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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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
A new polyethylene production facility in the Bakken shale could soon help oil and gas producers in the region reduce natural gas flaring in North Dakota, the Bakken Update said this week. Significant amounts of natural gas are wasted during flaring; estimates by the non-profit sustainability organization CERES are that as much as 30 percent of all natural gas discovered in the state is flared. That comes out to more than $100 million a month of natural gas that is just burned off, according to a July 29, 2013 Reuters article. Because the new polyethylene plant will use liquid natural gas in the production process, it creates a local need for the product, thus reducing the amount of natural gas that is currently being flared due to a lack of infrastructure to move the gas to the market. The North Dakota Industrial Commission, the state’s regulating entity for oil […]
Chesapeake unloads prime shale acreage in eastern United States for $5 billion. (File/UPI/Gary C. Caskey) OKLAHOMA CITY, Oct. 16 (UPI) — Chesapeake Energy Corp. said Thursday it was selling its Utica and Marcellus shale assets to rival Southwestern Energy Co. for more than $5 billion. Chesapeake, which has headquarters in Oklahoma, agreed to sell more than 400,000 acres in the Marcellus and Utica plays spread out over West Virginia and Pennsylvania. As of December, the company said the net proved reserves in the acreage was around 221 million barrels of oil equivalent. "Today’s announcement marks a major step in Chesapeake’s transformation and a dramatic improvement in our financial strength as we seek to maximize value for our shareholders," Chesapeake Chief Executive Officer Doug Lawler said in a statement. The Marcellus shale is the most productive basin of its kind in the United States. While production is below Marcellus, drilling […]
4581 Votes Fracking Tied to Earthquakes in Ohio Another rare case of fracking-caused earthquakes has jolted Ohio. A new study connects some 400 micro-earthquakes near the town of Canton, in Harrison County, to hydraulic fracturing wells . The three wells operated from September through October 2013 in the Utica Shale. Ten of the quakes registered between magnitude 1.7 and magnitude 2.2, but the tremors were too deep to cause damage or to be easily felt by people, according to the study, published Oct. 14 in the journal Seismological Research Letters. The new study is the second report this year of fracking-linked earthquakes from drilling in the Utica Shale. The shale is a rock formation that is deeper and closer than the Marcellus Shale to the crystalline basement rocks where faults are more common. In March, scientists with Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) shut down drilling at seven Utica […]
