Do you live in eastern Ohio, have heard about the Utica Shale boom and want a job in the industry? Here’s a handy list of job center locations, phone numbers and websites to help you with your job search:
Read More “Utica Shale Job Search Resources in Eastern Ohio”
Landowners who live in Portage County, Ohio who have a concern that their water may become contaminated from Utica Shale drilling activity can have their water tested now, before drilling begins, for free. The free testing will be done on Jan. 6 (and on the first Sunday of each month) in Shalersville by the anti-drilling group Concerned Citizens Ohio/Shalersville.
Read More “Portage County Landowners Get Free Pre-Drilling Water Tests”
A landowner in Marshall County, West Virginia had previously sued Chesapeake Energy, claiming Chesapeake’s nearby drilling and fracking operations (from 2009/2010) caused methane to migrate and contaminate his water well. Chesapeake sampled the well and found the kind of methane in the well (the “fingerprint” for the methane) does not match the methane from their drilled natural gas well.
The story then gets complicated. It seems that CNX Gas, a division of CONSOL Energy, had previously drilled a number of shallow natural gas wells in the area, and that Columbia Gas, a division of NiSource, has an underground natural gas storage field adjacent to the landowner’s property. Oy vey. There’s no shortage of possibilities for how the methane may have gotten into his well, and so now everyone is now getting sued…
Read More “WV Landowner Sues 3 Companies for Methane Contamination of Water”
The Pennsylvania State Attorney General’s office has appealed the sentencing of a man who owned a shale gas wastewater hauling company who was convicted off dumping millions of gallons of wastewater into streams and abandoned mine shafts. The AG thinks a sentence of seven years’ probation with no prison time is not good enough:
Read More “Did Man Convicted of Dumping Shale Wastewater Get Off Easy?”
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Jan 2, 2013”
Once again, anti-fracking elected political leaders in New York (people who need to be voted out of office, see their names below) are trying to pressure the waffling Gov. Andrew Cuomo into extending the new public comment period from 30 days to 90 days. A group of them sent a letter to Cuomo and DEC Commissioner Joe Martens requesting the extension (dated Dec. 21, copy of the letter embedded below).
Why do they want to extend it from 30 to 90 days? To force the restart of the entire process of approving new fracking regulations. If the comment period is extended to 90 days, it will go beyond the end of February forcing the restart of the entire process to evaluate and approve new fracking regulations. Restarting the process would effectively kill any fracking in the state—most likely forever.
Read More “NY Elected Politicians Make Another Try to Stall Fracking”
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the probe into the financial dealings of Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon, which started in April 2012 and was supposed to be wrapped up in “weeks not months” has still not concluded, but will do so by mid-January. When it does, don’t expect McClendon to step down as CEO…
Read More “Probe into Chesapeake’s CEO Aubrey McClendon Nears End”
In May 2012, the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR), the state agency that oversees the permitting and drilling of oil and gas wells, set a goal of tripling the number of well inspectors by the end of 2012—which would mean having 90 inspectors on staff. The agency has struggled with a heavy load of inspections due to a ramp up in Utica Shale drilling.
So, did ODNR meet its goal?
Read More “Checking Up: Did ODNR Meet Goal of 90 Well Inspectors?”
Ohio Gathering Co. has posted a $5 million bond in Belmont County, OH to cover the cost of potential road repairs and maintenance in connection with a pipeline and compressor plant project they have under way in the county.
Here’s where (in the county) the pipeline and compressor plant is being built, along with the roads that will be affected by truck and heavy equipment traffic:
Read More “New Pipeline/Compressor Plant Coming in Belmont County, OH”
MDN recently told you about a natural gas liquids (NGLs) “tank farm” located at Half Moon Industrial Park in Weirton, WV (along the Ohio River) that started shipping NGLs by river barge to be processed in Houston, TX (see this MDN story). An initial shipment of one million gallons of NGLs were floated by barge first down the Ohio River, then the Mississippi River.
Toronto, OH, which sits just a few miles up the river from Weirton on the opposite bank of the Ohio River, is about to get in on the NGL barge-shipping business too. A 40-acre site in Toronto’s port was just sold to a company that will set up a tank farm and start shipping NGLs to the Gulf Coast for processing:
Read More “New NGL Barge Shipping Operation to Open in Toronto, OH”
In an article about the merger of a local land conservancy group with a larger, regional conservancy group in Ohio—the Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC)—MDN spotted remarks that indicate land conservancies have an anti-drilling philosophy, which raises the issue of whether or not you should support them or sign an agreement with them if you’re a landowner.
Remarks from the president of Little Beaver Creek Land Foundation (LBCLF), the local land conservancy group that merged with the WRLC:
Read More “OH Land Conservancies Try to Prevent Utica Drilling”
Although BP is the largest leaseholder for Utica Shale drilling in Trumbull County, OH with 84,000 acres under lease, Halcon Resources, which purchased 15,000 acres of leases from Carrizo Oil & Gas in October (see this MDN story), is the first to put drill bit to earth and is currently drilling the county’s very first horizontal Utica Shale well:
Read More “Trumbull County’s First Utica Shale Well Now in Process”
In November, MDN pointed out you can always tell where drilling will soon begin in earnest by the how busy the local county clerk/deed recorder office is. We predicted that Belmont County, OH would soon see a ramp up in drilling based on the frenzy of activity at the county recorder’s office (see this MDN story).
The activity at the Belmont recorder’s office is as busy as ever, even over the holiday period. It’s standing room only at the office, and that’s now spilled over to the public library across the street. Abstractors have taken to snapping digital photographs of deed books and then relocating to the more spacious facility of the public library. But now that’s creating a problem…
Read More “Belmont County, OH Deed Research Impacts Local Library Too”
The Meadville Tribune (Crawford County, PA), like many local papers, is counting down their top stories from 2012. Their number 3 top story for the year? Shale gas drilling comes to Crawford County.
The article does a good job of recapping the drilling that happened this year in Crawford—both the who and the where—and makes some predictions about drilling for 2013:
Read More “Crawford County: Drilling Recap for 2012, Ahead for 2013”
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Dec 31, 2012”
As MDN had previously speculated, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, under official investigation for using a private email account for official government business in order to avoid archiving requirements, is resigning from the agency she’s headed for the past four (dreadful) Obama years. Jackson has been the leader of what MDN considers to be a rogue government agency—willing to usurp the Constitution and grab power whenever, and wherever it can.
Not everyone on the pro-drilling side of the isle shares MDN’s opinion of Ms. Jackson—some fear a replacement will be even more aggressive—but we don’t see how it could be any worse than the past four years under Jackson.