Homes

Wild Well Control on Friday started the lengthy process of removing the wellhead at a Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. site in Monroe County, OH, that’s been leaking uncontrollably since Dec. 13 (see Shale Daily, Dec. 15).

MarkWest Energy Partners LP on Thursday said its Houston Processing and Fractionation facility in southwest Pennsylvania would remain offline until a full assessment of equipment could be made after a lightning strike on Wednesday caused limited damage to one of its processing plants there.

NiSource is investigating a rupture of its Columbia Gulf Transmission LLC pipeline that occurred about 2:05 a.m. EST Thursday on the system’s 30-inch diameter Line 200 in Adair County, KY. Shippers were not being impacted, the pipeline said.

Fresh from being told that portions of its drilling ordinance are incompatible with Act 13, the state’s new omnibus Marcellus Shale law, the city of Pittsburgh plans to support the law’s opponents in court and file an amicus curiae brief.

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.

As the Bakken and Eagle Ford shale plays have shown, oil and gas wells go up long before there are enough homes for all the workers who flock to the energy patch for high-paying jobs. A study released Tuesday intends to lay out a strategy for Eagle Ford counties in South Texas to meet regional housing needs over the next 10-15 years.

A consortium of environmental groups has filed a petition with a Wyoming district court, seeking to require the state Oil and Gas Conservation Commissions to disclose information about specific chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of oil and natural gas wells that are being kept confidential for proprietary business reasons.

Shale gas is reviving the domestic chemical industry, has already sparked growth in exports, and going forward it will boost the U.S. economy through new jobs in supplier industries and other manufacturers benefiting from cheap, plentiful energy, according to the National Petroleum Council (NPC).

In two days’ time Hess Corp. has acquired stakes in almost 185,000 net acres in the Ohio portion of the Utica Shale, the latest deal adding 85,000 more acres to its prospective leasehold.