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From CNBC: The United States Army Corps of Engineers on Tuesday said in a court filing it intends to grant an easement needed to complete the hotly disputed Dakota Access pipeline.  The Corps also said it would terminate its plans to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. This comes after President Donald Trump last month signed a presidential memo that asked the Army to expedite that process and move forward the project. The move is almost certain to spark a legal battle and could lead to clashes at camps near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, where hundreds of protesters are still camped out in opposition to the project.  Members of the Standing Rock Sioux and other tribes, as well as environmentalists from around the country, have fought the pipeline project on the grounds that it crosses beneath a lake that provides drinking water to Native Americans. They say the route beneath Lake Oahe puts the water source in jeopardy and would destroy sacred land. Read the whole...

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Time.com:   Trump to Slash the EPA's Workforce and Budget: Official   -    "The former head of President Donald Trump's transition team at the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he expects the new administration to seek significant budget and staff cuts. Myron Ebell said in an interview with The Associated Press that Trump is likely to seek significant reductions to the agency's workforce — currently about..." Reuters:   Oil Slips as More U.S. Drilling Revives Glut Concerns   -    "Oil prices fell on Monday as news of another weekly increase in U.S. drilling activity had oil forecasters concerned that production cuts from other producing nations may not reduce the global supply glut as much as had been hoped. Global benchmark Brent crude oil prices settled down 29 cents at..." Marcellus Drilling News:   List of Gas Plants, Pipelines Targeted by Sierra Club   -    "The nutjobs at the Sierra Club have done us the...

From WTOV 9: Tree-clearing began Wednesday as crews prepare to lay the Utopia East pipeline. What does that mean, at least initially, for landowners?  “Basically it's going to be guys with chainsaws, to make it as simple as I can, and it will be a non-invasive process,” said Allen Fore, Kindermorgan, vice president.  It starts in Cadiz, and travels through Harrison, Carroll and Tuscarawas counties, and onto Canada. The pipeline will carry an ethane-propane mix, a feedstock for producing plastics. Click here to view the original report and article. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From Farm & Dairy: But millions of gallons of fluids are being used to drill and fracture those wells.  “Water management costs are significant — $2-$15 per barrel to dispose of the fluids,” he said. “When you think of millions of barrels being produced each day, those numbers add up quickly.”  Penn State’s Marcellus center reports between 5 and 25 percent of the cost to drill and develop a shale well is in managing the fluids.  Drillers use 50,000 to 100,000 gallons of water in the drilling process and 3- to 10-plus million gallons of water to hydraulically fracture a single well, according to 2016 reports from Penn State.  The fluid has to be managed before and after the well is drilled and/or fractured. Read more by clicking here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

by Jackie Stewart, Energy in Depth If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That’s the obvious strategy being employed by Columbus-based anti-fracking activists and lobbyists after two recent academic fracking studies yielded  “disappointing”  results. Despite those setbacks, these activists are — yet again — going fishing for more taxpayer-funded fracking studies, using a recycled playbook from 2012 in an attempt to do so. After  spending years  in Carroll County, Ohio’s most active Utica Shale county, outside groups have now largely  headed south  to Monroe County to focus their efforts on another largely rural, prolific natural gas producing county. And as per usual, Ohio activists brought their usual propaganda and Columbus-based lawyers to a recent so-called  “listening session,”  hosted by the Ohio Environmental Council, Ohio’s environmental lobbying group, and well-known Columbus activist Julie Weatherington-Rice. But to their di...