Industrywide Issues

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

Oxford, NY Decides to Stay Neutral in Drilling Debate
August 10, 2012August 10, 2012

It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it’s also not a vote to ban fracking. The town board for Oxford (Chenango County, NY), decided at a meeting Wednesday night to not vote one way or the other on drilling, but instead to wait for the Dept. of Environmental Conservation to issue its new drilling guidelines. Oxford sits squarely in both the Utica and Marcellus Shale zones of New York State.

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Chimera Energy | Energy Services | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

New Non-Fracking Technology Takes Root in Mexico
August 10, 2012August 10, 2012

An MDN reader alerted us about a month ago to a new non-fracking technology being marketed by Chimera Energy Corp. We watched the video on their website and were immediately turned off by its “fracking is bad, we have a better way of doing it” message. We’re fully in favor of new technology and better ways of doing things! We also have no problem with upsetting the status quo. However, in looking for a marketing edge, MDN believes Chimera is making a mistake by throwing stones at the miracle of hydraulic fracturing. What they apparently don’t realize is that if water-based fracking were banned today everywhere, rabid anti-drillers would find new flimflam excuses to object to their technology too—because they hate fossil fuels period. Need proof? See this MDN story about GASFRAC’s LPG non-water-based fracking technology.

It seems Chimera is getting some traction with their new, non-fracking technology. They’ve just announced an agreement with Mexico’s state-owned energy company Petróleos Mexicanos, or “Pemex.” Pemex is the biggest company of any kind in all of Latin America—really huge. Pemex has decided to give Chimera’s non-fracking technology a try south of the border.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Trucking

U.S. DOT Trucking Rule Clarification Targets Shale Drilling
August 10, 2012August 10, 2012

Back in June, MDN wrote about a new “rule clarification” by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation that disallows truckers from subtracting down time as they wait for trucks to be loaded/unloaded when it comes to hauling water and sand for fracking oil and gas wells (see this MDN story).

The rule clarification has been controversial (and costly). More than 60 Congressmen sent a letter to Transportation Sec. LaHood last week requesting the rule clarification be reversed because it targets a particular industry: shale drilling. Some say the DOT is giving the EPA and DOE an assist since those federal agencies are having a hard slowing down natural gas development in favor of so-called alternative energy development. The rule change helps put the brakes on (pun intended).

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Alternative Energy | Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues

Natural Gas Benefits Renewables in the Long-Term
August 10, 2012August 10, 2012

Michael Butler, co-founder of Cascadia Capital and former managing director at Lehman Brothers responsible for global equity sales, today published his five predictions for the sustainable energy industry for the balance of 2012. His predictions #4 and #5 deal with natural gas. MDN found them interesting:

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide PA | Sunoco Logistics

Sunoco Logistics Open Season for Mariner East NGL Pipeline
August 10, 2012August 10, 2012

Sunoco Logistics began an “open season” yesterday for their Mariner East pipeline project to deliver natural gas liquids—propane and ethane—from liquids-rich Marcellus Shale areas in western Pennsylvania to refineries and shipping terminals in southeastern Pennsylvania. An open season is the time when drillers can sign up and make long-term commitments to use the pipeline.

From the Sunoco press release:

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

More Details on Gov. Cuomo’s Plan to Start Fracking
August 9, 2012August 9, 2012

We have a lot more insight into what Gov. Cuomo is planning thanks to Tom Wilbur, former environmental reporter for Gannett News and the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin. Tom is a confirmed anti-driller. He won’t tell you that, but we will. We’ve read his writing for years, and it’s evident that he’s opposed to shale gas drilling.

However, he has his sources in Albany, and they’ve come through for him big-time. Tom writes about many of the details Gov. Cuomo and the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) are revealing to anti-drilling environmental groups ahead of the public release of new drilling rules for New York (called the SGEIS). He chronicles the details on his blog.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues

EIA: Marcellus Shale Reserves Underreported
August 9, 2012August 9, 2012

Remember all those stories about how “there really isn’t as much shale gas in the Marcellus and elsewhere as ‘industry’ wants you to believe”? Those stories got their start with an artful work of fiction by Ian Urbina in an New York Times article last year (click here to read it). Urbina supposedly quoted someone who called shale gas reserves a Ponzi scheme, a la Bernie Madoff or Enron. One of the arguments used to support that particular fiction was that the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) had revised their estimates down for estimated reserves in the Marcellus Shale—down by a lot.

But what’s this? Last week EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski in testimony before Congress said with reference to Marcellus estimated reserves of natural gas, “I think it’s possible we’ll find, as production data begins to come in — Pennsylvania is a state that has significant lags in reporting of production data — we will begin to see those numbers inching up.” In the latest report from the EIA, their estimates for Marcellus Shale reserves in 2010, the latest reporting year, have gone up dramatically—based on production data just now coming in (see the EIA chart below).

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

Caton, NY Decides to Stay Neutral in the Fracking Debate
August 9, 2012August 9, 2012

The town board for the Town of Caton (Steuben County, NY) decided last night to not cast a vote either way in the fracking debate. They won’t vote on a resolution in favor of drilling, nor will they vote for a ban, according to Town Supervisor Kate Hughes. Instead, they’ll remain neutral on the issue.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA

How Many Jobs will Utica Shale Drilling Create in Ohio?
August 9, 2012August 9, 2012

How many jobs can Ohio expect from Utica Shale drilling? If it follows the same general path of Pennsylvania—and there’s no reason to expect it would not—for every job created in the oil and gas industry, two jobs are created in other industries to support it. It’s a 1:2 ratio.

Every new well drilled in PA created 30 jobs (in 2009) and $4 million in economic activity in the local economy. That is, shale gas drilling is hugely beneficial for both job creation and economic activity.

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Commodity Price | Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Gas Utility Lowers NatGas Rate by 11.59%
August 9, 2012August 9, 2012

Bluefield Gas, a gas utility company based in Bluefield, West Viriginia, is lowering their rates for natural gas by 11.59%, effective November 1. Why? Marcellus Shale, of course.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Wastewater

Penn State Paper on Water Usage in the Marcellus
August 9, 2012August 9, 2012

One of the concerns raised by anti-drillers, in an attempt to scare people, is that shale gas fracking will a) use up too much of our precious fresh water supplies, and b) wastewater from drilling will pollute fresh water supplies. The problem with those allegations is lack of evidence. If water supplies are in danger, then why have we not seen such shortages or contamination after 40,000 or so horizontal natural gas wells have been drilled since the early 2000s?

Every now and again a university will publish the facts on drilling, including it’s impacts on water. In May, Penn State University’s Extension program published such a paper, titled “Water’s Journey Through the Shale Gas Drilling and Production Processes in the Mid-Atlantic Region” (embedded below). It takes a look at how much and where water is used in the drilling process, and also deals with how wastewater is handled.

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

NY to Release New Fracking Regulations by Labor Day
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

A major announcement is on the way in New York State about fracking and and the now four year-old moratorium on horizontal drilling: The fracking ban is about to end. According to a commentary published in the Albany Times Union last Saturday, top officials from the Cuomo administration are briefing “selected environmental groups” about his plan to allow fracking in New York State—a plan which he’ll release before Labor Day.

Here’s what’s being reported:

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Industrywide Issues | Landfills | New York | Steuben County

Steuben County, NY Landfill Ready to Accept Shale Cuttings
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

The Steuben County landfill in Bath, NY is now approved and ready to accept “shale cuttings,” or leftover soil and rock that comes from shale gas drilling. They join neighboring Chemung County that has accepted shale cuttings for over a year now, and Allegany County.

Although they don’t expect to receive much in the way of cuttings this year from Pennsylvania drillers because of a slowdown in drilling, Steuben officials want to be ready “just in case” Marcellus drilling in New York ramps up.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Why Has Fracking Become a Political Issue?
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

An excellent article in Industrial Heating magazine tackles the issue of hydraulic fracturing and the pot shots being taken by anti-drillers, based not on science, but on scare tactics. The author says the fracking issue has largely become political (where have you heard that before?!). Here is a paragraph from the article that could have been written by MDN:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research | Wastewater

New Study on Water Pollution Risk from Marcellus Drilling
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

A new paper is about to be published in a scientific journal that will no doubt get misrepresented and widely reported in the mainstream press about assessing the risks of Marcellus Shale drilling. The paper is titled “Water Pollution Risk Associated with Natural Gas Extraction from the Marcellus Shale,” written by a graduate student and his professor at SUNY Stony Brook. The published paper will appear in the August issue of the journal Risk Analysis, a publication of the Society for Risk Analysis (a preview copy of the full article is embedded below).

The paper looks at the theoretical probabilities of fracking fluids finding their way into the natural environment and polluting (contaminating) fresh water supplies. MDN will discuss what this paper does, and does not, say.

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Earthquakes | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Bloomberg (Once Again) Says Fracking Causes Earthquakes
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Bloomberg Businessweek is highlighting the publication of a new paper that looks at earthquake activity around injection wells in Texas and concludes that fracking causes earthquakes. The article starts this way:

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