Fire

Firefighters were allowing a massive fire at the Red River Oilfield Service Co.’s facilities in the Williston Basin to burn late Tuesday as North Dakota state health officials monitored the situation.

A faulty valve that leaked gas at a Consol Energy Inc. site in Greene County, PA, on Thursday is thought to be the cause of a fire that burned briefly at a pump station near a four-well pad before it extinguished itself, regulators and company officials said.

An investigation into the cause of a large fire last weekend at a Statoil ASA drilling site in Monroe County, OH, near the West Virginia state line continued on Thursday. Cleanup efforts were expected to last several days, said an Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) spokesman, Thursday.

The family of a subcontractor killed by an explosion at a well pad operated by Chevron Appalachia LLC in southwest Pennsylvania in February (see Shale Daily, Feb. 11) filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company last month in Allegheny County court in Pittsburgh.

Despite some media reports to the contrary, there were no complaints about possible gas leaks from residents of the two buildings destroyed by an explosion and fire in New York City Wednesday in the months preceding the incident, other than one called in just minutes before the blast, according to Con Edison and New York City officials.

Although one fire is out at a Chevron Appalachia LLC well pad in southwest Pennsylvania, another well continues to periodically spew flames, which specialists and state officials say could help efforts to cap the wells as early as this weekend.

A fire that has burned since early Tuesday at a Chevron Appalachia LLC natural gas well in southwest Pennsylvania had nearly burned out on its own by Thursday afternoon, said a state official, adding that a team of specialists was preparing to cap it and another well on the same pad.

A fire that has burned since early Tuesday at a Chevron Appalachia LLC natural gas well in southwest Pennsylvania had nearly burned out on its own by Thursday afternoon, said a state official, adding that a team of specialists was preparing to cap it and another well on the same pad.

State and local officials said an explosion early Tuesday at Chevron Appalachia LLC’s Lanco 7H well in Greene County, PA, was one of the worst the state has seen in modern history and the largest accident yet at an unconventional well in the state.