Archive for the ‘Pennsylvania Natural Gas Drilling’ Category
Cleaner shale technology is being sought
DAVID WETHE Bloomberg News
HOUSTON — Halliburton Co. and Schlumberger Ltd., trying to forestall a regulatory crackdown that would cut natural-gas drilling, are developing ways to eliminate the need for chemicals that may taint water supplies near wells.
New Marcellus deal announced
Norwegian oil giant Statoil has agreed to pay Chesapeake Energy Corp. an additional $253 million for about 59,000 acres of leasehold in the Marcellus Shale, the company announced Friday. The average cost is $4,325 per acre.
Statoil negotiated the right to periodically acquire a share of leasehold Chesapeake continues to amass in the Marcellus as part of the companies’ $3.4 billion deal in 2008.
“This type of transaction … further validates the developing high potential of the play,” Chesapeake spokesman Jim Gipson said.
At risk is hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a process that unlocked gas deposits in shale formations and drove gains in U.S. production of the fuel. Proposed regulations might slow drilling and add $3 billion a year in costs, a government study found. As one solution, energy companies are researching ways to kill bacteria in fracturing fluids without using harmful biocides.
“The most dangerous part in the shale frack is the biocide,” said Steve Mueller, chief executive officer at Southwestern Energy Co., the biggest producer in the Fayetteville Shale of Arkansas. “That’s the number-one thing the industry is trying to find a way around.”
House and Senate bills introduced in 2009 would force producers to get permits for each well. That and other proposed environmental measures would cut drilling by as much as half and add compliance costs of $75 billion over 25 years, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Biocides are employed because the watery fluids used to fracture rocks heat up when they’re pumped into the ground at high speed, causing bacteria and mold to multiply, Mueller said. The bacteria grow, inhibiting the flow of gas.
“You basically get a black slime in your lines,” he said. “It just becomes a black ooze of this bacteria that grew very quickly.”
Halliburton said March 9 that it’s testing a process using ultraviolet light to kill bacteria in fracking fluid.
About 80 percent of gas wells drilled in North America, including virtually all of those in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, are stimulated or fractured in some way, Tim Probert, corporate development chief at Halliburton, said.
“It’s incumbent on the industry to continue to develop tools and technologies that are compatible with minimizing the environmental impact of the stimulation process,” Probert said.
Copyright: Times Leader
Old Duryea railroad yard taking on new life
Rail cars of sand to be used in Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction get a home.
By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
DURYEA – Investment spurred by Marcellus Shale natural gas exploration has transformed an antiquated, weed-ridden rail yard just north of Pittston into a state-of-the-art transloading terminal teeming with rail and trucking activity on an almost daily basis.
Over the last year, Reading & Northern Railroad Co. sunk $100,000 into Pittston Yard, laying new track to accommodate 100 new rail cars and constructing a facility to store and hold up to 800 cars of sand to be used in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” operations at Marcellus Shale drill sites throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania, said Reading & Northern President Warren A. Michel.
“The reason for our success is that we are the largest facility in the region capable of handling hundreds of rail cars of sand. We now have 130 (sand) rail cars at the yard and we’ll be expanding substantially over the next six months,” Michel said.
The company rewarded its full-time employees for their work on the project and throughout last year with an extra week of paid vacation this year and a paid trip to their choice of either Disney World; Branson, Mo.; Williamsburg, Va.; London; or a cruise.
“This is our way of saying thank you for a job well done,” company owner and Chief Executive Officer Andrew M. Muller Jr. said in a press release.
Between Reading & Northern and its customers, who are involved in the Marcellus Shale fracking and drilling industries, Michel expects another half-million dollars of investment with the laying of more track, construction of bucket conveyors and four holding silos for the sand, and construction of facilities to handle other aspects of the drilling process, such as pipe delivery and the transportation of brine water from the area.
The upgrade and expansion project began about a year ago after Reading & Northern officials began hearing that drilling companies were challenged with the logistics of transporting and storing significant volumes of sand, pipe, water and other materials, according to a marketing release prepared by Daniel Gilchrist, Reading & Northern vice president of marketing and sales.
After several discussions with Reading & Northern partner Norfolk Southern, company officials believed they could offer substantial benefits to customers, Gilchrist said.
Pittston Yard, formerly Coxton Yard, was built in 1870 by the Lehigh Railroad as a hub to move coal from the region to Eastern markets. And while the yard had had been serving many Reading & Northern customers, it was overgrown with weeds and trees and was underutilized.
Many of the tracks were suitable only to hold empty storage cars, and it was not apparent initially how much track and acreage was actually there and available for use, Gilchrist said.
After showing the site and meeting with several potential customers, Reading & Northern began discussions with D&I Silica and its transload operator, the Myles Group, and developed a plan.
Work began in November with tree removal, clearing of several acres, surfacing of more than 5,200 feet of track and construction of a 600-by-80-foot unloading pad. By Dec. 7, the company had more than 50 loaded rail cars on site ready to be transloaded. The following day, at 3 a.m. in the midst of a snowstorm, the first trucks were loaded with sand for customers.
Because of a number of factors including the Marcellus Shale drilling industry, Reading & Northern has hired 10 new employees over the last two months. The company also recently purchased two new locomotives, 101 rail cars and six miles of short-line track between Monroeton and Towanda, where much of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale economic activity is focused, Michel said.
Copyright: Times Leader
Potential leak at gas drilling site probed
DEP probes Cabot Oil & Gas query about “discharge of black water” in Dimock Twp.
By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
DIMOCK TWP. – The state Department of Environmental Protection is investigating a possible leak or spill at a natural gas drilling site in Susquehanna County.
Mark Carmon, DEP spokesman at the Wilkes-Barre office, said the department received a call to its emergency response line from Cabot Oil & Gas Co. on Sunday afternoon informing the department that employees found “a discharge of black water” at the site.
The call was referred to the department’s Gas & Oil Program team, which operates from DEP’s Williamsport office.
Dan Spadoni, DEP spokesman at that office, said the team is investigating “the possibility of a spill or leak at Cabot’s Hibbard drill pad” since Monday, but has not yet determined if there was a spill or leak at the site.
Spadoni said there are two wells on one pad at the site, and no drilling activity is currently taking place. He said the team took samples from a private drinking water well that is currently not being used, from two nearby springs and from the site pit.
The samples are being analyzed at DEP’s lab in Harrisburg.
“We need to see those results to see what our future course of action will be,” Spadoni said.
He expected lab results back in a week or two.
Spadoni said Cabot’s consultant also collected samples and the drill cuttings in the pit for analysis. Site pits, which are lined, are where the residue from the drilling and hydraulic fracturing processes ends up, he said.
There was discussion on an online Susquehanna County gas forum about the possibility of a nearby pond being drained, but Spadoni said he had no information about the pond and no samples were collected from it.
He confirmed Cabot had a vacuum truck on-site “in response to where this dark fluid was observed. It was a voluntary measure on their part,” he said.
Spadoni said he believes there was no recent drilling activity at the site. The site had not been shut down because of the discovery of the liquid, he said.
Ken Komoroski, spokesman for Cabot Oil & Gas, said there was no indication of any environmental contamination or pollution.
“Discolored water was observed over the weekend and Cabot immediately responded to observing water in a ditch. We notified DEP and took the additional measure to have a vacuum truck remove water from ditch,” Komoroski said, adding that employees noticed the water while driving by the site on Route 29.
Cabot also drained the pit to check if it was possible the water was leaking from the drill pit, but the pit liner was “completely intact. All indications are that it was not a result of Cabot activities,” Komoroski said.
Komoroski said the drill site has been in existence “for quite some time, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason” for the discolored water to appear “since it hasn’t been active site. We were not able to identify any potential cause or relationship.”
He said the water was found “in the vicinity of the site, but close enough that we wanted to consider the possibility that it was related to our activities.”
Steve Mocarsky, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7311.
Copyright: Times Leader
The EPA is right to study drilling’s health impact
(Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) tracking By Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Mar. 24–The discovery and development of the Marcellus shale natural gas deposits has been big news in Pennsylvania and neighboring states for several reasons.
One is the massive energy resource it represents. Another is the jump in jobs it could create. A third is the tax revenue that might be reaped. And one more is the concern that widespread drilling poses for the environment.
That worry covers a range of issues, but a major one to catch the eye of the Environmental Protection Agency is “fracking,” the hydraulic fracturing technology that breaks the rock deep in the ground to release the gas. The process injects millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals and sand under great pressure into a gas well to crack the shale. How should drillers best dispose of this water?
While fracking has been used for decades at shallow depths, the EPA said last Thursday it would do a $1.9 million study of the potential adverse effects of the process at a mile or more underground. The EPA wants to gauge the impact on water quality and public health — and that makes this money well spent.
In Pennsylvania alone, 2,500 drilling permits were issued by the state for Marcellus shale gas wells between 2007 and 2009, with another 5,000 expected this year. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade group, says 1,100 Marcellus shale wells have been drilled so far, as a way to get to some of the estimated 363 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
While the coalition and others in the industry say they are committed to ensuring a safe approach to treatment and disposal of wastewater due to fracking, it’s good to know the EPA study will provide an objective, scientific view on how well they are doing.
It’s unfortunate the study could take two years to complete, but Americans should be willing to sacrifice speed for thoroughness on a question that involves community health.
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Copyright (c) 2010, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
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Shale’s financial impact on area unknown
Potential for economic plus to area. Williamsport benefits despite no well within 12 miles.
By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
With most of the nearby Marcellus Shale natural gas production occurring north and west of Luzerne County, the question of whether Greater Wilkes-Barre will benefit with an economic boom or be bypassed remains unanswered.
It depends on a number of factors, including the volume and quality of natural gas that can be harvested in the county.
If prospects are not good here, the proximity of natural gas development in nearby counties could have some impact locally if the infrastructure close to Wilkes-Barre has the most to offer nearby energy companies, drillers and their employees, according to an economic development official in a county that has been reaping the benefits of Marcellus Shale production.
Jason Fink, executive vice president of the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce, said chamber officials began seeing signs of interest in gas production in Lycoming County about two years ago when the appearance of landmen first became noticeable.
Work had begun on five to seven natural gas wells in northern Lycoming County by the end of 2007, according to records from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
By the end of 2008, 13 more wells had been drilled; another 24 followed last year, and four more have been drilled this year.
And although the closest well is about 12 to 15 miles from Williamsport, the city of about 30,000 is seeing “a number of significant areas of development,” Fink said.
A boom hits Williamsport
The first evidence of business development related to the shale came about a year and a half ago with growth in oil field services. Chief Oil & Gas has been operating for well over a year in the county and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. also has had a presence, Fink said.
Precision Drilling set up shop and Weatherford – a mechanical/technological support company for the oil and gas industry – is in the process of developing a 20-acre site in the county, he said.
Industrial Properties Corp., which is operated by the chamber, sold a 24-acre parcel to Halliburton, which is in the process of developing the property and projects the hiring of 250 employees at the site.
Sooner Pipe, which provides casing pipe for Chesapeake Energy and is one of the largest customers of U.S. Steel, just signed a 10-year lease with the Williamsport Regional Airport for a pipe lay-down yard. That project is expected to employ 50 people when operational, Fink said.
The work force at Allison Crane & Rigging – a third-generation family-owned company in Williamsport – grew by more than 50 employees early on in the well construction phase. And Sooner Pipe intends to use local trucking company Woolever Brothers Transportation to haul all of its pipe when the facility is operational, Fink said.
It’s all about infrastructure
Fink said that Williamsport is benefiting from the gas extraction activity, the heart of which is at least 15 to 20 miles northwest and northeast of the city, because it has more to offer than more rural counties to the north.
“They need to have access to certain infrastructure to conduct their business. We have a highway system, housing, hotels, restaurants – everything they need for their employees. Bradford and Tioga are more rural and have very limited hotel space,” Fink said, adding that rail service through Norfolk Southern and a short line and a nearby interstate highway also helps matters.
Bradford County saw 113 wells drilled last year, while Tioga County had 114.
Because of the influx of workers, the city saw demands for home and apartment rentals grow. Developers responded by renovating space above downtown businesses, creating new rental units.
Fink said local unemployment had been hovering around 10 percent, but he’s seen it drop to 9.1 percent lately.
“We’ve been working with the Pennsylvania College of Technology and the local CareerLink office. Really, once more local people are able to gain the skills this industry requires, I think you’ll be able to see a greater economic impact,” he said.
Would it work in Wilkes-Barre area?
“I would think Wilkes-Barre would have the same opportunities if they find gas in volumes in areas proximate to Wilkes-Barre. And the Wilkes-Barre area understands the positive side as well as the pitfalls of the acquisition of natural resources for energy purposes,” Fink said.
Todd Vonderheid, president of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Business and Industry, agrees.
“There’s certainly an opportunity to be captured for the region. Several things have already happened,” Vonderheid said.
Vonderheid noted that several suppliers and vendors to the gas-and-oil industry already are locating in the region and hiring locally.
“We’re trying to facilitate that and make the process as easy as possible. We’re working with energy company officials to better learn what those supply opportunities might be,” Vonderheid said, adding that representatives of Chesapeake and EnCana energy companies sit on the chamber board of directors.
Vonderheid said a presentation for chamber members on Marcellus Shale opportunities, the gas extraction process, environmental issues and the possible economic impact is in the works.
Copyright: Times Leader
Some colleges add programs to train workers
By Andrew M. Sederaseder@timesleader.com
Times Leader Staff Writer
The landscape of the state’s northern tier is changing as natural gas drillers set up shop from the Poconos west to Tioga County.
The burgeoning industry also is bringing change to the curricula at some local colleges hoping to capitalize on the need for a skilled and trained work force.
Lackawanna College in Scranton and Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport have launched programs specifically catering to those interested in securing employment in the natural gas and ancillary fields. Other schools, including Johnson College and Keystone College, are investigating courses to prepare students for jobs in the industry.
When the industry made initial steps to move in to the region, Lackawanna College got in on the ground floor.
“Our goal was to try to find a niche where we could train people for jobs they could find here,” said Larry D. Milliken, director of energy programs at the college. The school, with input from the industry, created an applied science degree in Oil and Gas Production Technology program in December 2008.
The school asked Milliken, a former gas company employee with a background as an economic geologist who lives in Dunmore, to help with the program.
He sees great potential for the field and the creation of jobs, as companies look to tap into the gas supplies within the Marcellus Shale, a layer of gas-laden rock about a mile underground across most of Pennsylvania.
“I’m not sure most people realize the magnitude of what the Marcellus can mean and do for the state. … It’s going to be a huge game changer in Pennsylvania.”
Milliken said he sees hundreds of immediate jobs and the potential for thousands more as a result of gas drilling.
As an example, he said one well tender will be needed for every 20 wells that come on line. This year alone, he said, more than 1,000 wells are anticipated to be drilled and that number should double next year. This will mean 50 to 100 new well-tender jobs will be created every year for the next 20 years, he projects.
To prepare potential employees for those jobs, Lackawanna College offers an associate’s degree in natural gas technology and is developing an operating and maintenance degree program in compression technology that could debut next fall.
In addition, the college will soon start giving accounting students at its Towanda Center the option of customizing their degree to prepare them to work in the accounting side of the natural gas industry, Milliken said.
Milliken said Lackawanna relied heavily on curricula and course work offered by established programs at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs, Wyo.; North Central Texas College in Gainesville, Texas, and Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas. Using that material, Lackawanna created an outline for its own potential programs and sent it to 10 gas companies “for feedback and modifications before settling in on our own curriculum.”
At the moment, the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport is the only other place to get industry-specific training. The school has partnered with the Penn State Cooperative Extension to create The Marcellus Shale Education & Training Center.
Opened in 2008, the center will identify the industry’s work force needs and respond with education tracks that train people for those jobs. Careers include welders, construction workers, drivers and machine operators and fabricators.Tracy Brundage, the school’s managing director of the Workforce Development and Continuing Education programs, said that as the landscape of the Northern Tier changes, so too do course offerings at the college.
She said input from energy companies has been influential in the design of 21 new courses, including those through the Fit 4 Natural Gas program developed by work force development boards in more than a dozen Northern Tier counties using Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry funds.
Officials from Lackawanna College also lauded the affiliations and assistance offered by gas companies.
“They’ve been very active,” Milliken said.
Last week, Chesapeake Energy donated $50,000 to help Lackawanna College expand its Natural Gas Technology Program at its New Milford Center campus in Susquehanna County. The college plans to use the money for capital-equipment costs in fitting out their new facilities for the program that began last fall.
“We’ve been an eager partner in these efforts,” said Brian Grove, director of corporate development for Chesapeake Energy.
Milliken said that in the short time the program’s been up and running at Lackawanna, the partnership has seen tremendous interest from potential students and positive feedback from the industry.
The companies reflected praise for the two-way-street relationship it has with the local schools.
Grove said “crafting an effective educational infrastructure will benefit the community far beyond its borders by equipping locals with skills they can market within the industry. A highly skilled work force is critical to our success as a company and the community’s long-term economic success as well.”
Brundage said that while the program at Penn Tech is still “in its infancy,” she, too, feels confident that the college’s programs have progressed nicely in a short period of time. “I think we’ve positioned ourselves pretty well with the industry. We’re not going to be able to meet all of their needs but we can help with a lot of them,” Brundage said.
So far 65 students have taken a course, including 14 who have completed welding courses. One course was created specifically at the request of the gas industry.
“They told us what they need as far as some of the welding components, so we aligned some things internally to meet those needs,” Brundage said.
Wendy J. Wiedenbeck, a spokeswoman for Denver-based EnCana Oil and Gas, said it’s too early to discuss her company’s needs because it is still in the exploratory stages. The company is looking at drilling specifically in Luzerne County.
“If we are successful and determine we would like to develop additional wells in the area, an important first step will be to understand what work-force development programs already exist in the area and how the curriculum aligns with business needs,” she said.
“New curriculum and training programs often come into existence after we’ve been operating in an area for some time,” Wiedenbeck added. “They evolve from the relationships we build along the way and are very much the result of a collaborative approach. In areas where we have established operations, we’ve collaborated with local colleges to create or build upon programs that help community members build the skills needed to compete for industry jobs.”
Andrew M. Seder, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 570-829-7269.
Copyright: Times Leader
Man killed by fall off Towanda drilling rig
By Jennifer Micale
Elmira Gazette
March 12, 2010
A 31-year-old worker died Thursday after he fell 20 feet off a natural gas rig in Towanda Township, according to Pennsylvania State Police.
At around 5:30 p.m., Greg Allen Henry, of Athens, Tennessee, was working on a Nomac Drilling site off Plank Road, two miles from Towanda, Pa.
He was attempting to dislodge a handrail while the drilling unit was being moved to another hole on the drilling pad, police said. The handrail gave way and Henry fell 20 feet, suffering a severe head injury. He was pronounced dead at the scene by Bradford County Coroner Thomas Carman. An autopsy will be conducted at a later date, police said.
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Drilling likely to generate variety of labor positions
75 percent of gas production workforce composed of unskilled, semi-skilled jobs.
By Steve Mocarskysmocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
If natural gas production from the Marcellus Shale is as successful as energy companies and landowners hope, the companies likely will need to hire more employees to man wells, perform testing for and oversee the drilling of new ones and monitor their operations.
An exploratory natural gas drilling rig operates in Springville, Susquehanna County. If the Marcellus Shale yields expected finds, it will create jobs for Northeastern Pennsylvania.
“The jobs associated with natural gas drilling are well-paying jobs,” said Doug Hock, spokesman for Calgary-based Encana Energy, which has its U.S. headquarters in Denver, Colo.
Salaries even for less-skilled positions generally range between $60,000 and $70,000, Hock said.
The types of company jobs that usually become available when drilling operations are successful include drilling engineers, geologists and geophysicists and permitting experts. Pumpers, employees who check wells on a regular basis for proper operation, will be needed after more wells are drilled, Hock said.
Other positions with energy companies include experts in land negotiations and in community relations, he said.
Rory Sweeney, spokesman for Chesapeake Energy, said the Oklahoma City, Okla.-based company currently has 1,032 employees working in Pennsylvania, up from 215 in January 2009.
Local employment
As far as local employment, Sweeney said 168 employees report to local offices, “but we have more than 1,000 statewide and most of them are working rigs in NEPA.”
Types of workers expected to be hired include welders, rig hands, production workers, engineers, drilling and land technicians, pipeline field staff, construction field staff, administrative support and dozens of other occupations.
Last summer, the Marcellus Shale Education and Training Center at the Pennsylvania College of Technology conducted a Marcellus Shale Workforce Needs Assessment study that looked at potential workforce needs in two tiers of Pennsylvania counties – the northern tier, which borders Luzerne County to the north, and the central tier, which borders Luzerne County to the west.
The northern tier includes Wyoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Bradford and Tioga counties; the central tier includes Clinton, Centre, Columbia, Montour, Northumberland, Union, Snyder, Lycoming and Mifflin counties.
The study found that the direct workforce needed to drill a single well in the Marcellus Shale region is comprised of more than 410 individuals working in nearly 150 different occupations. The total hours worked by these individuals are the equivalent of 11.53 full-time, direct jobs over the course of a year.
The study notes that nearly all of these jobs are required only while wells are being drilled.
By comparison, 0.17 long-term, full-time jobs associated with the production phase of development are created for each well drilled in a given field. While comprising a very small percentage of the overall workforce, these long-term jobs compound every year as more wells are drilled. For example, if 100 wells were drilled each year for 10 years, 17 production jobs would be created each year, according to the study.
The study found the majority of occupations in the direct workforce were unskilled or semi-skilled jobs including heavy equipment operation, CDL truck operation, general labor, pipefitters and a variety of office-related occupations. These occupations account for about 75 percent of the workforce.
Learn on the job
Industry representatives, survey respondents and additional research indicated that most of these occupations require no formal post-secondary education, and only a few, such as CDL, welding and X-ray, require a specialized license or trade certification.
However, nearly all of them require the skills and knowledge unique to the natural gas industry, which are best learned through experience. Workers within all occupations of the natural gas industry are additionally prized for their hard work ethic and willingness to work very long hours in unfavorable conditions, the study found.
The majority of the remaining 25 percent of workers are in occupations that are white collar in nature, including foremen, supervisors, paralegals, Realtors, engineers and geological scientists.
Larry Milliken, director of Energy Programs at Lackawanna College, said that industry wide, jobs in the gas and oil drilling industry pay about 20 percent better than the same types of jobs in other industries.
“Around here, there are an awful lot of jobs in the $9- to $14-per-hour range. Jobs in the oil and gas industry tend to start in the $18-per-hour range and go up from there,” Milliken said.
A petroleum engineer might earn $40,000 to $45,000 teaching at a college or university, but working in the field for a gas or oil company, the engineer could make close to $90,000, he said.
The average technician in the natural gas industry can expect to earn about $30 per hour, which equates to an annual salary of about $60,000. A starting technician with a two-year degree can expect to earn $18 to $20 to start, amounting to a salary near $40,000, Milliken said.
In gas production growth areas, employees with at least associate’s degrees would tend to progress up the employment ladder “faster than someone off the street,” Milliken said.
Sweeney said Chesapeake has a variety of recruiting events, such as a drill-rig worker recruiting event this week through PA CareerLink, and a job fair in Towanda in October that attracted more than 1,000 applicants.
Chesapeake also employs a Scranton-based professional recruiting firm to recruit local employees for NOMAC, Chesapeake’s wholly owned drilling subsidiary.
Company officials plan to build a residential and training facility in Bradford County this year to serve as quarters for out-of-town employees and as NOMAC’s Eastern U.S. Training Facility, which will help the company train workers, Sweeney said.
Coming tomorrow: Schools gear up to train Marcellus Shale workers.
Copyright: Times Leader
Law on gas drilling still in flux, public told
A panel offers an update on legislation, which turns out to center on money.
By Rory Sweeney rsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
BENTON – With interest increasing in drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, there’s a whole swirl of legislation related to it being considered in Harrisburg, but much of it comes down to money.
“A lot of what goes on in Harrisburg is who’s gonna pay to make the pie and who’s going to get a piece,” said state Rep. Garth Everett, R-Lycoming. “The fight is how we’re going to divide up the pie. … We want to see the Commonwealth get its fair share, but we also don’t want to … go New York on them and drive them away.”
Everett was among two other representatives – Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, and David Millard, R-Columbia – who spoke on Thursday evening at a meeting of the Columbia County Landowners Coalition.
A state Department of Environmental Protection official and a Penn State University educator were also on the panel.
Everett described the intention and status of nearly 20 bills throughout the legislature, noting that they fit into four categories: taxation and where the money goes, water protection, access to information and surface-owner rights.
While some likely won’t ever see a vote, Everett said a few will probably pass this session, including a bill that would require companies to release well production information within six months instead of the current five years.
He said a tax on the gas extraction also seems likely “at some point.”
For the most part, the industry received a pass at the meeting, with most comments favorable. One woman suggested companies might underreport the amount of gas they take out and questioned what’s being done to help landowners keep them honest.
Dave Messersmith of Penn State suggested that an addendum to each lease should be the opportunity for an annual audit of the company’s logs.
Robert Yowell, the director of the DEP’s north-central regional office, said the rush to drill in the shale happened so quickly that DEP is still trying to catch up with regulations. Likewise, he said, companies are still becoming acquainted with differences here from where they’re used to drilling.
“When they first came to town, I don’t think they realized how widely our streams fluctuated,” he said.
He added some public perceptions need to be changed – such as the belief that people aren’t naturally exposed to radiation all the time – and that he felt confident that “this can be done safely.”
In response to contamination issues in Dimock Township in Susquehanna County, DEP is upgrading and standardizing its requirements for well casings, Everett said. He added that it’s being suggested the contamination in might have been caused by “odd geology.”
“Every time humans do anything, there’s an impact on the land,” he said. “We just need to balance this right so that we end up with something we’re happy with when we’re done.”
Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.
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Law on gas drilling still in flux, public told
A panel offers an update on legislation, which turns out to center on money.
By Rory Sweeney rsweeney@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
BENTON – With interest increasing in drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, there’s a whole swirl of legislation related to it being considered in Harrisburg, but much of it comes down to money.
“A lot of what goes on in Harrisburg is who’s gonna pay to make the pie and who’s going to get a piece,” said state Rep. Garth Everett, R-Lycoming. “The fight is how we’re going to divide up the pie. … We want to see the Commonwealth get its fair share, but we also don’t want to … go New York on them and drive them away.”
Everett was among two other representatives – Karen Boback, R-Harveys Lake, and David Millard, R-Columbia – who spoke on Thursday evening at a meeting of the Columbia County Landowners Coalition.
A state Department of Environmental Protection official and a Penn State University educator were also on the panel.
Everett described the intention and status of nearly 20 bills throughout the legislature, noting that they fit into four categories: taxation and where the money goes, water protection, access to information and surface-owner rights.
While some likely won’t ever see a vote, Everett said a few will probably pass this session, including a bill that would require companies to release well production information within six months instead of the current five years.
He said a tax on the gas extraction also seems likely “at some point.”
For the most part, the industry received a pass at the meeting, with most comments favorable. One woman suggested companies might underreport the amount of gas they take out and questioned what’s being done to help landowners keep them honest.
Dave Messersmith of Penn State suggested that an addendum to each lease should be the opportunity for an annual audit of the company’s logs.
Robert Yowell, the director of the DEP’s north-central regional office, said the rush to drill in the shale happened so quickly that DEP is still trying to catch up with regulations. Likewise, he said, companies are still becoming acquainted with differences here from where they’re used to drilling.
“When they first came to town, I don’t think they realized how widely our streams fluctuated,” he said.
He added some public perceptions need to be changed – such as the belief that people aren’t naturally exposed to radiation all the time – and that he felt confident that “this can be done safely.”
In response to contamination issues in Dimock Township in Susquehanna County, DEP is upgrading and standardizing its requirements for well casings, Everett said. He added that it’s being suggested the contamination in might have been caused by “odd geology.”
“Every time humans do anything, there’s an impact on the land,” he said. “We just need to balance this right so that we end up with something we’re happy with when we’re done.”
Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.
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