Voters in Denton, Texas, voted strongly in favor of a ban on hydraulic fracturing in the city, the first such restriction in energy-friendly Texas. With the majority of precincts reporting Continue Reading
Printer-friendly If you want to see the future of the shale industry — what today’s drilling rush will leave behind — come to Bradford, Pennsylvania. A small city, it was home to one of America’s first energy booms, producing over three quarters of the world’s oil in 1877. A wooden oil rig towering over a local museum commemorates those heady days, marking the first “billion dollar oil field” in the world. But times have changed dramatically in Bradford. Most of the oil has been pumped out, leaving residents atop an aging oil field that requires complicated upkeep and mounting costs. Since its height in the 1940’s, Bradford’s population has steadily declined, leaving the city now home to only 8,600 people , down from over 17,000. The story of Bradford these days is a story of thousands of oil and gas wells: abandoned, uncapped, and often leaking. To drive through […]
It’s called Prelude, and it’s bigger than big. More than 530 yards long and 80 yards wide, it was constructed with 260,000 metric tons of steel, more than was used in the entire original World Trade Center complex, and it’s expected to displace 600,000 metric tons of water, or as much as six aircraft carriers. Even the paint job is huge: Most big vessels dry-dock every five years for a new coat, but Prelude’s paint is supposed to last 25 years. It will produce more natural gas than Hong Kong needs in a year. And it’s so big that you can’t really photograph it, at least not all at once. The photographer Stephen Mallon spent two days on cranes, one fore and one aft, taking more than a thousand pictures. Later, editing software was used to stitch hundreds of them together to create the composite image you see here. […]
Printer-friendly by Anastasia Pantsios , originally published by EcoWatch | TODAY In light of an increasing number of studies showing that fracking produces toxic emissions that have serious human health impacts throughout the entire process, Pennsylvania Congressman Matt Cartwright , a first-term Democrat, has opened an investigation into how toxic wastes from fracking are regulated. What’s at stake. Fracking has grown at a rapid rate in Pennsylvania, and operators are increasingly eying the state’s public parks and forests while sit atop a major shale play. Photo credit: EcoFlight What’s at stake. Fracking has grown at a rapid rate in Pennsylvania, and operators are increasingly eying the state’s public parks and forests while sit atop a major shale play. Photo credit: EcoFlight “Preliminary reports indicate there are big gaps in protections and oversight that the federal government might have to fill,” Cartwright told Inside Climate News . Fracking is […]
European coal for delivery in 2015 fell for a second month as natural gas tumbled after Russia agreed to terms for resuming gas exports to Ukraine. European next-year coal declined 1.3 percent to $71.55 a metric ton as of 4:55 p.m. in London, .extending the monthly loss to 3.3 percent, according to broker data on Bloomberg. U.K. gas for delivery next summer slid as much as 1.9 percent today and declined 6.2 percent in October, the biggest monthly drop since the contract started trading. Lower gas prices increase profits at power plants burning the fuel to generate electricity. U.K. utilities consumed the least coal in August since at least 1995, data published yesterday by the Department of Energy and Climate Change showed. “The deal could put downward pressure on the price of European coal,” Thomas Pugh, a commodities economist at Capital Economics Ltd., said in an e-mailed note. “The […]
URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/135620/BHP_Billiton_Eyes_Sale_Of_US_Shale_Gas_Assets_In_Profit_Drive Hess To Form MLP For North Dakota Oil, Gas Transport Assets BHP Billiton is planning to sell its Fayetteville shale gas assets in the US, in the latest effort to trim its portfolio in the region and focus on more profitable petroleum liquids. LONDON, Oct 27 (Reuters) – BHP Billiton is planning to sell its Fayetteville shale gas assets in the United States, the mining and energy group said on Monday, in the latest effort to trim its portfolio in the region and focus on more profitable petroleum liquids. The petroleum division of BHP, the world’s largest miner, is one of the largest foreign investors in the U.S. onshore oil and gas sector. The unit has grown in importance within BHP in the least few years, thanks to a market outlook that has been brighter for energy than for other commodities. Within the petroleum business, however, BHP […]
Continental Resources brings South Korean partner into emerging Oklahoma shale basin. UPI/Gary C. Caskey U.S. shale player Continental Resources said Monday it has signed a deal with a South Korean company to develop its gas assets in Oklahoma. Continental, which has headquarters in Oklahoma City, announced it sold 49.9 percent of its stake in the Northwest Cana Woodford shale basin to South Korean conglomerate SK Group for roughly $360 million. "We are excited to establish this joint venture with such an established and highly regarded major international energy company," Harold Hamm, Continental’s chairman and chief executive officer, said in a statement. Continental has a stake in 37 producing wells in the Cana Woodford shale. The company said it plans to start drilling into the Oklahoma shale basin next month, with four rigs deployed through its partnership with SK Group by the end of the year. Oil services company Baker […]
Could this gas well in Washington Township be part of the solution to Pennsylvania’s underfunded public schools? Ty Wright/Bloomberg via Getty Images Could this gas well in Washington Township be part of the solution to Pennsylvania’s underfunded public schools? Pennsylvania Republican Governor Tom Corbett’s reelection campaign is being fought, and lost, over the issue of public education. Corbett has consistently trailed his Democratic opponent by double digits in polls where voters have repeatedly identified education as their number one electoral priority. Tom Wolf, the Democrat, is running against the deep cuts Corbett made to state support for schools, which resulted in the loss of at least 23,000 education jobs and local property tax hikes statewide. In June, the Pennsylvania Association of School Administrators found that three-fourths of the surveyed school districts expected further tax increases this year . In response, Wolf promises to wrest desperately needed revenue from the […]
Home | News & Analysis | Latest News Headlines | US natural gas storage volume rises 94 Bcf to 3.393 Tcf: EIA Knoxville, Tennessee (Platts)–23Oct2014/429 pm EDT/2029 GMT US natural gas storage inventories rose by 94 Bcf to a total of 3.393 Tcf for the week that ended Friday, the US Energy Information Administration reported Thursday. The injection came in at the low end of a range from 94 Bcf to 98 Bcf that a consensus of analysts predicted. The build was above the 86 Bcf reported a year ago, as well as the 70-Bcf five-year average, according to EIA data. As a result, the 344 Bcf deficit to last year fell to 336 Bcf, while the 362-Bcf deficit to the five-year average of 3.731 Tcf fell to 338 Bcf. The EIA reported a build of 47 Bcf in the East, boosting inventories to 1.872 Tcf, compared with 1.94 […]
Drillers for Pennsylvania’s natural gas are facing a growing threat—from their own productivity. Hydraulic fracturing and other new drilling techniques have caused the amount of natural gas flowing out of Continue Reading
