The village board of Wilson (Niagara County), NY has voted to ban hydraulic fracturing. In a statement, one anti-drilling Wilson board member said he wants fracking to be banned everywhere, not just in New York. Gotta love those freedom-loving, “I know better than you do how to run your life” kinds of people, dontchya?
Over the objection of their own lawyer, the village board of Yellow Springs (Green County), Ohio voted to ban both injection wells and all hydraulic fracturing within the village at an August 20 meeting. Three board members (out of five) decided they know better than their residents what those residents can do with their own land.
As we get ever closer to the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) release of new rules to allow fracking—a decision expected either by or shortly after Labor Day—both sides of the debate are turning up the heat by taking to the airwaves and in print with advertisements.
For some time now, pro-drilling groups led by the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) have run radio and print ads (see below). The other side is now entering the fray with their own ads.
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, Aug 22, 2012”
It looks like the Town of Rochester, NY (in addition to the City of Rochester) is about to turn down potential jobs and investment in their economically depressed community by spitting in the face of the shale drilling industry. That is, they plan to ban drilling at a town board meeting on August 30.
Not only will the measure they plan to vote on completely ban fracking, it will also ban “transferring, storing, processing and disposing of materials related to horizontal hydraulic fracturing.” They won’t even allow new buildings to be built related to fracking—so if you’re a law firm that represents a driller and want to build a new office, forget it.
Read More “Town of Rochester, NY will Vote on Frack Ban August 30th”
A new online service displays more than 700 companies in a 12-county region of Ohio that provide services and supplies to the Utica and Marcellus Shale drilling industry on an interactive map. The Ohio Shale Energy “supply chain” website provides a valuable service for businesses looking to plug in to the ever-expanding energy industry in Ohio.
Now that the site is up and running, there are plans to expand it to cover the entire state.
Read More “New Utica Supply Chain Website for Ohio Businesses”
Do you work for, or own, a company interested in working with gas and oil drilling companies in the Marcellus/Utica Shale (often referred to as plugging in to the “supply chain”)? According to a speaker at a seminar in Ohio yesterday, the drilling industry is interested in one thing above all else: the safety of its workers.
If you want to plug in to opportunities in the industry, here’s some advice:
Read More “Advice for Companies Seeking to Work for Drilling Industry”
Each month the Siena College Research Institute conducts a statewide poll in New York to gage opinions on various political issues and politicians. For several years running they have polled on the question of whether or not New Yorkers support shale gas drilling and fracking. The unsurprising results again for this month are that statewide, New Yorkers are evenly split for and against fracking (see the results embedded below).
However, when you dig into the numbers, a surprising fact emerges about the geography people live in who favor drilling versus the geography of those who don’t.
Read More “Poll: New Yorkers Remain Split on Fracking, Some Surprises”
EV Energy Partners has released initial production results for their second Utica Shale well (the Cairns 5H well in Carroll County) and issued an update on their first Utica Shale well (the Frank 2H well in Stark County):
Read More “EV Energy: Production Updates for 2 Ohio Utica Wells”
Guthrie Health, a regional health care provider in northeastern Pennsylvania and southern New York serving 200,000 residents in 11 counties, along with Geisinger Health System, serving 2.6 million residents in 44 counties in northeastern and central Pennsylvania, have joined forces to study the health impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling.
Using medical records of their patients who live near drilling, preliminary results of the study on how drilling may (or may not) affect asthma, cardiovascular disease and cancer are targeted to be released sometime next year, while other data will take longer—up to 15 years.
Read More “Health Care Systems Partner to Study Marcellus Impacts”
MDN doesn’t usually run press releases issued by companies apart from earnings and operations reports from drillers, or announcements of major new projects and deals. We see plenty of “we’ve just added two new people to our regional office in Mayberry” announcements and “we’ve just opened a new branch office in Pittsburgh” announcements. No big deal. It’s a “dog bites man” type of story.
But when a company that started life in the Marcellus/Utica region expands because of Marcellus/Utica drilling and opens a large regional office in other shale basin areas, that’s a “man bites dog” type of story, and one we think worth highlighting. Such is the case with RETTEW, a Lancaster-PA based company that provides engineering, consulting and construction-related services to the drilling industry.
Read More “Marcellus-based Firm Expands to Service Other Shale Plays”
Below are upcoming events for this week and next.
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: Tue, Aug 21, 2012”
Ohio’s official state geologist, Larry Wickstrom, chief of the ODNR’s Division of Geological Survey, was fired in May because he updated and released a map showing new boundaries for the Utica Shale and where the best places to drill would be located (see this MDN story). The update caused some of the previous lines to change, and that upset a few people (especially Larry’s political bosses). Mac Swinford has taken his place as interim state geologist. Swinford says a new version of the map will be released in September. Let’s hope he fares better than Wickstrom in navigating the politics of science.
Swinford has given us a heads-up of what the new map will show:
Read More “OH State Geologist: New Utica Map Coming in September”
Hilcorp Energy is interested in drilling in Ohio’s Utica Shale. Specifically, they’re signing contracts and making offers in Mahoning County (northeastern Ohio).
Here are some of the lease offer deals they’ve recently made or signed:
Read More “Hilcorp Energy Leasing Utica Acreage in Mahoning County, OH”
Last Wednesday night, a Shell general manager spoke to a gathering of people in Monaca, PA about Shell’s plans to build an ethane cracker plant in the community. As MDN has said numerous times, Shell’s deal to build a cracker plant in Monaca is a) not a sure thing, and b) will take years to complete when it does happen.
The Shell general manager, while reiterating those points, gave Monaca residents reason to be optimistic that the project will indeed happen in their community.
Read More “Shell Rep Tells Monaca Residents Cracker Plant Looking Good”