Biblio
By Joel Kirkland of ClimateWire, New York Times.
The $31 billion Exxon-XTO all-stock deal still has to jump some regulatory hurdles. If the merger becomes real, Exxon will be the largest natural gas producer in the country, controlling large chunks of acreage in the most promising onshore gas fields in the United States.
Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and the Appalachian regions of Pennsylvania and New York are the epicenter of shale gas, coalbed methane and tight-sand gas formations.
See: Marching Band, Quail Hunt Helped Exxon’s Tillerson to XTO Deal - Bloomberg.com
After BP’s Texas City, Tex., refinery blew up in 2005, killing 15 workers, the company vowed to address the safety shortfalls that caused the blast.
The next year, when a badly maintained oil pipeline ruptured and spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil over Alaska’s North Slope, the oil giant once again promised to clean up its act.
In 2007, when Tony Hayward took over as chief executive, BP settled a series of criminal charges, including some related to Texas City, and agreed to pay $370 million in fines. “Our operations failed to meet our own standards and the requirements of the law,” the company said then, pledging to improve its “risk management.”
Despite those repeated promises to reform, BP continues to lag other oil companies when it comes to safety, according to federal officials and industry analysts. Many problems still afflict its operations in Texas and Alaska, they say. Regulators are investigating a whistle-blower’s allegations of safety violations at the Atlantis, one of BP’s newest offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now BP is in the spotlight because of the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, which killed 11 people and continues to spew oil into the ocean. It is too early to say what caused the explosion. Other companies were also involved, including Transocean, which owned and operated the drilling rig, and Halliburton, which had worked on the well a day before the explosion.
BP, based in London, has repeatedly asserted that Transocean was solely responsible for the accident.
See: BP to pay $15 million for Texas air pollution violations. Reuters. Sept. 30, 2010.
See: Cain Burdeau. "Scientists Find Damage to Coral Near BP Well." AP. Coastal Care. Nov. 6, 2010.
By Jim Polson. Bloomberg Business Week. January 21, 2010.
Exxon Mobil Corp., XTO Energy Inc. and other shale-gas producers probably won’t face U.S. rules that would add costs of $100,000 a well, given comments at a Congressional hearing yesterday and the loss of a Senate seat by majority Democrats, FBR Capital Markets Corp. analysts said.
Irving, Texas-based Exxon’s $30 billion acquisition of XTO isn’t in jeopardy, Benjamin Salisbury and other FBR analysts wrote in a report to clients today. U.S. laws making shale development “illegal or commercially impracticable” would let Exxon terminate the deal without penalty, under the buyout agreement.
Democrats at the hearing praised the economic and environmental benefits of replacing fuels such as coal with cleaner-burning natural gas, indicating the party will emphasize jobs and the economy rather than restrictions on fracturing petroleum-bearing rock that might curb drilling by as much as 20 percent, the analysts wrote. Environmentalists said chemicals in fracturing fluid contaminate drinking water.
The Barnett Shale Energy Education Council (BSEEC) is a gas and oil industry sponsored community resource that provides information to the public about gas drilling and production in the Barnett Shale region in North Texas.
Recent release (July 14, 2010):
The Barnett Shale Energy Education Council (BSEEC) today released the results of its air quality testing project which showed there are no harmful levels of benzene and other compounds being emitted from natural gas sites tested in Fort Worth and Arlington City Council District 2.
CalFrac is one of the companies the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is investigating on the potential environmental impacts from hydraulic fracturing.
"Hydraulic fracturing operations are constantly improving through advances in technology, which are intended to translate into cost savings and enhanced production for Calfrac’s customers."
Home page of "one of the largest producers of natural gas in the nation and the most active driller of new wells in the U.S."
Follow links on lower right side to See: Dave Spigelmeyer, Vice-President Government Relations, Chesapeake Energy.
"Open Letter to the State of New York", (February 18, 2010) advertisement publshed in Elmira Star-Gazette.
Read between the lines at The Fighting 29th, a New York State blog, home to former Congressman Eric Massa who resigned in March 2010.
See also: Chesapeake Energy: Fact Sheets On Horizontal Drilling, Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Usage. Chesapeake Energy's Media Resources Page includes: Chesapeake (Chesapeake). 2009a. Hydraulic Fracturing Fact Sheet, May 2009. Submitted to U.S. House of Representative Committee on Natural Resources.
Covalent has been drilling near Cooperstown, NY. In 2008, it tried to purchase water from the Village of Cooperstown for their deep shale drilling. Jim Austin of The Cooperstown Crier (July 24, 2008) reports that the village board has voted not to move forward with the proposal, and Covalent plans to look to Cortland.
“Personally,” said Trustee Lynne Mebust, “I don’t see an upside for the village.” …
Prior to taking the vote, the board listened to comments from the public, which were largely against the sale of water.
Covalent Energy is a privately held exploration and development company focused on developing domestic and international unconventional energy resources.
In 2004, the Political Economy Research Institute ranked Dominion Resources 27th among corporations emitting airborne pollutants in the United States, the second highest rating behind Duke Energy.
Dominion has a web page citing its ecosystem conservation efforts and contributions. It earned $15 billion in 2009. Its main ecosystem project received funding of $500,000 in 2009.
Dominion operates the nation's largest natural gas storage facility with 975 billion cubic feet of storage capacity and serves retail energy customers in 12 states.
For this company's information resources on non-conventional production from coal bed methane and Marcellus shale gas, see the web page, Appalachian Gateway Project.
Includes Landowner's Rights, Source of Supplies, Project Schedule, Environmental Considerations.
Agriculture officials have quarantined 28 beef cattle on a Pennsylvania farm after wastewater from a nearby gas well leaked into a field and came in contact with the animals.
The state Department of Agriculture said the action was its first livestock quarantine related to pollution from natural gas drilling. Although the quarantine was ordered in May, it was announced Thursday.
Carol Johnson, who along with her husband owns the farm in north-central Pennsylvania, said she noticed in early May that fluids pooling in her pasture had killed the grass. She immediately notified the well owner, East Resources Inc.
"You could smell it. The grass was dying," she said. "Something was leaking besides ground water."
The Johnsons' farm sits atop the Marcellus Shale, a layer of rock that lies under swaths of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio. As ProPublica has reported, reports have proliferated of groundwater pollution, spills and other impacts of hydraulic fracturing, a drilling technique that injects massive amounts of water, sand and chemicals underground to break up the formations that hold the gas.
Shell | Appalachia
The acquisition of East Resources, a Pennsylvania-based oil and gas company, on July 29, 2010, is the foundation for Shell’s new operations and growth in the Appalachian Basin. Shell’s current Marcellus Shale operations are focused in Tioga County.
On May 28, 2010, Bloomberg.com reported that Royal Dutch Shell Plc agreed to buy closely held East Resources Inc., for about $5 billion.
East Resources will no longer be a U.S. corporation.
This will be the second-biggest oil and gas deal this year, after BP Plc’s cash acquisition of deepwater assets from Devon Energy Corp. for $7 billion on March 11, according to Bloomberg data.
Private-equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. invested $350 million in East Resources 11 months ago, according to the Journal.
Exxon Mobil Corp., the biggest U.S. oil company, agreed in December to buy XTO Energy Inc., the country’s largest natural gas producer, for $31 billion to gain control of shale-gas assets. Companies from India’s Reliance Industries Ltd. to Japan’s Mitsui & Co. are spending billions of dollars on drilling to dislodge natural gas from shale -- sedimentary rock composed of mud, quartz and calcite.
East Resources, Inc. is an independent exploration and development company with more than 1.25 million acres of land holdings. East Resources owns and operates more than 2,500 producing oil and gas wells in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Colorado and is actively exploring drilling programs in Wyoming.
On July 2, 2010, ProPublica reported wastewater from a nearby East Resources gas well leaked into a field and came in contact with farm animals resulting in a state-ordered quarantine of 16 cows.
See: A Fracking First in Pennsylvania: Cattle Quarantine
"Tests performed for East Resources Inc., found hazardous chemicals and heavy metals, including chloride, barium and strontium. East did not dispute that a leak had occurred."
Reuters reported that a survey by Pennsylvania Land Trust Association, based on data from state regulators found that East Resources committed the most violations, 138, followed by Chesapeake Appalachia LLC with 118, and the privately held Chief Oil & Gas Corp. with 109.
eCORP is a Houston, Texas, based multifaceted energy company which, through its subsidiaries, affiliates and related entities, is engaged in the development and operation of natural gas storage facilities, natural gas pipelines, electric power plants, and other energy related facilities.
eCORP and its principals and affiliates have been involved in Stagecoach Natural Gas Storage Facility, Tioga County New York.
The U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration reported in 2007 that the largest expansion of working gas capacity (13 Bcf) occurred at the Stagecoach natural gas storage site in New York State, a depleted-reservoir facility.
Lenape Resources, Inc. is the operating arm of Lenape Energy, Inc. Along with its sister companies Lenape Drilling, Inc. and Lenape Gathering Corp, Lenape Resources is involved in the exploration, development, gathering and marketing of oil and natural gas resources in the Appalachian basin with a primary focus in the states of New York and Pennsylvania.
Lenape has been disposing of drilling wastewater in Caledonia NY, 27 miles southwest of Rochester, NY on a permit which expired in 2007 but was administratively continued.
See: Public Notice No. 2010- 25 Permit No. NYU119702 Date: August 3, 2010
The EPA oversees the Underground Injection Control Program. Under the Eleventh amendment to the U.S. Constitution, if the state violates a Federal law, then the courts have jurisdiction, but if it's a purely state matter, they don't. How did Lenape manage to go three years without a permit to dispose of it's fracking waste water?
According to the website, Endangered Environmental Laws, "...over time, courts have transformed [the Eleventh Amendment] into a sweeping doctrine of state “sovereign immunity,” unmoored from the Constitution’s text, and in recent years, a conservative bloc of the Supreme Court has further expanded states’ immunity from private lawsuits. In the environmental context, this has led to near-total immunity of state agencies from citizen suits under the federal coal-mining statute; to similar challenges (so far unsuccessful) to citizen litigation under the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act; and to dismissal of state employees’ whistleblower complaints under the Solid Waste Disposal Act and other laws."
See: Babcock, H. “Effect of the United States Supreme Court's Eleventh Amendment Jurisprudence on Clean Water Act Citizen Suits: Muddied Waters, The.” Oregon Law Review 83 (2004): 47.
"The states are permitted to act unjustly only because the highest court in the land has, by its own will, moved the middle ground and narrowed the nation's power.
With rare exception, many people, including Indian tribes, federal employees, patent holders, the elderly, and the disabled, find themselves unable to vindicate rights granted by federal laws in any court when the defendant is a state or a state agency."
Violations are prosecuted only after a dramatic event such as an explosion leading to workers' deaths. Even when the dumping of toxic waste is prosecuted, the sentences' regulatory effect is minimal. Environmental felons absorb these costs of doing business.
However, the Justice Department sees it differently. According to John C. Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, "The Safe Water Drinking Act and the regulations overseeing oil and gas related injection wells are designed to ensure safe sources of drinking water. Violations of these laws will be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Mr. Cruden was Chief Legislative Counsel, U.S. Army (1988-1991).
See: Oil Company and Two Executives Plead Guilty to Environmental Crimes
See: Texas Transportation Company and Officials Sentenced for Hazmat Violations
See also: Gas Drillers Plead Guilty to Felony Dumping Violations
John Morgan and Michael Evans (PDF) (1 pg, 32K)
United States District Judge Sean J. McLaughlin imposed the sentences on John Morgan, age 54, of Sheffield, Pennsylvania, and Michael Evans, age 66, of La Quinta, California. Mr. Morgan received a sentence of three years probation, a $4,000 fine, eight months home detention and eighty hours community service. Mr. Evans received a sentence of three years probation, a $5,000 fine, ten months home detention and one hundred hours community service.
See: Drilling Wastewater Disposal Options in N.Y. Report Have Problems of Their Own - ProPublica
It was reported by Lowell Brown of the Denton Record Chronicle on April 23, 2010 that Range Resources had a spill of drilling mud in Denton, Texas. "Rayzor spill raises a stink. Residents cry foul; officials say mud dump an accident."
Sharon Wilson, Bluedaze blogger, has called this incident "Doodygate". The postings are listed with most recent on top, so to follow the postings, scroll down to the bottom and work your way up. At Bluedaze, click on the keyword, "Range Resources" to read more of her postings. Range is becoming more active, investing more money to acquire leases and develop drill sites in the Marcellus Shale.
Range Resources is an independent oil and gas company operating in the Southwestern, Appalachian and Gulf Coast regions of the United States. "The past five years, however, have represented a period of un- precedented growth. Our reserves have tripled, while our stock price has increased almost 1,000% on a stock-split-adjusted basis."
Christopher Helman. "Range Resources Is King Of The Marcellus Shale". Forbes Magazine. August 09, 2010.
The BP oil spill has created its share of victims, but it's creating opportunities for others. Among them, Range Resources ( RRC - news - people ), the Fort Worth, Tex. company that owns a big chunk of the gas-filled Marcellus Shale rock formation that stretches from New York across Pennsylvania and into West Virginia. With offshore drilling costs sure to go up and with spill liabilities unlimited, oil and gas finders are already looking to redirect capital spending to onshore plays. Range shares have doubled in five years, outpacing even Google but Chief Executive John Pinkerton says, "The bloom hasn't even opened yet."
[Opportunities? Follow this link to jobs in PA, Commonwealth Workforce Development System (CWDS). Are you a carpenter or mason? Want a job for 23k a year? Frac Operator 1 would earn 24,960/year in Greensburg, PA. That's what I found when I looked for a Gas Drilling job. 4/19/10. (Neil Zusman, 2010-04-23.) and SourceWatch.]
The Marcellus Shale Committee is a coalition of oil and gas industry companies which was formed in 2008 to promote "the responsible development of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale geological formation in Pennsylvania and the enhancement of the Commonwealth's economy that can be realized by this clean-burning energy source."
Committee Members
On its website, the Marcellus Shale Committee lists its' members.
Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a leading independent North American natural gas producer. The company’s reserves are focused in both conventional and unconventional basins in Appalachia, the Rocky Mountains, the Mid-Continent and the Gulf Coast.
See: Cabot Oil & Gas’s Marcellus Drilling to Slow After PA Environment Officials Order Wells Closed. Lustgarten, Abrahm. ProPublica. (2010).
See: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania DEP takes aggressive enforcement action against Cabot Oil
See: Associated Press. December 16, 2010. The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. "Gas driller to pay $4.1 million in settlement."
HARRISBURG — The state Department of Environmental Protection has abandoned its plan to force a Houston-based drilling company to pay nearly $12 million to extend a public water line to residents whose wells have been contaminated with methane gas, citing a lack of political support.
Environmental regulators say Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. instead will pay residents of Dimock a total of $4.1 million under a settlement with the company announced late Wednesday. Cabot also has agreed to pay to install whole-house gas mitigation systems in each of the 19 affected homes.
The settlement infuriated residents, who say the DEP caved to political pressure.
See also:
- Legere. Hazards posed by natural gas drilling are not limited to below ground
- Legere. Cabot and DEP clash over Dimock water contamination
- Lippert. Shale Gas Costing 2/3 Less Than OPEC Oil Incites Water Concern
- Lustgarten. Frack Fluid Spill in Dimock Contaminates Stream, Killing Fish.
- Lustgarten. Pennsylvania Orders Cabot Oil and Gas to Stop Fracturing in Troubled County
- McFerrin. Fight Over Gas Wells in Chief Logan Heads to Supreme Court
- Noell. Natural Gas Drilling Threatens Communities in Northeastern United States
- Piette. Water All Around … Or is There?
