Posts Tagged ‘Texas’

A recent study out of Pennsylvania State University has been quoted by the gas industry as predicting that as many as 98000 new jobs may be created in Pennsylvania as a result of increased drilling for natural gas.

The Pennsylvania personal injury Attorneys at Dougherty Leventhal and Price LLP are committed to protecting the rights of workers and their families for injuries or death suffered while working at drill sites. Attorney Thomas Cummings and Attorney Joseph Price will be attending a seminar at the University of Texas which will discuss issues involving gas drilling. Attorney Cummings handles workers compensation claims for injured workers. Attorney Price handles serious/complex personal injury claims involving injury or death. Both Attorney Cummings and Attorney Price have been named Super Lawyers by Philadelphia Magazine.

Any person or family suffering death or injury as a result of gas drilling in Pennsylvania should contact Dougherty Leventhal and Price LLP immediately for a free consultation.

A recent study out of Pennsylvania State University has been quoted by the gas industry as predicting that as many as 98000 new jobs may be created in Pennsylvania as a result of increased drilling for natural gas.

The Pennsylvania personal injury Attorneys at Dougherty Leventhal and Price LLP are committed to protecting the rights of workers and their families for injuries or death suffered while working at drill sites. Attorney Thomas Cummings and Attorney Joseph Price will be attending a seminar at the University of Texas which will discuss issues involving gas drilling. Attorney Cummings handles workers compensation claims for injured workers. Attorney Price handles serious/complex personal injury claims involving injury or death. Both Attorney Cummings and Attorney Price have been named Super Lawyers by Philadelphia Magazine.

Any person or family suffering death or injury as a result of gas drilling in Pennsylvania should contact Dougherty Leventhal and Price LLP immediately for a free consultation.

Pa. is biggest natural gas producer that does not impose some type of tax.

MARC LEVY Associated Press Writer

HARRISBURG — The natural gas industry in one of the nation’s hottest exploration spots is bracing for a political tussle over whether and how Pennsylvania will tax methane from the potentially lucrative Marcellus Shale formation.

An industry trade association, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, said Thursday it wants any discussion of a tax to involve the high cost to drill a shale well and cumbersome state laws that make it costly to operate.

A tax enacted without addressing issues that hamper exploration companies could encourage some to move resources to shale formations in other states, said coalition president Kathryn Klaber.

“What is important is to look at the broad issues, not just a tax, as to how we make this climate best for growth,” Klaber said. “There are a lot of modernization policies that need to be put in place to develop this massive natural resource.”

On Tuesday, Gov. Ed Rendell issued his annual spending plan for the state and renewed his call to enact a tax identical to West Virginia’s: 5 percent on the value of sale, plus 4.7 cents per thousand cubic feet produced.

Rendell projects the tax would produce $180 million in the fiscal year beginning July 1 and increase to nearly $530 million after five years, including 10 percent set aside for local governments.

Rendell wants money to shore up a state treasury that faces a projected $5.6 billion gap in 2011 and 2012 resulting from spiraling public pension costs and the expiration of federal stimulus budget aid.

Pennsylvania is the biggest natural gas producer that does not impose some type of tax on it.

However, the coalition wants to steer talk of a tax to reflect those imposed by shale states, such as Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana. In those states, the tax is discounted initially to allow the exploration companies to recoup a multimillion-dollar investment in each well.

For instance, Texas imposes a 7.5 percent tax but discounts it for 10 years or until the operator recovers 50 percent of the drilling and completion costs. In Arkansas, the state imposes a 5 percent tax on natural gas production but discounts it to 1.5 percent for at least three years.

Last year, Rendell called for the same tax rate on gas. After months of Republican-led opposition, he relented, saying he did not want to hurt an industry in its infancy.

In recent weeks, Rendell has said he believes the industry can afford to pay a tax, and pointed to the heavy influx of cash into Marcellus Shale exploration ventures.

For now, production from the Marcellus Shale is still in the early stages. Fewer than half of the approximately 1,100 wells drilled in Pennsylvania are connected to pipelines that can bring the gas to customers.

Environmental groups and the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors support a tax. The Senate’s Republican majority has not ruled out the eventual imposition of a tax, although Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Centre, called it “premature.”

Copyright: Times Leader

In an effort to better serve workers and individuals injured as a result of gas drilling and related activities, DLP is pleased to announce that personal injury Attorneys Tom Cummings and Joseph Price will attend a seminar on gas drilling litigation and related issues to be conducted at the University of Texas. Attorney Cummings handles major workers compensation cases throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania and is skilled at advising out of state residents on their rights if injured while working in Pennsylvania. Attorney Price handles major personal injury litigation and has tried cases against large corporate defendants.
It is believed that Attorney Cummings and Attorney Price are the first lawyers form Northeastern Pennsylvania to receive specialized traning in the handling of drilling accidents. Both Attorney Cummings and Attorney Price have been named Pennsylvania Super Lawyers by Philadelphia Magazine.

Paul had worked for a Texas-based natural gas drilling company out of Texas for a number of years. The company started to develop drilling sites in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and Paul was put up at a hotel close to the drilling site. Paul had never had an accident in the ten previous years he had worked, despite doing very physical types of activities while working with the various drills on the sites.

Paul’s good fortune ran out though, and he jammed his hand on one of the drill bits, seriously injuring the hand. Paul’s employer was insistent that since Paul was employed out of Texas and the employer was based out of Texas, that he would have to file his comp claim under Texas law.

Issue: Is Paul’s employer correct?

Answer: No. In Pennsylvania, regardless of where an employer is principally located and/or where a contract for hire was entered into, if an injury occurs in Pennsylvania, then Pennsylvania has jurisdiction and Paul will be entitled to benefits under Pennsylvania law. Pennsylvania’s workers’ compensation benefits are, for the most part, far more generous, and the injured worker is provided far more protection than in other states, especially states in the South and Midwest.

Paul had worked for a Texas-based natural gas drilling company out of Texas for a number of years. The company started to develop drilling sites in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and Paul was put up at a hotel close to the drilling site. Paul had never had an accident in the ten previous years he had worked, despite doing very physical types of activities while working with the various drills on the sites.

Paul’s good fortune ran out though, and he jammed his hand on one of the drill bits, seriously injuring the hand. Paul’s employer was insistent that since Paul was employed out of Texas and the employer was based out of Texas, that he would have to file his comp claim under Texas law.

Issue: Is Paul’s employer correct?

Answer: No. In Pennsylvania, regardless of where an employer is principally located and/or where a contract for hire was entered into, if an injury occurs in Pennsylvania, then Pennsylvania has jurisdiction and Paul will be entitled to benefits under Pennsylvania law. Pennsylvania’s workers’ compensation benefits are, for the most part, far more generous, and the injured worker is provided far more protection than in other states, especially states in the South and Midwest.

Disclaimer: The above article is for instructive purposes only and each case is fact sensitive. Consultation with an attorney should be obtained instead of reliance upon the legal issues discussed in this column.

Cleaner than coal and cheaper than oil, a 90-year supply is under our feet, experts say.

By MARK WILLIAMSAP Energy Writer

An unlikely source of energy has emerged to meet international demands that the United States do more to fight global warming: It’s cleaner than coal, cheaper than oil and a 90-year supply is under our feet.

It’s natural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It’s now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low.

Long used to heat half the nation’s homes, it’s becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks.

Natural gas’ abundance and low price come as governments around the world debate how to curtail carbon dioxide and other pollution that contribute to global warming. The likely outcome is a tax on companies that spew excessive greenhouse gases. Utilities and other companies see natural gas as a way to lower emissions — and their costs. Yet politicians aren’t stumping for it.

In June, President Barack Obama lumped natural gas with oil and coal as energy sources the nation must move away from. He touts alternative sources — solar, wind and biofuels derived from corn and other plants. In Congress, the energy debate has focused on finding cleaner coal and saving thousands of mining jobs from West Virginia to Wyoming.

Utilities in the U.S. aren’t waiting for Washington to jump on the gas bandwagon. Looming climate legislation has altered the calculus that they use to determine the cheapest way to deliver power. Coal may still be cheaper, but natural gas emits half as much carbon when burned to generate the same amount electricity.

Today, about 27 percent of the nation’s carbon dioxide emissions come from coal-fired power plants, which generate 44 percent of the electricity used in the U.S. Just under 25 percent of power comes from burning natural gas, more than double its share a decade ago but still with room to grow.

But the fuel has to be plentiful and its price stable — and that has not always been the case with natural gas. In the 1990s, factories that wanted to burn gas instead of coal had to install equipment that did both because the gas supply was uncertain and wild price swings were common. In some states, because of feared shortages, homebuilders were told new gas hookups were banned.

It’s a different story today. Energy experts believe that the huge volume of supply now will ease price swings and supply worries.

Gas now trades on futures markets for about $5.50 per 1,000 cubic feet. While that’s up from a recent low of $2.41 in September as the recession reduced demand and storage caverns filled to overflowing, it’s less than half what it was in the summer of 2008 when oil prices surged close to $150 a barrel.

Oil and gas prices trends have since diverged, due to the recession and the growing realization of just how much gas has been discovered in the last three years. That’s thanks to the introduction of horizontal drilling technology that has unlocked stunning amounts of gas in what were before off-limits shale formations. Estimates of total gas reserves have jumped 58 percent from 2004 to 2008, giving the U.S. a 90-year supply at the current usage rate of about 23 trillion cubic feet of year.

The only question is whether enough gas can be delivered at affordable enough prices for these trends to accelerate.

The world’s largest oil company, Exxon Mobil Corp., gave its answer last Monday when it announced a $30 billion deal to acquire XTO Energy Inc. The move will make it the country’s No. 1 producer of natural gas.

Exxon expects to be able to dramatically boost natural gas sales to electric utilities. In fact, CEO Rex Tillerson says that’s why the deal is such a smart investment.

Tillerson says he sees demand for natural gas growing 50 percent by 2030, much of it for electricity generation and running factories. Decisions being made by executives at power companies lend credence to that forecast.

Consider Progress Energy Inc., which scrapped a $2 billion plan this month to add scrubbers needed to reduce sulfur emissions at 4 older coal-fired power plants in North Carolina. Instead, it will phase out those plants and redirect a portion of those funds toward cleaner burning gas-fired plants.

Lloyd Yates, CEO of Progess Energy Carolina, says planners were 99 percent certain that retrofitting plants made sense when they began a review late last year. But then gas prices began falling and the recession prompted gas-turbine makers to slash prices just as global warming pressures intensified.

“Everyone saw it pretty quickly,” he says. Out went coal, in comes gas. “The environmental component of coal is where we see instability.”

Nevada power company NV Energy Inc. canceled plans for a $5 billion coal-fired plant early this year. That came after its homestate senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid, made it clear he would fight to block its approval, and executives’ fears mounted about the costs of meeting future environmental rules.

“It was obvious to us that Congress or the EPA or both were going to act to reduce carbon emissions,” said CEO Michael Yackira, whose utility already gets two-thirds of its electricity from gas-fired units. “Without understanding the economic ramifications, it would have been foolish for us to go forward.”

Even with an expected jump in demand from utilities, gas prices won’t rise much beyond $6.50 per 1,000 cubic feet for years to come, says Ken Medlock, an energy fellow at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston. That tracks an Energy Department estimate made last week.

Such forecasts are based in part on a belief that the recent spurt in gas discoveries may only be the start of a golden age for gas drillers — one that creates wealth that rivals the so-called Gusher Age of the early 20th century, when strikes in Texas created a new class of oil barons.

XTO, the company that Exxon is buying, was one of the pioneers in developing new drilling technologies that allow a single well to descend 9,000 feet and then bore horizontally through shale formations up to 1 1/2 miles away. Water, sand and chemical additives are pumped through these pipes to unlock trillions of cubic feet of natural gas that until recently had been judged unobtainable.

Even with the big increases in reserves they were logging, expansion plans by XTO and its rivals were limited by the debt they took on to finance these projects that can cost as much as $3 million apiece.

Under Exxon, which earned $45.2 billion last year, that barrier has been obliterated.

Copyright: Times Leader

The Associated Press

DIMOCK — State regulators are fining a Houston-based company because its natural-gas drilling operations polluted residents’ water wells in northeastern Pennsylvania.

Department of Environmental Protection officials said Wednesday that Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. is paying $120,000 in connection with its finding that gas seeped underground into 13 water wells in Susquehanna County.

Cabot has drilled numerous gas wells into the Marcellus Shale rock formation in the rural county, about 15 miles south of the New York State border.

On Jan. 1, a water well exploded at a home nearby Cabot’s operations, prompting an investigation.

The department says its approval of Cabot’s well casing and cementing plans is now required before Cabot can drill.

It also says Cabot must develop a plan to permanently restore or replace the affected water supplies.

Copyright: Times Leader

Industry reps cite permitting delays; DEP head says issues to be resolved.

DALLAS TWP. – Representatives from every aspect of the state’s burgeoning natural-gas drilling industry met on Tuesday and, though differing on specifics, emphasized that Pennsylvanians stand upon a multibillion-dollar windfall, but only if the state streamlines its permitting process.

The hearing at Misericordia University was organized by the state Senate Republicans’ policy committee to identify potential problems with drilling the Marcellus Shale about a mile underground, but the senators instead were told that many of the problems lie with the state itself.

“Fundamentally, what the industry has said to us is, ‘We need to know what the rules are,’” said Tom Beauduy, the deputy director of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission. The commission oversees water removal from the river basin.

Industry representatives were dire with their characterizations. The industry is experiencing “permitting delays unlike we have ever seen in any other state,” said Wendy Straatmann, president of Ohio-based Exco-North Coast Energy Inc. “Why would I spend so much of our company’s time and resources when I can go to some other state and use the gas and oil manual and follow the regulations?”

Ray Walker, a vice president with Texas-based Range Resources Corp., agreed that an inclusive regulations manual would help companies “put our money into protecting the environment and not paperwork.” He noted that smaller companies are considering drilling here, but won’t if the permitting process remains slow and taxes increase. That could keep development slow, he said.

That’s a prospect that few at the hearing wanted. John Hanger, the acting secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, assured that his agency was “working to make sure that gas can be produced and water protected.” Part of the lag has come from a dearth of disposal options for the fluids used to hydraulically fracture the rock, and Hanger said his favored alternative was to find ways for the companies to simply inject them underground.

DEP would need to increase its regulatory force to keep up with the permitting and inspections demand predicted based on industry desires, he said, noting the department has recently requested substantially increasing its well-permitting fees.

Still the Republican senators felt DEP is clamping down too tightly. “When I ran for Senate, I was mad at the state for over-regulating my industry,” said Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango County, who had worked for an oil corporation. “I think we’re heading down that road again.”

William Brackett, the managing editor of a newsletter that reports on the Barnett Shale, said gas drilling there “is a prime reason the north Texas economy has only caught a cold and not the flu.”

John Hanger, acting DEP secretary, said part of the lag has come from a dearth of disposal options for the fluids used to hydraulically fracture the rock.

Copyright: Times Leader

Industry reps cite permitting delays; DEP head says issues to be resolved.

DALLAS TWP. – Representatives from every aspect of the state’s burgeoning natural-gas drilling industry met on Tuesday and, though differing on specifics, emphasized that Pennsylvanians stand upon a multibillion-dollar windfall, but only if the state streamlines its permitting process.

The hearing at Misericordia University was organized by the state Senate Republicans’ policy committee to identify potential problems with drilling the Marcellus Shale about a mile underground, but the senators instead were told that many of the problems lie with the state itself.

“Fundamentally, what the industry has said to us is, ‘We need to know what the rules are,’” said Tom Beauduy, the deputy director of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission. The commission oversees water removal from the river basin.

Industry representatives were dire with their characterizations. The industry is experiencing “permitting delays unlike we have ever seen in any other state,” said Wendy Straatmann, president of Ohio-based Exco-North Coast Energy Inc. “Why would I spend so much of our company’s time and resources when I can go to some other state and use the gas and oil manual and follow the regulations?”

Ray Walker, a vice president with Texas-based Range Resources Corp., agreed that an inclusive regulations manual would help companies “put our money into protecting the environment and not paperwork.” He noted that smaller companies are considering drilling here, but won’t if the permitting process remains slow and taxes increase. That could keep development slow, he said.

That’s a prospect that few at the hearing wanted. John Hanger, the acting secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, assured that his agency was “working to make sure that gas can be produced and water protected.” Part of the lag has come from a dearth of disposal options for the fluids used to hydraulically fracture the rock, and Hanger said his favored alternative was to find ways for the companies to simply inject them underground.

DEP would need to increase its regulatory force to keep up with the permitting and inspections demand predicted based on industry desires, he said, noting the department has recently requested substantially increasing its well-permitting fees.

Still the Republican senators felt DEP is clamping down too tightly. “When I ran for Senate, I was mad at the state for over-regulating my industry,” said Sen. Mary Jo White, R-Venango County, who had worked for an oil corporation. “I think we’re heading down that road again.”

William Brackett, the managing editor of a newsletter that reports on the Barnett Shale, said gas drilling there “is a prime reason the north Texas economy has only caught a cold and not the flu.”

John Hanger, acting DEP secretary, said part of the lag has come from a dearth of disposal options for the fluids used to hydraulically fracture the rock.

Copyright: Times Leader