Household water well owners near oil and gas development and completion activities, including hydraulic fracturing, can get guidance about water testing from a new brochure produced by the National Ground Water Association and the Ground Water Protection Council (brochure embedded below).
Read More “New Guide for Homeowners: Testing Water Wells Near Drilling”
Below are upcoming events for this week and next.
Read More “Calendar of Events for Aug 13-26, 2012 [Free]”
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, Aug 13, 2012”
The Obama Justice Department didn’t waste any time going after Chesapeake Energy after Reuters reported in late June that Chesapeake may have colluded with a competitor, Encana, to keep land lease prices low in Michigan. Just four days after the story broke, the Justice Department served Chesapeake with a subpoena for documents.
Chesapeake acknowledged yesterday they are the target of an ongoing government investigation, an investigation that involves a grand jury and the prospect of indictments.
Read More “Chesapeake Says They’re in the Crosshairs of Justice Dept.”
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.
Read More “Oxford, NY Decides to Stay Neutral in Drilling Debate”
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.
Read More “New Non-Fracking Technology Takes Root in Mexico”
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).
Read More “U.S. DOT Trucking Rule Clarification Targets Shale Drilling”
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:
Read More “Natural Gas Benefits Renewables in the Long-Term”
EV Energy Partners (EVEP) reported their 2Q12 financial results yesterday. EVEP is a master limited partnership controlled by oil & gas company EnerVest. They look for lower risk, long-term oil and gas properties, with investments in a number of oil and gas plays across the U.S., including the Utica and Marcellus. It seems they’re doing a good job. Their 2Q12 profits were up 20% from a year ago—to $66.1 million. Production for the second quarter of 2012 was up 47%—10.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas, 282,000 barrels of oil and 403,000 barrels of natural gas liquids, or 14.8 billion cubic feet equivalent.
The only direct quote in the press release from the CEO was in reference to their activities in the Utica Shale:
Read More “EV Energy Partners 2Q12 Update: Utica NGLs Now Producing”
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:
Read More “Sunoco Logistics Open Season for Mariner East NGL Pipeline”
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: Fri, Aug 10, 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.
Read More “More Details on Gov. Cuomo’s Plan to Start Fracking”
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).
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.
Read More “Caton, NY Decides to Stay Neutral in the Fracking Debate”
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.
Read More “How Many Jobs will Utica Shale Drilling Create in Ohio?”
Rhino Resource Partners produces metallurgical and steam coal in a variety of basins throughout the United States. It also owns oil and gas acreage in the Utica and Cana Woodford plays. Rhino previously invested in an 80,000 Utica Shale acre joint venture with Gulfport Energy and Wexford Capital. Rhino’s investment gives them a 10.8% interest. Since that initial investment, Gulfport and Wexford have continued to buy up Utica Shale acreage and now have leases for 125,000 acres (including the original 80,000). The partners have extended an offer to Rhino to get a piece of the bigger action, which Rhino is doing.
From Rhino’s press release announcing a new deal with Wexford: