Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Otsego County | Regulation

Pittsfield, NY Votes to NOT Ban Fracking
April 12, 2012April 12, 2012

While attending the first ever Natural Gas Career and Education Expo held at Broome Community College yesterday, MDN learned of some good news—news that does not get reported by local or statewide media. Board members for the Town of Pittsfield, NY voted earlier this week to table a measure that would ban fracking. Pittsfield is a small township in Otsego County, not far from Middlefield where a lawsuit is underway to overturn a fracking ban there.

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Energy Services | GASFRAC | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Anti-Drillers Now Trashing LPG Fracking
April 12, 2012April 12, 2012

When the announcement that a group of landowners in Tioga County, NY are about to sign sign leases with eCORP to allow drilling on 135,000 acres using waterless LPG fracking, MDN cautioned against euphoria that pro-drillers finally have a method of extracting natural gas that even anti-drillers can’t complain about. We predicted something eminently predictable: They will find things to object to in LPG fracking because, there is not other way to put this, they hate fossil fuels (see this MDN story).

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Ulster County

Olive, NY Town Board Votes to Ban Fracking
April 11, 2012April 11, 2012

Another town in New York has decided to ban hydraulic fracturing—this one in Ulster County:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA

New PA Bill Would Require Real-Time Monitoring of Gas Wells
April 11, 2012April 11, 2012

On Monday, Pennsylvania State Representative Duane Milne, a Republican from Chester, PA (near Philly) held a press conference in his district to announce new Marcellus Shale legislation he will soon introduce. The legislation would require all natural gas wells—wells yet to be drilled and wells already drilled—to install real-time safety monitoring using technology called a wireless mesh network (WMN). The bill will also include real-time monitoring of natural gas pipelines using WMN.

WMN is a series (or network) of wireless transmitters that doesn’t need the Internet in order to “talk” with each other. The transmitters would automatically alert the Department of Environmental Protection and county emergency management organizations if it detects a problem.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Public Opinion

Fox News Poll: Does Fracking Pollute Well Water?
April 11, 2012April 11, 2012

The Fox News website is currently running a poll which asks the question: Do you believe ‘fracking’ pollutes well water? Head on over and vote.

Here are the results so far, as of early Wednesday morning:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

The EPA and Pavillion: Sloppy or Criminal?
April 10, 2012April 10, 2012

An exceptionally well written article about the EPA and their backpedaling on their own tests in Pavillion, Wyoming appears on today’s American Thinker blog. You may recall that the EPA tried to say there is a direct link between chemical contamination of ground water supplies around Pavillion and hydraulic fracturing of gas wells in the area. MDN pointed out early on that even if such a link is eventually made, the geology where those wells were drilled is sandstone (not shale), and the wells are shallow (not deep, like the Marcellus). In other words, the EPA was trying to gin up hysteria by using an apples and oranges comparison (see this MDN story).

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Commodity Price | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pennsylvania | Statewide NY | Statewide PA | Steuben County

NY Customers See 50% Price Decrease from PA Marcellus Gas
April 10, 2012April 10, 2012

Utility customers of Corning Natural Gas Corp. in New York State’s Finger Lakes region can thank their neighbors south of the border in Pennsylvania that they are now paying 50 percent less for their natural gas than they paid just one year ago. And they can also thank the energy companies who use hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale.

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Accidents | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

EPA Says Another 20 Dimock Wells Tested are Fine
April 9, 2012April 9, 2012

$fracking is safe - an incovenient truth$ WARNING: This post contains snide and snarky comments. Anti-drillers are encouraged to not read this post. Proceed at your own risk.

Sometimes MDN thinks the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is more of a public relations press release-generating agency rather than an agency to protect the environment. They issue a multitude of press releases—every day. But when they find that another 20 wells in Dimock, PA are fine and have not been (never were) chemically contaminated by hydraulic fracturing, not a single public press release on it. Oh it gets reported, but the EPA slips a short message to the government’s “other” PR agency, the Associated Press. And the good ole AP will warp and spin it in just the right way to please the government overlords.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Industry Reacts to Interior Sec. Salazar Fracking Statement
April 9, 2012April 9, 2012

Last week, MDN reported the comments made by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar as he toured a drilling “man camp” in the Bakken Shale of North Dakota (see this MDN story). Salazar made the comment that his Interior department is working on new rules for hydraulic fracturing, which seems premature given that the Environmental Protection Agency, another federal agency, is working on a multi-year study of fracking. We now know that the rules Salazar was referring to are for fracking on federal lands that come under the jurisdiction of Bureau of Land Management, an Interior sub-agency. We also now have industry reaction to his statement.

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Broome County | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Equinor/Statoil | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Tioga County (NY)

Judge Orders Arbitration in Chesapeake ‘Force Majeure’ Case
April 5, 2012April 5, 2012

U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd ordered that a lease dispute case between a group of landowners in Broome and Tioga counties (New York) and Chesapeake Energy will go to arbitration for about 150 of the landowners. That’s not-so-good news for those landowners who want to keep the case in federal court. But he also ruled a second case with 32 landowners can go forward in federal court because those leases did not contain an arbitration clause. That’s good news for those landowners, and may end up being good news for those in arbitration. A copy of the judge’s order is embedded below.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Public Opinion

Leftist PRWatch Claims Fracking Causes Breast Cancer
April 5, 2012April 5, 2012

Although it’s preferable to ignore (in an effort to retain one’s sanity) the lie machine that purports to warn us of the environmental holocaust hydraulic fracturing will bring, sometimes we have to respond to the truly egregious whoppers that are spun by the far, far kooky left. Like Daily Kos/Bill Maher kooky. One such organization is the innocent sounding PRWatch, a website of the equally innocent sounding Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). The CMD and PRWatch are somewhere left of Vladimir Putin and Fidel Castro, just to provide perspective.

PRWatch published a whopper yesterday that attempts to tie fracking to breast cancer. Just for good measure, the article also says fracking causes spontaneous abortions and birth defects, and is even responsible for crime against women. Who knew?

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eCORP International | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Landowner Coalition News | Lease & Royalty Payments | New York | Tioga County (NY)

eCORP & Tioga County Landowners Become Partners in Lease Deal
April 4, 2012April 4, 2012

eCORP International and the Tioga County (NY) Landowners Group, also known as Southern Tier Energy Partners (STEP), released details of their new deal to lease 135,000 acres in Tioga County, NY with an eye to using LPG waterless fracking (press release below). It is an interesting deal—not at all typical of the usual leases between drillers and landowners. Perhaps it’s the way of the future in a low commodity gas price environment?

Here’s the low down: eCORP and STEP crafted a deal that makes landowners majority owners of shell companies that control the land. That is, the landowners will become “drillers,” or rather silent partners with the main driller, eCORP—but partners nonetheless, and they collectively will be majority partners, with eCORP a minority partner. eCORP and STEP are tying the knot and getting married—for this deal.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Act 13 Lawsuit Plaintiffs Seek Injunction to Stop Law Now
April 4, 2012April 4, 2012

The plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed last week seeking to overturn PA’s newly adopted Act 13 law that overrides local municipal zoning ordinances of the oil and gas industry, filed a motion yesterday asking the court for an injunction to prevent the new law from going into effect on April 14.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Interior Sec. Ken Salazar Offers Statement on Fracking
April 4, 2012December 11, 2012

Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar recently said that his agency is working on new regulations that will lower the risk of water supplies becoming tainted from hydraulic fracturing operations. Whatever that means. Sec. Salazar was touring a “man camp” housing settlement in the Bakken Shale area of North Dakota on Monday and during a back and forth with the press had this to say on the topic of hydraulic fracturing:

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Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Video

New Video: Women of the Marcellus
April 3, 2012April 3, 2012

MDN is really pleased to share a new video highlighting how Marcellus Shale development is impacting families in Pennsylvania. While many know about the economic impacts and consumer savings made possible by shale gas, this video highlights the personal stories of three families whose lives have been made materially better because of Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania.

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Energy Services | GASFRAC | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY | Tioga County (NY)

Anti-Driller Campaign Against LPG Fracking Begins in NY
April 2, 2012April 2, 2012

It certainly didn’t taken long for anti-drillers to start talking down LPG (waterless) fracking. Just last week, a Tioga County, NY landowner group announced they will sign a lease with eCorp to allow drilling on 135,000 acres in New York using a proprietary technology by Canadian company GASFRAC (see this MDN story). The waterless technology uses liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a gel-like substance that replaces water in fracking. Perhaps most importantly, by using LPG fracking, eCorp can move ahead with permitting and drilling now (in New York!), ahead of the release of new fracking regulations that have been stalled in a four-year review process.

MDN predicted that with almost all stated reasons to oppose water-based fracking now removed, anti-drillers would invent new reasons to oppose LPG fracking. MDN’s prediction has already come true. An article printed in the “news” section of the Albany Times Union, which clearly is an opinion piece, says this:

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