Industrywide Issues

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

MDN Hits the Road for the NY DEC Hearings at Tribeca
November 30, 2011November 29, 2011

The last two ~~circus shows~~ public hearings sponsored by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on proposed changes to draft shale gas drilling regulations will be held on Wednesday (today) in New York City at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center (Manhattan) from 1-4 pm and again from 6-9 pm. MDN editor Jim Willis is attending the 1 pm session (if he can get in!). A full report will follow on Thursday or Friday.

Meanwhile, a crowd of some 500 pro- and anti-drilling advocates showed up on Tuesday in Loch Sheldrake (Sullivan County), NY for the next to last pair of hearings. See today’s Story Links for early coverage from Loch Sheldrake.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Wastewater

Some NJ Legislators Say No to Fracking Wastewater
November 30, 2011November 29, 2011

New Jersey legislators—at least some of them—don’t want wastewater from Marcellus (and Utica) Shale gas drilling in their state. New legislation is now making its way through the NJ state Assembly:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Error Found in Penn State Fracking & Water Well Study
November 29, 2011November 29, 2011

MDN recently highlighted a new study of several hundred water wells by Penn State researchers which found no evidence of chemical or methane contamination related to nearby Marcellus gas drilling (see this MDN story). The study did announce one oddity in the data: increased levels of bromide in seven wells. That oddity has now been explained—it was a lab error. Oops. Bottom line conclusion from the study? Shale gas drilling does not lead to either methane or chemical contamination of nearby water wells.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PSU Prof Engelder Named One of Top 100 Global Thinkers
November 29, 2011November 29, 2011

Penn State University professor Terry Engelder, a tireless supporter and promoter of shale gas drilling—particularly in the Marcellus Shale—has just been named one of Foreign Policy Magazine’s “Top 100 Global Thinkers” for 2011 for his research into recovering natural gas from shale using hydraulic fracturing.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Jobs

The Non-Green Jobs Boom – from Hydraulic Fracturing
November 29, 2011November 29, 2011

An excellent article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal on the non-green jobs boom coming from the energy sector—specifically due to horizontal drilling and the use of hydraulic fracturing—starts out this way:

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

Maryland Politicians on Gas Drilling – Dumb & Dumber
November 28, 2011November 28, 2011

It’s really kind of funny to watch lawmakers and “leaders” in the state of Maryland talk about drilling in the Marcellus Shale, which, if it were to happen in the state, would happen in two western counties: Garrett and Allegany. Earlier this year Gov. Martin O’Malley appointed a 14-member commission to study the drilling issue, with a final report not due until 2014.

It’s a really big “if” that shale drilling will even be allowed in the state, but just in case it were to be allowed, politicians from Washington, D.C. suburbs (like Montgomery County, Maryland) want to tax the living daylights out of it:

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

PA Legislature Struggles with Gas Well Setback Provision
November 28, 2011November 28, 2011

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is hopeful that the Republican-controlled Senate and House will pass new Marcellus Shale drilling legislation that reaches him by year’s end. But one of the political footballs is working out the issue of setbacks, or how far away a gas well can be drilled from a body of water like a creek, a private water well or a spring. Put the gas well too close and critics argue you increase the chance that an accident can damage the water supply. But make setbacks too far and it makes it practically impossible to drill any wells because the state has so many small waterways. That is, it becomes a back door way to prevent all drilling.

Here is the current state of play between the two differing versions of legislation that have passed in the Senate and House which now need to be reconciled before reaching Gov. Corbett:

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Energy Services | Enterprise Products Partners | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide OH

Work on New Ethane Pipeline to Gulf Coast Now Underway in OH
November 28, 2011November 28, 2011

Survey work in central Ohio has already begun on a new ethane pipeline to be built by Enterprise Products Partners. The pipeline, which was recently announced (see this MDN story), will reach from the Marcellus and Utica Shale region in Washington County, PA all the way to Cape Girardeau, MO where it will connect with an existing pipeline to the Gulf Coast. Surveyors for the new pipeline have already turned up in Fairfield County, OH.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Medina County | Ohio | Regulation

Eastern OH Town Bans Fracking on Town-Owned Property
November 23, 2011November 23, 2011

On Monday, Hinckley, Ohio trustees voted to ban the use of hydraulic fracturing on township-owned property.

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Housing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

New Study Claims Housing Crisis in NE PA from Gas Drilling
November 22, 2011November 3, 2012

A new report on a “housing crisis” in Pennsylvania’s northern-tier counties has just been released by The Institute for Public Policy and Economic Development, a research partnership among Keystone College, King’s College, Luzerne County Community College, Marywood University, Misericordia University, Penn State Wilkes-Barre, The Commonwealth Medical College, University of Scranton, and Wilkes University. A copy of the 200 page study is available to download below.

The study purports to show that when counties attract a lot of shale gas drilling activity, they also attract a housing crisis because workers in the drilling industry make more money than non-drilling industry residents and are willing to pay more to rent housing.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Meetings | Regulation

Picture of Hypocritical Anti-Driller at Recent NY DEC Hearing
November 22, 2011November 29, 2011

At the recent Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) hearings on proposed new gas drilling regulations held in Binghamton, NY on Nov. 17, one of the attendees snapped the picture below of a protesting anti-driller.

MDN believes its readers are sharp enough to spot the obvious hypocrisy.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA DEP Allows Acid Mine Water to be Used in Fracking
November 22, 2011November 22, 2011

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is attempting to “kill two birds with stone” by allowing Marcellus Shale gas drillers to use acid mine drainage from abandoned coal mines as water for hydraulic fracturing of shale gas wells. Yet another example of how gas drilling can be good for the environment.

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA | Tennessee Gas Pipeline

Tennesee Gas Pipeline Receives Approval for Northeast Upgrade
November 22, 2011November 22, 2011

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) yesterday approved a request by the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company to upgrade its Northeast Project with construction of extra pipeline loops in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as compressor plant upgrades in both states. The end result will be an extra 636,000 dekatherms of gas delivered per year in the important northeast market—most of it Marcellus Shale gas.

From the FERC press release:

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Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Jadela Oil

New Waterless Fracking Technology Tested in TX
November 21, 2011November 21, 2011

From time to time MDN has covered alternative fracking technologies. As a few MDN readers have repeatedly noted in the comments, a new technology which uses natural gas itself (instead of water) in the fracking process is being used in Canada and now, it is being tried in Texas. Jadela Oil is conducting what they call a “science experiment” in Maverick County, Texas, in the Eagle Ford Shale, to see if this new waterless fracking technology will work as well in our shale deposits as it does in Canada.

Jadela recently completed fracking their first well in September using propane/butane and they are waiting for full data on how the well is producing before making the results known.

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Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Mariner East Ethane Pipeline/Shipping Combo Still Alive
November 21, 2011November 21, 2011

There’s more than one way to get ethane to a cracker plant. MDN has chronicled the debate over whether pipelines to other regions like the Gulf Coast or Canada, or locally built ethane cracker (processing) plants, or a mix of the two, should be used to process the ethane-rich “wet gas” from the Marcellus and Utica Shales. Four ethane pipeline projects and at least one locally built ethane cracker plant have been promoted by various companies. Two of the four pipelines are “solid” and moving forward. The other two, according to one analyst, are in doubt (see this MDN story).

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

DRBC Postpones Vote to Finally Allow Safe Gas Drilling
November 20, 2011November 20, 2011

The five voting members of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) have decided to postpone a vote scheduled for Monday to finally, after a years-long delay, allow some (a teeny, tiny bit) of gas drilling to proceed in the DRBC’s jurisdictional area. It seems environmental groups have convinced both Delaware and New York to vote against the new drilling regulations—regulations that have been vetted repeatedly in public forums, with public comments, reworking, refining and with multiple delays. And because two of the four states who belong to the DRBC are voting no, at least one other state (NJ) wants to wait.

Obviously anti-drilling forces want no drilling. They are not interested in safe drilling—a total and permanent ban on drilling is their goal, and the DRBC is the place they want to start with it. A permanent ban in the DRBC is the antis’ “stake in the ground.”

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