Statewide NY

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

When Will Fracking Begin in New York?
July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

When will fracking begin in New York? When MDN editor Jim Willis speaks with friends and family, perhaps that is the question he gets most often. Most New Yorkers and even most non-New Yorkers Jim talks with believe it’s going to happen, it’s just a question of when. Jim just has to shrug his shoulders when asked and says, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

The question on the minds of many New Yorkers is the object of endless speculation on radio talk shows and in newspaper articles. North Country Public Radio ran a segment yesterday speculating on the “when” question. They had some interesting points to make on the topic, pointing out that the New York legislature is now in recess for the rest of the year (sure wish we only had to work half a year!), and the legislature recessed without voting on key legislation that would need to be in place if drilling were going to begin this year:

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Energy Companies | New York | Norse Energy | Statewide NY

Norse Energy Special Shareholder Appeal – Sneak Preview
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

On July 5, Norse Energy Corp will hold what they call an “Extraordinary General Meeting” (EGM) for shareholders in Oslo, Norway. Norse Energy’s CEO Mark Dice will present to shareholders using the PowerPoint embedded below. MDN has included a rundown of what’s in the slides.

For better or worse, Norse has most of its investments in leases in New York State, and the now four-year long delay in adopting new drilling rules, called the SGEIS, has strained the company’s resources. They’ve refinanced debt, sold off assets, taken on investors and have done whatever they can to “hang in there” until drilling finally begins in New York. The slides in the presentation show just how key New York’s decision is to Norse’s future.

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Forced Pooling | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

NY and Compulsory Integration – MDN Agrees with Slottje (!)
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

David Slottje and his wife Helen are both lawyers funded in part by the Park Foundation (in Ithaca, NY) to run around trying to convince local town boards in New York to ban hydraulic fracturing. They are, in a word, the enemies of landowner property rights. They seek to deny landowners who want to lease their land for gas drilling the right to do so.

So when MDN read an editorial (not surprisingly) in the Ithaca Journal written by David Slottje that makes reference to the rumored plan by Gov. Cuomo to allow limited drilling in five counties as being “devastating” to landowner property rights, it was a laugh-out-loud moment. The height of hypocrisy and arrogance to say landowner rights will be devastated by the very person doing the most to devastate them.

But what wasn’t so funny was that getting beyond the rank hypocrisy and looking at the substance of what Slottje wrote, MDN had to agree with his viewpoint—on this one particular issue.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pennsylvania | Statewide NY | Statewide PA

SRBC Suspends Water Withdrawals in Some Areas
June 29, 2012June 29, 2012

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), actively manages water withdrawals for shale drilling from the rivers and streams that are a part of its jurisdiction. The DRBC allows no water withdrawals at all—yet.

Yesterday the SRBC suspended withdrawals at 37 different locations because water levels have dropped from lack of rain. This happens periodically. Withdrawals in some locations are suspended for a time, and then allowed to restart when levels rise again. The SRBC continues to do a good job of managing water supplies throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Here’s the press release and list of affected areas:

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

DEC Seeks Industry Feedback, Antis Throw a Temper Tantrum
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

There’s a storm brewing you need to know about. But it’s actually more like a tempest in a teapot. There’s nothing “there” in this story, except posturing by anti-drillers. With that proviso…

The Albany Times Union reports in today’s edition (in a story posted online last night) that last year, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) sent preview drafts for a few sections of the proposed new drilling rules (called the SGEIS) to “the industry” in August, a few weeks before the official release of the latest version of the SGEIS in September. Why would the DEC “leak” it to the industry first? Conspiracy? Cozy relationship? No. The DEC shared a few select portions because state law requires the DEC to seek feedback from those who would be regulated by the new rules.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | New York | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide NY | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Energy Execs Rank Drilling Locations Including WV, OH, PA, NY
June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

Each year, the Canadian-based Fraser Institute surveys petroleum industry executives and managers (623 of them for 2012) asking them their opinions on the barriers to investing in exploration and production in various geographies across the globe. That is, what makes them more likely or less likely to spend money drilling in a particular location?

The Global Petroleum Survey, as it’s called, tallies the survey responses and ranks each geography from most desirable place to invest, to least desirable. The rankings for this year are interesting and illustrative that politicians’ words and legislation have a direct bearing on where, and how much, drilling companies are willing to spend.

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

NY Anti-Frackers Take Aim at Pro-Drilling Town Boards
June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

In a preview of things to come for New York should fracking be allowed by Gov. Cuomo, an article in today’s Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin asks whether or not town board members who own land and stand to profit from leasing have a conflict of interest. The unstated answer, according to the article, is that they do.

It is the anti-drillers in New York who a) want fracking banned completely, and if that doesn’t work, b) want local municipalities to have the right to ban it. Either way they figure they’ve got their bases covered—except there are a number of municipalities where the town boards are in favor of drilling.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

Washington DC: Ingraffea Discloses Real Reason He’s Anti-Fracking
June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

Sensing “the end is near” in New York, the anti-drilling movement dispatched one of their big guns, Cornell professor Tony Ingraffea, to Washington, D.C. yesterday to stir the scare-you-to-death pot with New York’s congressional delegation.

The end is near for anti-drillers if Gov. Andrew Cuomo moves forward with his unannounced/announced plan to allow limited hydraulic fracturing in five (the “Lucky Five”) counties in New York State, and then only in towns that really really want it. Anti-drillers are hyperventilating over that possibility—so it’s necessary to try and influence Congress to either pressure Cuomo or override him.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Landowner Coalition News | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Landowner Coalition Statement on Rumored Cuomo Fracking Plan
June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

The Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY), a coalition of coalitions representing over 70,000 landowners, issued a statement about the unannounced/announced plan by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to allow hydraulic fracturing in five counties in New York—in a limited fashion—for the next two years. Their statement in full is embedded below.

The short version is: We’re trying to get clarification and determine what’s what, and we’re not going to criticize the governor until we hear more, and certainly not based on a newspaper article.

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Energy Services | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Spectra Energy | Statewide NY

Sierra Club Attacks FERC for Approving NYC Pipeline
June 25, 2012June 25, 2012

Recently the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the construction of a 20-mile pipeline from New Jersey to New York City (see this MDN story). Spectra Energy is constructing the pipeline to the tune of $1.2 billion (a mini-economic boom for NJ/NY). The new pipeline and the cheap natural gas it will bring to NYC will reduce oil burning, which will be mandated starting in 2015 when NYC residents and landlords will no longer be allowed to burn No. 6 fuel oil. The new pipeline will be the equivalent of taking the emissions of 1 million cars off city streets per year. A good thing, no?

According to Sierra Club, that is a “no.” The Sierra Club doesn’t want cheap natural gas delivered to NYC, saving customers millions of dollars and saving the environment, because they don’t like fracking and the gas will mostly come from the Marcellus Shale. And that doesn’t fit with the the Sierra Club’s “attack everything natural gas” philosophy. So they’ve begun the process of protesting the approval for the pipeline, a process that will eventually end in federal court. Stunningly, in the paperwork they filed last week, they blame FERC for doing its job!

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

Local Politicians Gather in Albany, NY to Support “Home Rule”
June 21, 2012June 21, 2012

A number of New York State local government officials gathered in Albany on Monday, June 18 to talk about and support a new initiative to grant local municipalities the legal right to control oil and gas drilling in their borders. The concept is referred to as “home rule” and it’s gathering momentum with both Democrats and even with some Republican state legislators.

The event was sponsored by a group of anti-drilling groups, including Sustainable Otsego, Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, and Otsego 2000. The anti-drilling group Shaleshock was also present and videoed the speakers. They offer the video on their website (click the link below to view it).

This was the press release about the home rule gathering:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

Josh Fox Releases Short Movie Targeting Gov. Andrew Cuomo
June 21, 2012June 21, 2012

Josh Fox, a talented movie-maker and master purveyor of half-truths and outright lies in the mostly fictional movie Gasland, has just released a new short “documentary” called The Sky is Pink aimed squarely and solely at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. It seems the anti-drilling movement is desperate to prevent any kind of high volume hydraulic fracturing from getting a fair evaluation in New York State—so they’re pulling out all the stops to try and make sure it doesn’t.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

Albany Times Union Announces Support for Fracking
June 18, 2012June 19, 2012

Whoa, wait a minute. The editorial board of the very liberal Albany Times Union is (gasp) in favor of limited fracking in New York State as a test. Really? Really.

But of course, they condition it all on prior assurances of safety from DEC and EPA, and they want all sorts of ands, ifs and buts inserted to conduct such a test.

Here’s what they said in a recent editorial (and below, why this is politically significant):

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | New York | Statewide NY

Victory for NY Landowners in Chesapeake Force Majeure Case
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

In a major victory for New York landowners, Attorney General Eric Schniederman’s office reached a settlement with Chesapeake Energy to allow 4,400+ landowners with a collective 264,000 acres to renegotiate old gas drilling leases that Chesapeake was attempting to extend using the “force majeure” clause. MDN has followed this story for more than a year (see this MDN story from May 2011 for history and background).

As a brief background, a number of New York landowners—many of them in the Southern Tier area of New York—signed gas drilling leases in 2000 with small drilling companies. The leases had a 10-year term. Most of the landowners got $3 per acre as a signing bonus. Those leases, along with leases signed prior to 2000, were bought by Chesapeake in the mid-2000s. In 2009, Chesapeake sent letters to New York landowners invoking the force majeure clause, which is legalese for “we’re extending the contract term due to extenuating circumstances, which we believe is our right to do.” The extenuating circumstance? The moratorium on high volume hydraulic fracturing that was implemented by then-Gov. David Paterson in 2008.

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

NY Gov. Cuomo Speaks Out on Leaked Fracking Plan
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

Did New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s trial balloon plan to allow fracking just burst? Yesterday, the governor was peppered with questions about his unofficially announced plan to allow limited fracking of natural gas wells in five Southern Tier counties and only in communities that want it.

Appearing on an Albany radio program, Gov. Cuomo said:

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

Dueling Rallies in Albany Over Cuomo’s Fracking Plan
June 15, 2012June 15, 2012

Both anti- and pro-drillers staged rallies in Albany, NY yesterday in response to the leaked plan by the Cuomo administration to allow limited hydraulic fracturing of gas wells in five Southern Tier counties.

Perhaps two dozen anti-drilling protestors showed up outside of Gov. Cuomo’s office for their PR appearance before the cameras. An hour later, they went to stand outside of a much a larger crowd of pro-drillers who staged a press conference featuring five town supervisors who were there to say they want drilling in their townships.

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