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Agreements between two oil and gas producers and a small Front Range Colorado town have added to the state’s rules covering hydraulic fracturing and depend solely on the state for enforcement. Memoranda of understanding (MOU) inked separately by Encana Oil & Gas Co. and Anadarko Petroleum Corp. with the city of Erie, CO, include several best management practices mutually agreed to with city officials and incorporated into state permitting requirements for new wells.

Shale natural gas produced in the Northeast will supply more than 80% of the physical gas going to New York City by 2025, according to ICF International.

One month after announcing that it was abandoning a potential partnership strategy to help develop its Eagle Ford Shale acreage in favor of a “go-it-alone plan,” Denver-based Forest Oil Corp. said it has entered into an agreement to sell the majority of its East Texas natural gas gathering assets to a subsidiary of Tristate Midstream II LLC for proceeds of $34 million.

Gasfrac Energy Services Inc., which has been attempting to muscle into the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) market with its waterless technology, hit some roadblocks in 2Q2012, in part because the pressure pumping market is bursting at the seams, company officials said Thursday.

Using Colorado as its example, a Boulder, CO-based nonprofit law and conservation group, added its two cents to the growing list of advocate-sponsored studies of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), concluding there are definite impacts on water supplies and the communities they serve from the widespread use of the oil/gas drilling technology.

Researchers at Duke University have added their voices to the debate on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), saying in a report released Monday that the practice probably is not the cause of brine migration in the Marcellus Shale, but it could increase the potential for contaminating drinking supplies in the future.

As the Pine Ridge fire in Colorado expanded Friday, up to 50 natural gas wells were shut in by three operators along the Western Slope in the Piceance Basin. In one case, wells were shut before operators were asked to do so by the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA).

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett on Wednesday added his voice to the chorus of state officials calling for construction of a petrochemical complex, including an ethane cracker, in Beaver County, PA.

With the aim of reducing truck travel and pollution, while increasing efficiency for Marcellus and Utica shale oil and natural gas producers, Eureka Resources LLC said Thursday it plans to construct a centralized wastewater treatment facility in Standing Stone Township in Bradford County, PA, the epicenter of Marcellus development.