Published on:

By

Recent happenings in Pennsylvania:

  • The controversy over natural gas in underground aquifers in Dimock Township, Pennsylvania continues. It was reported that private lab tests of contaminated water found chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Dimock resident Victoria Switzer said that the tests had found ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene in her well water. The testing company said that the tests also found ethylbenzene and zylene in most of the affected water wells in the township. Read the Scranton Times-Tribune article here. The Pennsylvanie Department of Environmental Protection has fined Cabot Oil & Gas for improper casing and cementing that allegedly have caused natural gas to appear in Dimock’s ground water.
  • Cabot has denied that the tests show contamination of ground water by frac water from its wells. Cabot claims that it has not used xylene, ethyl benzene or toluene in its frac water. It said that the chemicals found in the ground water were present before Cabot ever drilled its wells, and Cabot notes that an automobile and truck repair garage is sited near the water wells tested and that these chemcials are primary constituents of car and truck fuel and are commonly found in gasoline spills.  See article here.
Continue reading →
Published on:

By

T. Boone Pickens has filed a lawsuit to protect his water rights in Hemphill County, a suit that highlights the problems with Texas’ attempt to regulate pumping from aquifers in the State. The suit, Mesa Water, L.P. and G&J Ranch, Inc. v. Texas Water Development Board, was filed in Travis County in April.  Water is a little outside the scope of my blog, but this fight concerns the Ogallala Aquifer in the Texas Panhandle, where I was born and grew up, and so is of special interest to me.

To understand the litigation, it is necessary to know something about the Ogallala and about Texas’ efforts to regulate underground water resources.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

A case now before the Texas Supreme Court that addresses issues important to Texas mineral owners. The case, BP America Production Company, et al., v. Stanley G. Marshall, Jr., et al., No. 09-0399, asks the Texas Supreme Court to address the applicability of the laws of adverse possession to mineral interests for the first time since the Court’s decision in the Pool case, Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America v. Pool, decided in 2003. To understand the importance of BP v. Marshall, it is necessary to first review the Pool case.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

EIA Forecast of Energy Prices

   The Energy Information Administration has forecasted that oil and natural gas prices will rise slightly through 2011. It predicts oil to average $84/bbl in 2001, and that the Henry Hub spot price for natural gas will average $4.98/MMBtu in 2011, an incurease of 6% from 2010.  EIA forecasts that US natural gas consumption will increase 3.8% from 2009 levels in 2010, then remain flat in 2011. It predicts total natural gas production to increase by 1.1 Bcf/d in 2010, an increase of 1.9%.

Devon Energy CEO Says Low Prices Will Mean Lower Rig Counts

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

A study group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has concluded that natural gas will play a leading role in the U.S. over the next several decades, both in providing fuel for the nation’s energy needs and in reducing greenhous gas emissions. The study was conducted over two years by a group of thirty MIT faculty members, researchers and graduate students, assisted by an advisory committee of industry leaders and consultants. The study group has released an interim 80-page report summarizing its findings. A full report with additional analysis will follow later this year.

Among the study’s findings:

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

RigData has compiled the numbers of active drilling rigs by county for each of the major shale plays in Texas: Barnett, Haynesville and Eagle Ford. These serve as a good measure of the degree of activity in each of the counties within these plays.

The Barnett Shale rig count 

shows a total of 81 rigs in July. The rig count has held steady around 80 for the last several months. Activity is concentrated in the core area, Tarrant and Johnson Counties.

Continue reading →
Published on:

By

A new report on the risks and advantages of hydraulic fracturing by Ann Davis Vaughan and David Pursell, “Frac Attack: Risks, Hype, and Financial Reality of Hydraulic Fracturing in the Shale Plays,” provides a much-needed objective summary and analysis of the recent debate over the safety of hydraulic fracturing. Ann Davis Vaughan founded Reservoir Research Partners and is a former investigative journalist for the Wall Street Journal. David Pursell is an analyst with Tudor Pickering Holt & Co., an investment banking firm in Houston specializing in the energy industry.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

EOG Resources has filed an application for designation of two new fields and for temporary field rules for oil wells in seven counties in South Texas (Eagle Ford proposed rules.pdf). Unlike its previous application, which sought to consolidate numerous Eagle Ford fields in Railroad Commission of Texas Districts 1, 2 and 4 and provide for temporary field rules for oil and gas, the new application seeks rules oil well rules only, for seven counties — DeWitt, Karnes, Gonzales, Wilson, Atascosa, LaSalle and McMullen. EOG asks for expansion of the existing Eagleville (Eagle Ford) Field, renamed the Eagleville (Eagle Ford -2) Field for Karnes and DeWitt Counties, and a new Eagleville (Eagle Ford -2) Field for Gonzales, Wilson, Atascosa, LaSalle and McMullen Counties.

The proposed rules would provide for a minimum 330 feet from lease line spacing, no between-well spacing, and a minimum of 100 feet from lease line to the first and last take points in a horizontal well, a “box” rule, and a special rule for off-lease penetration of the producing formation.

The standard proration unit size for oil wells would be 80 acres, plus additional acreage for horizontal wells as allowed by RRC Rule 86. Under the proposed rules, an operator would be allowed to assign up to 360 acres to a horizontal well with a 5,000-foot lateral.

Published on:

By

A major issue in shale plays is the use of underground supplies of fresh water to fracture-stimulate the well. Horizontal shale wells are fracture-treated with fresh water to which various chemicals are added, and huge volumes of fresh water are needed. A 5,000-foot lateral horizontal well will use up to seven million gallons of fresh water. Depending on the availability of underground water at the lease, the operator’s use of that resource could have a substantial adverse impact on the landowner’s subsurface water supply.

 

The impact of fracing in the Barnett Shale was a subject of study by the Texas Water Development Board in 2007. The TWDB concluded that 89% of the water supply for the region of the Barnett Shale field was supplied by surface water sources, and that groundwater used for Barnett Shale development accounted for only 3 percent of all groundwater used in the study area. In East Texas, underground water is more plentiful and using it to frac wells may not place a strain on aquifers. But the Eagle Ford Shale is generally in a more arid part of the state where surface water supplies are more scarce and underground water is a more precious resource. Where the mineral owner also owns the surface estate, attention needs to be paid to the impact of mineral development on underground water supplies.

Companies have developed recycling methods to re-use frac water, which have been tested on an experimental basis. Devon has reported that it has been able to recycle a small percentage of the frac water used in its Barnett Shale wells and in the last three years has recycled nearly 4 million gallons. One obstacle is cost. It was reported that it costs about 40 percent more to recycle the water than to dispose of it by underground injection. Devon has said that its cost of recycling water in Barnett Shale wells is $4.43 per barrel, vs. $2 to $2.50 per barrel for typical water disposal into an injection well. Devon said that less than 5% of Devon’s revenue goes toward the cost of handling flow-back water. For a good article on recycling frac water, go to this link.

Continue reading →

Published on:

By

John Hanger, head of the agency responsible for regulating the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania, said in an interview by the Philadelphia Inquirer that the movie Gasland, by Josh Fox, was “fundamentally dishonest” and “a deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect,” and called Fox a “propagandist.” Hanger was interviewed by Fox in the movie, at the end of which Hanger walked out on the interview. Hanger was formerly head of the environmental group Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future (PennFuture). He has sought stricter regulation of the industry over its objections.

Fox’s movie has come under criticism by others. Energy in Depth, an industry website, calls his movie “heay on hyperbole, light on facts.” Fox blames much of the pollution depicted in the movie on hydraulic fracturing. The movie shows water coming out of a faucet charged with methane and lit on fire.

Richard Stoneburner, President of Petrohawk Energy, commenting on the environmental opposition to hydraulic fracturing, has written that natural gas often occurs naturally in fresh water sands.

Continue reading →
Contact Information
John McFarland
 Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody, P.C.
401 Congress Avenue, Suite 2700
Austin, Texas 78701
Phone: 512-480-5618
This Blog/Web Site is made available for educational purposes only as well as to give general information and a general understanding of the law, not to provide specific legal advice. By using this blog site you understand that there is no attorney client relationship between you and the publisher. The Blog/Web Site should not be used as a substitute for competent legal advice from a licensed professional attorney in your state.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail. The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Copyright © 2015 – 2025, John McFarland
JUSTIA Law Firm Blog Design