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Pennsylvania Suspends EOG’s Right to Drill Wells after Blowout

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PDEP) on Monday ordered EOG Resources to suspend all drilling operations in Pennsylvania pending investigation of an EOG well blowout on June 3 in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. EOG had previously said it planned to drill 40 wells in the Marcellus Shale in 2010, and it not operates about 265 wells in Pennsylvania. The blowout shot gas and drilling mud and some 36,000 gallons of frac fluid 75 feet into the air. There was no fire, and no one was hurt. The PDEP banned EOG from drilling for up to seven days and from using hydraulic fracturing techniques for up to fourteen days. EOG said the blowout appears to have been caused by leaking seals in a blowout preventer.

PDEP also ordered C.C. Forbes, a unit of oilfield services contractor Forbes Energy Services, a Canada drilling company, to stop all work on Marcellus Shale wells. Forbes provided post-hydraulic fracturing services for EOG on the well that blew out. Forbes has idled to rigs in the Marcellus Shale.

This is the second time PDEP has banned an operator from drilling wells in the Marcellus Shale.  Previously, PDEP banned Cabot Oil and Gas from conducting hydraulic fracturing operations in Susquehanna County after three spills of a chemical used in hydraulic fracturing at Cabot wells. PDEP also fined Cabot $56,650 and ordered the company to submit a new Pollution Prevention and Contingency Plan and Control Disposal Plan for its wells.

The failure of EOG’s blowout preventer is reminiscent of the environmental disaster now taking place in the Gulf of Mexico.

 

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