The Daily Digger

Shale Reporter:   Message is mixed on fracking Energy in Depth:   Boulder Congressman: A "Poster Boy" for Hypocrisy Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:  Pennsylvania drillers eye shale layers atop Marcellus The Hill:   Fracking fears are appalling Energy Outlook:  A First-Hand View of Fracking in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale Canton Repository:   Dodds helping to plot Carroll County's future The Morning Journal:   Kensington plant fired up Central Valley Business Times:   Report: Feds fail to inspect 2 Million miles of pipelines Shale Gas Review:   Record shows EPA staff warned of Dimock water pollution Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

Is all of the truck traffic ruining Harrison County roadways? From the Tribune Chronicle: "Don't get me wrong, I still feel the gas boom is a positive for the county and we have a good relationship with all of the companies doing business in Harrison County," said Norris. "However, it is a relationship that should be based on mutual respect and I feel the county has been taken advantage of in several instances."  Norris passed around a stack of photos from a weekend road tour of the county. Citing several county highways with sagging patches, culverts blocked by debris and rough travel, Norris said, "This is a safety concern for our citizens who travel these roads and we feel that it should be our primary focus to protect the taxpayers. I feel we should hold up all road-use maintenance agreements until the road work which has already been promised is done."  "We never claimed we would have 100 percent compliance," said Ryan Dean, se

From The Motley Fool: Nuverra Environmental Solutions   ( NYSE:  NES     ) decided it was best not to wait until its scheduled earnings release on Aug. 8 to deliver the bad news. Instead, the company chose to preliminarily release second-quarter results and get all its bad news out in the open. Let's break down the release to see if there is anything positive for investors.  Nuverra noted that several factors have been negatively affecting its business. The company pointed out that activity levels in some of the shale plays it operates in were below its internal forecasts because its customers worked at a slower pace than expected. It did allow that it sees some revenue being pushed into the second half of this year and even 2014. Later in the article: In an odd twist, the company was actually affected negatively in another fast-growing shale play because it couldn't keep up with demand. The company's Marcellus and Utica operations were stronger than anticipated wh

From Business Journal Daily: The coalition was formed just weeks before the primary election and lobbied against the measure. However this time, the group is telling the community not to sign petitions so it does not receive the necessary signatures to place it on the November ballot. "We're trying to be proactive," said Thomas Humphries, Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber president and CEO. "If you look at the issue, it hasn't really changed that much." Humphries said it’s the coalition's objective to remind the public why they voted the amendment down the first time, and consider withholding their signatures. "People didn’t support it the last time, and we encourage them not to support it by signing it," he said. Wenger said this charter proposal is practically identical to the one that was voted down three months ago. Read the whole article by clicking here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From Business Journal Daily: Between drilling activity in Columbiana and neighboring Carroll County to the south, the thoroughfare has become an artery that carries the lifeblood of the Utica shale, and Don Hofmeister is smack in the middle of it. From the vantage point of his business, Hanoverton Motorcars Inc. on Route 30 in Hanoverton, Hofmeister says he’s seen and heard it all. Managers, rig workers, neighbors and farmers – all stop in these days either to buy a vehicle or chat about the biggest industry to hit this region in decades. “I’m 48 years old and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Hofmeister says of the oil and gas industry. Wells are popping up to the north and south of his business, while less than a mile away UEO Buckeye – a partnership between M3 Midstream, Access Midstream and EV Energy Partners – is putting the final touches on the first phase of its huge cryogenic plant near the crossroads of Kensington.     Read the rest of this article by clicking her

From The Columbus Dispatch: In terms of making electricity, coal is still king in Ohio, but it is taking a beating from a cleaner rival. And the growing popularity of this other fuel — natural gas — has helped make the summer air easier on your lungs. Central Ohio had six straight 90-degree days this month without a single smog alert. The only two alerts this year were on June 21 and 22. By this time last year, there had been 14 alerts, according to the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, which issues them. Many factors contribute to smog, and experts are reluctant to place too much emphasis on any one, but big changes in the state’s power plants have played an important role. Coal was the fuel for 67 percent of the power produced in the state last year, down from 85 percent in 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration. Most of coal’s losses have been gains for cleaner-burning natural gas. Click here to read the rest of the article.  Connect with us o

From The Energy Collective: As Ingraffea pointed out, while natural gas emits about half as much carbon dioxide as coal per unit of energy, the global warming impact of methane is about 20 times more potent than coal on a 100-year basis. As a result, methane emissions have the potential to erode most or all of the CO 2  emissions benefit resulting from coal-to-gas switching. According to a study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, if methane leakage exceeds 2 percent of total production, the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas could exceed that of coal (scientists at the Environmental Defense Fund estimated that this threshold is actually 3.2 percent, and Lawrence Cathles of Cornell University has suggested that it could be as high as 18 percent). But the best available studies suggest that leakage rates do not exceed 2 percent. Ingraffea ignored the  latest data  from the US Environmental Protection Agency, which estimated nationwide fugitive methane emissions at

From John Hanger's Facts of the Day blog: While the companies flaring vast volumes of gas in North Dakota may think that they are just burning gas to make oil money, they are also burning the reputation of their industry and state regulation. http://www.ceres.org/press/press-releases/new-report-north-dakota-natural-gas-flaring-more-than-doubles-in-two-years The drilling in North Dakota is for oil, much more valuable oil, and the gas released comes with the oil production.  Oil currently sells for about 30 times more than natural gas. Instead of producing the gas commercially, the drilling companies burn it off so that they can speed the oil from the well to market.  The gas being flared amounts to $100 million per month or more than a billion dollars a year. Some in the oil and gas industry express bewilderment that it regularly scores public approval levels below lawyers and journalists and just a bit above Congress.  Yet, the flaring in North Dakota is just one example of beh

With a host of other things happening today, we didn't get to post individual articles for all of these different stories.  However, these links will help you keep up-to-date on what's going on. StateImpact Pennsylvania:   Silenced Critic of Dimock's Water Problems Switches to Air Pollution Concerns  (AKA: After settling their case with Cabot, a landowner decides that the settlement money is nice but they miss the attention they got when they were complaining about drilling) WFMJ News:   Attorney withdraws from Youngstown illegal dumping case Business Journal Daily:   Coalition Holds Rally to Counter "Don't Frack" Natural Gas Now:   Josh Fox and Friends Claim the Land From Farmers Star Tribune:   Sierra Club sues feds over shale development Columbus Dispatch:   State forest proposed as fracking site Energy in Depth:   Bill McKibben's Hypocritical Rally in Warren New York Times:   Another View on Gas Drilling in the Context of Climate Chang

Youngstown Vindicator:   200 protest fracking at Warren rally Shale Reporter:   Food, fun and fracking: Cabot Annual Picnic New York Times:   Gangplank to a warm future (Cornell's Anthony Ingraffea continues his anti-gas activist efforts) Grand Forks Herald:   Fracking does not put N.D. groundwater at serious risk Youngstown Vindicator:   Son of anti-fracking initiative deserves to be dead on arrival (the case is made against the reintroduction of defeated fracking ban charter amendment) Oil & Gas Law Report:   Part 2: Who Owns the Minerals Under Ohio Township Section 16? Maryland Daily Record:   Devonian: Another player in natural gas boom Akron Beacon Journal:   Limited Upper Devonian drilling in Southeast Ohio The Argus:   Two more arrests at Balcombe fracking protest Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From RTCC: A high level of water contamination has been discovered in the water wells near a natural gas extraction site in the US. The toxic substances, including arsenic, selenium and strontium, were all found at levels higher than recommended levels in wells in and around the Barnett Shale, an important reservoir of natural gas in North Texas. The study, led by  Kevin Schug , professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Texas (UT) at Arlington, took water samples from 100 private wells. Of these, 91 were taken from wells that were within a five kilometre radius of a natural gas drilling site, while another nine were taken from “reference areas” of more than 14 kilometres from a drilling site. Read the rest of the article here. Energy in Depth, of course, was quick to weigh in with questions about the study.  Amazingly, Duke professor Rob Jackson, who has been working to try and prove that fracking can contaminate water, echoes some of EID's points.

From The Canton Repository: The billion-dollar Utica East Ohio midstream project has begun taking natural gas from Utica Shale wells, easing a bottle-neck that has kept production from getting to market.   Phase one of the three-phase project started processing natural gas liquids and sending residue natural gas to interstate markets on Sunday, the companies behind the project announced Monday.   The Utica East Ohio system includes gathering pipelines, a cryogenic processing plant near Kensington in Columbiana County  and a natural gas liquids fractionator, storage and rail facility in Scio in Harrison County.   The project is a joint venture owned by Access Midstream (49 percent), M3 Midstream (30 percent) and EV Energy Partners (21 percent). Read the whole article here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From DeSmogBlog: Though EPA said Dimock's water wasn't contaminated by fracking in a  2012 election year desk statement , internal documents obtained by  LA Times  reporter Neela Banerjee show regional EPA staff members saying the exact opposite among friends.  "In an internal EPA PowerPoint presentation...staff members warned their superiors that several wells had been contaminated with methane and substances such as manganese and arsenic, most likely because of local natural gas production," writes Banerjee. "The presentation, based on data collected over 4 1/2 years at 11 wells around Dimock, concluded that 'methane and other gases released during drilling (including air from the drilling) apparently cause significant damage to the water quality.' The presentation also concluded that 'methane is at significantly higher concentrations in the aquifers after gas drilling and perhaps as a result of fracking [hydraulic fracturing] and other gas

From ESR: Then why do Hollywood and radical greens celebrate misleading films like  Gasland  and  Promised Land  – even after Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney's documentary FrackNation  completely demolished  Gasland ‘s lies and half-truths? Why do outfits like Food and Water Watch and the Sierra Club, and ill-informed activists like Yoko Ono, continue to scream hysterical nonsense about the process?   Follow the money – and the ideology.  Big Eco  is  big business , and big egos. It seeks ever more power and every greater control over our lives. Fracking threatens all of that.   "What you get in your mailbox is a never-ending stream of crisis-related shrill material designed to evoke emotions," former National Audubon Society COO Dan Beard once admitted, "so that you will sit down and write a check" – or click the "Donate Now" button. This multi-billion-dollar-per-year industry would collapse without the crisis  du jour it conjures up, wit

From The Associated Press: But some experts say arrogance, a lack of transparency and poor communication on the part of the drilling industry have helped fuel public anger over the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. "It's a big issue for the industry. I have called for greater transparency. That is the only way to have an honest conversation with the public," said John Hofmeister, a former Shell Oil Co. president and author of "Why We Hate Oil Companies." As an example, Hofmeister said, some industry leaders have suggested that the fracking boom has never caused water pollution. But while the vast majority of wells don't cause problems, "everybody knows that some wells go bad," Hofmeister said. Over the last five years, advances in technology have led to a surge of drilling in states such as Pennsylvania, Colorado, Arkansas and North Dakota. Previously inaccessible deposits of shale oil and gas have been unlocked by fracking, a

From The Motley Fool: So far,  Gulfport Energy  ( NASDAQ:  GPOR     ) has had the best success rate in targeting the liquids rich part of the play. The company is spending $499 million of its $570 million capital budget this year on the Utica. Those funds will help drive the company's production from just over 7,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day last year to more than 21,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day this year. This is mainly due to the fact that Gulfport has been drilling some of the best wells in the play. Chesapeake has also found some of the more successful areas of the play. It expects to see its production jump from 60 mmfce/d, where it ended the first quarter, all the way to 300 mmcfe/d by the end of the year. Chesapeake has not only found some of the better spots, but by moving to multi-well pad drilling, it expects to shave about 30% off its well costs, which will help to boost its returns. Range and EQT are relative newcomers to the play, as both have

No Hot Air:   Can Shale Safely Host Nuclear Waste? Ask Chesapeake:   Ohio Manufacturing Company Expands Workforce (from 10 to 90 employees thanks to shale activity) Upstream:   Police break up Balcombe blockade (amusing article about people protesting unconventional drilling for gas at a site where the company is doing conventional drilling for oil) Akron Beacon Journal:   Limited Upper Devonian drilling in southeast Ohio Associated Press:   Halliburton Co. contacted in federal anti-trust investigation The New American:   Despite Federal Study, Fracing (Fracking) Safety Still in Dispute Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--  EQT Corporation  (NYSE: EQT) today announced the Company's 2013 capital expenditure (CAPEX) forecast of  $1.5 billion . The CAPEX forecast includes  $1.15 billion  for EQT Production ,  $320 million  for  EQT Midstream , and  $45 million  for distribution infrastructure projects and other corporate items. The forecast does not include CAPEX for  EQT Midstream Partners, LP (NYSE: EQM), which is a publicly traded entity controlled by  EQT Corporation  and consolidated in its financial statements. Funding will be provided by cash-on-hand at year-end, cash generated from operations, and proceeds from expected midstream asset sales (dropdowns) to  EQT Midstream Partners, LP . 2013 GUIDANCE: Operating cash flow is projected to be approximately  $1.0 billion  in 2013, based on current  NYMEX  natural gas prices. This estimate will increase or decrease by approximately  $55 million  per  $0.25  change in the average  NYMEX  price. Sales of produced nat