellow NYers know what they can use to line the bird cage with when it arrives.

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Regulation | Research | Statewide MD

Maryland Gov Finally Allocates Money for Fracking Study in Budget
January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

The stumbling, bumbling governor of Maryland, Socialist/Democrat Martin O’Malley, finally figured out that if the fracking study he himself ordered back in 2011 is ever going to get done by 2014, he’ll need to find money in the budget to do it. So in a blinding acknowledgement of the obvious, he included $1.5 million in the proposed budget he delivered to the legislature yesterday.

Of course, $1.5 million in Maryland is a rounding error in the state budget, but until now anti-drillers in the state have used lack of funding for the study as a convenient excuse to continue a moratorium on drilling. Look for the state’s Dems to neuter out the $1.5 million and then throw up their hands and say “no funding, no study, no drilling.” Typical.

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Garrett County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Regulation | Statewide MD

Maryland Shale Drilling Moratorium to be Debated in Legislature
January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

Want to kill something? Just keep studying it. So says a very perceptive Maryland State Delegate, Wendell Beitzel, who represents Garrett County, MD. Beitzel wants to move forward with Marcellus drilling in Maryland. He faces an uphill battle. There’s a movement on right now to delay drilling by studying it to death (apparently Maryland is taking their cue from New York in that regard)…

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

Elsevier Launches New Journal for Unconventional Oil & Gas
January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

Elsevier, perhaps the world’s biggest publisher of scientific journals, is launching a new journal in 2013 called, Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources—that is, a journal about fracking.The new scholarly journal will be published quarterly and edited by a professor from Penn State.

Here’s the announcement:

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Newly Elected PA Auditor General Targets DEP First Day on Job
January 16, 2013January 16, 2013

Keeping a campaign pledge—because it’s always good to keep a pledge if you’re an anti-drilling Democrat, but it’s OK to conveniently forget all the other pledges you made—the newly sworn-in Auditor General for Pennsylvania, Eugene DePasquale, has targeted the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) in what can only be described as a political attack in his very first day on the job:

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