The Daily Digger

Akron Beacon Journal:   Grass-roots initiative to hold Ohio watershed district accountable Coshocton Tribune:   Officials: Training key to the Utica Shale Department of Energy:   Research projects addressing technical challenges to environmentally acceptable shale gas development selected by DOE Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

UPDATE: And, of course, Energy in Depth has already responded to this article.  An excerpt ( read the whole response by clicking here ): The central thesis of the article is that shale development, including hydraulic fracturing, is contaminating the food we eat. As the author states early on, “there’s growing evidence that these two impulses, toward energy and food independence, may be at odds with each other.” From there, the story advances as one would imagine. Using the fatally flawed  Bamberger-Oswald “study” on hydraulic fracturing  as the focal point, the author weaves a carefully constructed narrative that does everything from repeating common (and debunked) activist talking points to claiming America’s cows are being poisoned to death by oil and natural gas development. Of course, the story would have been much different had the author included (instead of deliberately omitting) scientific assessments that weren’t tailor-made for an anti-natural gas crow...

From Businessweek: The vast majority of hydraulic fracturing sites in the U.S. are powered by emissions-spewing, noisy diesel engines. So, Ron Hyden, who’s seen a lot during his four decades in the oil patch, is eager to show off something new: a machine used in fracking that relies on gravity and electricity generated from solar panels to send sand into a labyrinth of tubes before it’s shot underground to prop open tiny cracks in natural gas- or oil-bearing rock. The irony of gravity and solar panels being used to help capture fossil fuels isn’t lost on Hyden, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Dec. 3 issue. “You would’ve never thought we’d give a flip about this,” Hyden said in a Texas twang as he gazes at the solar panels atop his new contraption. “We’re big into it.” Read the rest of this article by clicking here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From Bloomberg: A subsidiary of  Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR)  pumped a mixture of chemicals identified only as “EXP- F0173-11” into a half-dozen  oil wells  in rural Karnes County,  Texas , in July. Few people outside Nabors, the  largest  onshore drilling contractor by revenue, know exactly what’s in that blend. This much is clear: One ingredient, an unidentified solvent, can cause damage to the kidney and liver, according to safety  information  about the product that Michigan state regulators have on file. A year-old Texas law that requires drillers to disclose chemicals they pump underground during hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” was powerless to compel transparency for EXP- F0173-11. The solvent and several other ingredients in the product are considered a trade secret by Superior Well Services, the Nabors subsidiary. That means they’re exempt from disclosure. Read the entire report by clicking here. Connect with us on F...

From The Salem News: Hilcorp Energy requested information from Salem Township trustees regarding a road use management agreement during Wednesday's meeting. The township is becoming an oil and gas drilling hot spot in the northern part of Columbiana County. Currently Hanover Township has the most permitted wells in the county. The Hilcorp Energy has the oil and gas rights to the Grubbs well on Grafton Road and asked for a RUMA for eight-tenths of a mile from state Route 558 to the south. Click here to read the entire article. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From The Columbus Dispatch: State officials escorted about 100 people out of an information session on a proposed “fracking” waste well last night after the crowd tried to take over the Ohio Department of Natural Resources open house and turn it into a public hearing. The group was ordered to leave the department’s Division of Wildlife regional headquarters in Athens after former Athens County Commissioner Roxanne Groff announced that she would be moderating a hearing on the well and taking public statements. At that point, an ODNR official informed Groff, who is a member of an anti-fracking group, that the event was not a public hearing but an open house, in which the public could ask questions of individual experts on hand, but not make public statements. Read the entire article by clicking here.  Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

Update 11/29/12:  Two new articles highlight the amazing production of the Shugert 1-12H well and how Gulfport has been able to set a new bar for Utica shale production 3 times in the past few months. First, from The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register ( full article available by clicking here ): Global Hunter Securities - an investment bank focused on energy - is quite impressed with the results from this Belmont County well. "The Shugert well is a monster and another positive event for Gulfport as the company continues to derisk its Utica acreage," Global Hunter analysts said in a statement regarding the well. And then, from Energy in Depth (read the entire article here ): So how does Gulfport continue to produce such prolific wells in the Utica?  Jim Palm, CEO of Gulfport Energy, gave a little insight to how Gulfport has been so successful in the Utica at the  DUG East Conference  a few weeks ago in Pittsburgh.  When Gulfport first became intere...

From U.S. News and World Report: A group of natural gas and oil organizations sent a letter to members of Congress Tuesday morning, urging them to think twice before leveling any tax increases on the industry as part of fiscal cliff negotiations. The letter, shared with  U.S. News  by the American Petroleum Institute ahead of its delivery to members of Congress, was addressed to party leaders Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Nancy Pelosi, and Speaker John Boehner, and underscored the contributions the oil and gas industry have made to the struggling U.S. economy in the wake of the Great Recession. Read the entire article by clicking here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From The Chillicothe Gazette: In Ohio, per person income was $37,836 in 2011, or $770 more than the year before and 3.1 percent higher than in 2009. Incomes grew in the metro areas of Ohio by 3 percent from 2009 to 2011, compared to 3.5 percent elsewhere.  Van Wert County, where incomes climbed 10.4 percent during the past two years, led the way. Ten other northwestern, agriculture-intensive counties were among the income-growth leaders in Ohio.  Carroll County, the heart of Utica Shale activity in Ohio, actually has been a subpar performer in the state with 2.2 percent per person income growth since 2009. Read the entire article here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From The Columbus Dispatch: CARROLLTON, Ohio — A deep, constant hum emanates from John and Elizabeth Neider’s dairy and sheep farm. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either the sound of progress or a harbinger of environmental disaster. The hum is created by a cluster of powerful pumps forcing millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into six deep wells. As much as 5 million gallons of water per well are needed to shatter the Utica shale and release the natural gas and oil trapped thousands of feet underground. It’s a process that’s likely to be repeated in eastern Ohio thousands of times over the next few years, and Carroll County residents will have front-row seats. Read the entire article here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

As of the latest data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Belmont County has 11 permits issued, with 6 wells drilled.  This pales in comparison to the 161 permits and 73 wells drilled in Carroll County, the biggest hotbed for Utica shale activity to this point.  But things look poised to pick up in Belmont. From The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register: More than $1 million already has been realized this year in the Belmont County Recorder's office from the big oil and gas companies seeking to obtain drilling leases from property owners to gain access to the untapped energy supplies contained in the Marcellus and Utica shale deposits. Never in Belmont County's 200-plus years of existence has there been such feverish leasing activity in the office. It has been literally overrun by abstractors each and every day since the beginning of the year. "It never stops. We're busy every minute of the day" exclaimed Recorder Mary Catherine Nixon, whose off...

After Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon made it clear earlier this month that his company was no longer optimistic about getting huge amounts of oil from the Utica shale, a new report suggests that the oil window in Ohio may not be as bad as McClendon's comments indicate. From Crain's Cleveland Business: Drawing on drilling rig activity reports published by  Baker Hughes Inc. , EIA said in a “Today in Energy” mini-report last week “that there were twice as many active rigs in Ohio's Utica oil and gas play at the end of October than a year ago,” MidwestEnergyNews.com reports. The big difference was oil exploration. “The growth in active oil-directed rigs has more than offset the declines in active gas-directed rigs. According to Baker Hughes, about 86 percent, or 24 out of 28 active rigs in the Utica play, were directed toward drilling for shale oil,” the EIA stated. A year ago, about 15% were looking for shale oil in the state. Read the whole article here. Conne...

From the Institute for Energy Research: Hydraulic fracturing allows for the production of oil and natural gas in shale rock that tightly holds oil and natural gas resources. To hydraulic fracture the shale, water, sand, and chemicals are pumped underground to break apart the shale rock and release the oil or natural gas. (See chart below.) Today,  9 out of 10 gas wells in the United States [i]  are hydraulic fractured and its use along with horizontal drilling has created a natural gas boom in this country resulting in relatively low natural gas prices, particularly compared to gas prices elsewhere in the world. But, the federal government wants to increase these prices by imposing  additional regulation for drilling on federal and Indian lands . Currently, federal lands are already regulated by the states in which the wells are located. [ii]  Many of those states already require drilling companies to disclose the chemicals used in the extracting process. [iii] ...

From the Akron Beacon Journal: The wheeling and dealing over the natural gas-rich Marcellus shale has hit the pause button. Marcellus mergers and acquisition activity fell to zero in the third quarter of 2012, after major energy companies spent tens of billions of dollars over the last three years, according to a quarterly report Thursday of the financial firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. In the previous quarter, the deals totaled $1.6 billion. PwC said low natural gas prices were the main factor, not the output or potential of the vast shale gas formation that lies under parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York, Ohio and Maryland. Read the entire article here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From the Zanesville Times Recorder: Edge Oilfield Services, a subsidiary of Key Energy Services, came to the area in January, to service Utica Shale drilling operations in the region by supplying frack stacks, well-testing services and hydraulic chokes. They also had shops in Pennsylvania and in the Bakken Shale play in North Dakota.  Eight employees came to the area from Louisiana to run the local operation and then hired several more through temporary staffing agencies.  But drilling development has been slow in the immediate area, with only three wells drilled nearby so far.  The bulk of drilling is being done east and north of Guernsey County, which boasts 24 drilling permits. Carroll County leads the state with 155 permitted wells.  No signs announcing the closure had been posted at the East Pike location and an equipment yard on the hill behind the building is empty.  Messages seeking comment were left at corporate headquarters in Houston and...

From Philly.com: The towering flares that turn night into day in the Marcellus Shale gaslands are becoming an increasingly rare sight. Natural gas producers are turning to new techniques to capture the gas emitted during the well-completion process. In the past, a well's initial production was typically vented or burned off to allow impurities to clear before the well was tied into a pipeline. Read the rest of the story here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From Energy in Depth: A  new paper  by two experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and published in the journal  Environmental Research Letters  suggests that Cornell professor (and activist)  Robert Howarth’s thesis  about greenhouse gas emissions from shale is even more irreconcilably divorced from the facts than was previously thought. The MIT paper — coauthored by one of the lead authors of the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC — is appropriately titled “Shale gas production: potential versus actual greenhouse gas emissions.” As many will remember, Dr. Howarth erroneously assumed that every single cubic foot of natural gas that he couldn’t account for was vented into the air as pure methane, contrary to technological realities and regulations requiring at least partial capture (more on that in a minute). You might also remember that Howarth’s paper has been widely panned by the  U.S. Department of Energy ,  vari...

I apologize for the lack of updates over the past few days.  Between illness and being out of town, it's been tough to find time to post.  There hasn't been a ton of new stories coming down the pike.  Here are some to get things caught up as we head into a new week. Zanesville Times Recorder:   Fracking industry to boom as obstacles fade Columbus Business First:   Bank of America's Stephen Hoffman cites allure of Ohio shale for taking Huntington Bancshares energy post The Morning Journal:   Hilcorp setting up shop The Plain Dealer:   New wave of injection wells on the way in Ohio for fracking waste Press & Sun-Bulletin:   Testing clears Binghamton water of fracking impact Shale Reporter:   The fix is in; the frack may be out Switchboard:   New analysis shows companies use secret fracking chemicals in most wells Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From The Salem News: During Chesapeake Energy's third quarter earnings call this month, CEO Aubrey McClendon called Columbiana, Carroll and Harrison counties the "core of the core" in the Utica Shale Play. The core of the core is described in the call as a strategy that allows the company to focus on its best rate of return areas. According to Chesapeake.com, "... Utica Shale is a geological formation of sedimentary rock that contains oil and natural gas. It is roughly 175 miles wide and 225 miles long. Lying mainly under parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, the Utica can be as thick as 1,000 feet in portions." Read the entire article here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

WOUB News:   Fracking Opponents Learn Activism Techniques At Local Action Camp Akron Beacon Journal:   Fracking liquids unlikely to leak from shale wells Energy in Depth:   Cuomo Comments Suggest Fix May Be in on Shale in NY Pittsburgh Business Times:   Icahn boosts stake in Chesapeake Energy U.S. Energy Information Administration:   Rig count in Utica Shale doubles from year ago Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From Seeking Alpha: Utica Shale Players 3rd Quarter Conference Calls Update Those of you who follow us know that we were among the very first to write about the vast potential of the Utica Shale (starting with our August 1, 2011 article - accessible  HERE ). We have subsequently updated our Utica outlook and profiled four different leading Utica Shale players. This is our fifth compilation conference call article. We believe that conference calls are an invaluable source of information and often give "color" that cannot be obtained elsewhere. Therefore, we are once again sharing our notes relating to the Utica Shale from the recently concluded third-quarter conference calls of Chesapeake Energy Corporation ( CHK ), EV Energy Partners LP ( EVEP ), Gulfport Energy Corporation ( GPOR ), PDC Energy, Inc. ( PDCE ) and Rex Energy Corporation ( REXX ). To that end… Read the breakdown by clicking here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From Pittsburgh Quarterly: The concern from many in the environmental community is, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it in a column last summer, that wholesale extraction of natural gas will "undermine new investments in wind, solar, nuclear and energy efficiency systems—which have zero emissions—and thus keep us addicted to fossil fuels for decades." Those concerns have certainly drawn the battle lines between two highly partisan and highly motivated camps—camps that have become almost mirror images of each other, according to former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger. "The hardcore who just want to ban the industry are never going to stop saying ‘nay'… they're like the hardcore climate deniers. New York could be under water. The hardcore really is beyond reason," said Hanger. That's a sentiment shared by John Quigley, the former head of Pennsylvania's Department of Conservation and Natural Res...

Akron Beacon Journal:   Fracking flowback is costly Press & Sun-Bulletin:   Gas companies lose battle to extend leases in Broome, Tioga Energy in Depth:   FracFocus: Myths and Facts Politics on the Hudson:   UB President Shuts Down Controversial Shale Institute Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

Norse Energy ASA: Financing Update LYSAKER, Norway--( BUSINESS WIRE )--Norse Energy Corp. ASA ("NEC" ticker code OSE - NEC, Oslo, Norway, U.S OTCQX symbol "NSEEY") today provided a finance update. Norse Energy has over the last several quarters commented on the status of its cash position.  The Company currently has cash of ~USD 1.5million, which is sufficient to fund the Company’s obligations only into December 2012. Consistent with previous reporting, the Company remains concerned about meeting its obligations as they fall due. The Company has been and is continuously working on securing new liquidity; however no conclusion has yet been reached. Consequently, there is a risk that the liquidity situation may not be resolved in time to meet the Company’s debt and other obligations. In order to attract new funding,...

From the Akron Beacon Journal: The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District on Friday said it intends to seek a drilling lease with Antero Resources for district-owned land at Seneca Lake. The terms of the lease agreement with the Colorado-based energy firm have not yet been finalized, said district spokesman Sean Logan. It is unclear how long it might take to negotiate such a lease and submit the proposal to the district’s governing board for final approval. The district is willing to lease its land for drilling but does not want drilling pads, wells and facilities on its land, said district spokesman Mark Swiger. Read the entire article here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From an interview with geological consultant Arthur Berman by Minyanville's Wall Street: James Stafford:  How do you see the shale boom impacting US foreign policy? Arthur Berman:  Well, not very much is my simple answer. A lot of investors from other parts of the world, particularly the oil-rich parts have been making somewhat high-risk investments in the United States for many years and, for a long time, those investments were in real estate. Now these people have shifted their focus and are putting cash into shale. There are two important things going on here, one is that the capital isn't going to last forever, especially since shale gas is a commercial failure. Shale gas has lost hundreds of billions of dollars and investors will not keep on pumping money into something that doesn't generate a return. The second thing that nobody thinks very much about is the decline rates shale reservoirs experience. Well, I've looked at this. The decline rates are incredibly hi...

443 total permits have been issued in Ohio and 186 wells have been drilled, according to the ODNR's newest numbers. Read about it here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From PennLive: Energy companies, environmental groups, and even Hollywood stars are watching to see what decisions  President Barack Obama  makes about regulating or promoting natural gas drilling.   The stakes are huge. Business leaders don't want government regulations to slow the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars of clean, cheap domestic energy over the next few decades. Environmental groups see that same tide as a potential threat, not just to air and water, but to renewable energy. And on a strategic level, diplomats envision a future when natural gas helps make the U.S. less beholden to imports. Read the rest of the article here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register: Industry Preps for Worst With New EPA Regs ThinkProgress:   Oil Lobby Chief Warns "You Fundamentally Can't Regulate" Fracking At All New York Times:   Can Public Leak Patrols Stem Gas Emissions at a Profit? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:   Pa. House lawmaker urges investigation into politician's ties to Range Resources TribLIVE:   Expert: Rep. Jesse White "can't have it both ways" in drilling debate Huffington Post:   Amid Climate Change Inaction in Washington, Activist Urges Americans To "Do The Math" Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

The anti-drilling organization SkyTruth is heralding the establishment of a new resource to view information about fracking chemicals used around the nation.  Despite saying that because of this site "Nationwide data on fracking chemical use finally available to public", it really is simply a repackaging of the information that can already be found on FracFocus.org.  The biggest difference is that by accessing it through SkyTruth you can get a helping of anti-drilling rhetoric along with the raw information. Here is the press release.   Here is the site. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog