Fracking Pays! Frac Tech Floats IPO to Raise $1.15B
Even though “fracking” – a reference to hydraulic fracturing – has become a dirty word for some, it’s certainly a good business to be in. Frac Tech International is one such company in the business of providing fracking services to oil and gas drillers. Just 11 years old and with yearly revenues exceeding a billion dollars, Frac Tech is set to float shares of stock and become a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company plans to change its name to FTS International and wants to raise $1.15 billion in an initial public offering (IPO).
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When it comes to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, one size does not fit all with respect to regulation, and moratoriums. Most people caught up in the frenzy of opposing fracking, especially in New York, may not realize that there are thousands of wells drilled in New York State, right now, that are fracked every year, and have been going back for the past 60 years. And with no cases of groundwater contamination.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued a “final” draft version of proposed new drilling regulations yesterday (see link to full copy below) after incorporating new information it received from a private study about the industrialization affects of drilling on local communities. The new draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) weighs in at 1,537 pages—a behemoth. DEC Commissioner Joe Martens set up a 90-day public comment period to end December 12th, instead of the previously promised 60-day period.
A new peer-reviewed study from Carnegie Mellon University says that Marcellus gas has less impact on global warming than coal. The study, published in the Institute of Physics Aug. 5th issue of “Environmental Research Letters” is a direct refutation of the Cornell study released in April by professors Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea. The Cornell study was based on sketchy data (admitted to by Howarth & Ingraffea), and pure guesswork. It made the claim that shale gas was worse for global warming and the environment than burning coal.
For some time now, MDN has covered the hydraulic fracturing ban passed by the city of Morgantown, West Virginia (
Want to know what chemicals are being used at a nearby Marcellus gas well that’s being drilled near you in Pennsylvania? Right now, it’s not so easy to find out. Here’s how Pennsylvania’s fracking chemical disclosure rules work, which went into effect in February of this year:
In early May, the federal Department of Energy (DOE), under the direction of DOE Secretary Steven Chu, assembled a panel of seven experts to create a list of industry “best practices” for shale gas drillers (