Category: Shale Gas

It isn’t every day that an energy company tries to give away cash, but one of the biggest oil producers in North Dakota is trying to do just that. Continental Resources Ltd. says it wants to pay state taxes and make royalty payments on natural gas it improperly burned off at dozens of wells in recent years. The company is asking state regulators to approve its plans, including the value it is assigning to the gas that was burned in the controversial practice known as flaring. "We believe we’re the first operator out there asking to be allowed to pay royalties and taxes," said Brooks Richardson, Continental’s director of risk enterprise management. Continental and other North Dakota drillers say they were forced to burn off gas they would have rather […]

Click here to view full article at online.wsj.com

California officials have ordered an emergency shut-down of 11 oil and gas waste injection sites and a review more than 100 others in the state’s drought-wracked Central Valley out of fear that companies may have been pumping fracking fluids and other toxic waste into drinking water aquifers there. The state’s Division of Oil and Gas and Geothermal Resources on July 7 issued cease and desist orders to seven energy companies warning that they may be injecting their waste into aquifers that could be a source of drinking water, and stating that their waste disposal "poses danger to life, health, property, and natural resources." The orders were first reported by the Bakersfield Californian, and the state has confirmed with ProPublica that its investigation is expanding to look at additional wells. The action comes as California’s agriculture industry copes with a drought crisis that has emptied reservoirs and cost the state […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

DENTON, Texas (AP) — The council governing a North Texas city that sits atop a large natural gas reserve rejected a bid early Wednesday morning to ban further permitting of hydraulic fracturing in the community after eight hours of public testimony. Denton City Council members voted down the petition 5-2, sending the proposal to a public ballot in November. Fracking involves blasting a mix of water, sand and chemicals deep into underground rock formations to release trapped oil and gas. While the method has long stirred concerns about its effects on the environment and human health, proponents argue that fracking can be done safely and is cleaner than other forms of energy extraction. And industry groups and state regulators had warned such a ban could be followed by litigation and a severe hit to Denton’s economy. Barry Smitherman, chairman of the Railroad Commission, the Texas oil and gas regulator, […]

Click here to view full article at hosted.ap.org

After studying production data from 65,000 wells from 31 different unconventional shale rock formations in 2012, David Hughes predicted big trouble ahead for North America’s unconventional hydrocarbon revolution. The prominent geologist, who has studied Canada’s energy resources for four decades, warned that shale gas and tight oil operations shared four big challenges: escalating capital costs, uneven performance and a growing environmental footprint, all followed by rapid depletion. "Shale gas can continue to grow, but only at higher prices and that growth will require an ever escalating drilling treadmill with associated collateral financial and environmental costs — and its long term sustainability is highly questionable," predicted Hughes just two years ago. Recent economic data on the industry from Bloomberg, Energy Analyst and even the International Energy Agency shows that Hughes was bang on. The tough economic news on shale, a dense rock that lies two to three kilometres underground, comes […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

After studying production data from 65,000 wells from 31 different unconventional shale rock formations in 2012, David Hughes predicted big trouble ahead for North America’s unconventional hydrocarbon revolution. The prominent geologist, who has studied Canada’s energy resources for four decades, warned that shale gas and tight oil operations shared four big challenges: escalating capital costs, uneven performance and a growing environmental footprint, all followed by rapid depletion. "Shale gas can continue to grow, but only at higher prices and that growth will require an ever escalating drilling treadmill with associated collateral financial and environmental costs — and its long term sustainability is highly questionable," predicted Hughes just two years ago. Recent economic data on the industry from Bloomberg, Energy Analyst and even the International Energy Agency shows that Hughes was bang on. The tough economic news on shale, a dense rock that lies two to three kilometres underground, comes […]

Click here to view full article at www.resilience.org

Pennsylvania has filed charges against Exxon unit XTO Energy. Pictured, an XTO operation in the state. Corbis Exxon Mobil Corp. is fighting criminal charges over a wastewater spill in Pennsylvania with an unusual defense, contending that the state’s attorney general improperly singled the company out in an effort to stop hydraulic fracturing. Attorney General Kathleen Kane fired back on Wednesday in a court filing that calls the company’s claims "nothing more than weak attempts to obfuscate the truth." Prosecutors say Exxon subsidiary XTO Energy Inc. is criminally liable for a big leak of water that had been used in fracking in north-central Pennsylvania in 2010. The case involves the first criminal charges filed against a public company drilling in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale. A spokeswoman for the attorney general said the state has convicted more than 800 individuals and companies of environmental crimes. "No single industry has been targeted," said […]

Click here to view full article at online.wsj.com

The oil industry’s largest lobbying group began a new effort to ease public fears about hydraulic fracturing after a legal setback in New York state and a voter push in Colorado to ban the drilling practice. The American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based group that includes Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Chevron Corp. (CVX) , released guidelines for improving community relations as “fracking” extends to more towns, raising concerns about pollution risks. The suggestions will help “raise the bar for the industry,” David Miller, director of standards for the group that has guided the industry on well design and preventing spills since 1924, said at a conference call with reporters today. The effort will help oil and gas companies develop “lasting relationships” with communities where drilling occurs, he said. The document reads like an etiquette guide for producers moving into rural towns to start drilling. Companies are encouraged to distribute […]

Click here to view full article at www.bloomberg.com

A New York court decision to let cities and towns block hydraulic fracturing is a major blow to the industry, an advocacy group said. The Court of Appeals in Albany ruled in two separate cases that municipalities can use zoning laws to ban hydraulic fracturing within their borders. New York hosts a part of the Marcellus shale formations, one of the premier shale gas basins in the United States. There’s a current state moratorium on hydraulic fracturing. Karen Moreau, executive director of the New York State Petroleum Council, said that, because municipal boards can change every two years, the regulatory landscape in the state will keep energy investors at bay. "There are real losses here, and it’s a real tragedy for thousands of farmers and people in rural communities that would have realized the economic benefits that oil and gas development can deliver," she said in […]

Click here to view full article at www.upi.com

Scientists say that a recent surge of low-magnitude earthquakes in Oklahoma is likely the result of the underground disposal of vast quantities of wastewater generated by oil and gas extraction. Temblors in Oklahoma used to be rare. Before 2008, the state experienced just one earthquake of magnitude 3 or larger each year. So far this year the state has already witnessed 230 quakes of that size-more than the number recorded in California. "There are large regions in the state that are lighting up" with quakes, said Katie Keranen, seismologist at Cornell University and lead author of a study on the Oklahoma temblors, published Thursday in the journal Science. "It’s a very profound increase." The findings add to a growing body of evidence that various types of large-scale human activity–from coal mining and quarrying to building dams–can help to trigger quakes. In most cases, the geological processes […]

Click here to view full article at online.wsj.com