Impacted

Halliburton Co. reported Wednesday that its profits fell in 3Q2012 from a year earlier in part because of inflated raw materials, but the company also took a sharp hit from the decline in U.S. onshore drilling, which likely won’t accelerate until next year, company executives said Wednesday.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of Act 13, the state’s new omnibus Marcellus Shale law, on Oct. 17 in Pittsburgh.

Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s (CHK) financial and operating deals, impacted by low natural gas realizations, have damaged the calculated net asset value (NAV) of some of the natural gas plays in its massive portfolio, according to an analysis by ITG Investment Research.

Marcellus Shale reserves may spark life into a shuttered, 110-year-old oil refinery complex south of Philadelphia that once supported nearly 500 jobs, according to IHS Inc. researchers.

Independent power giant NRG Energy Inc. CEO David Crane predicted Wednesday that the entire energy sector would be impacted by continuing low natural gas prices this year. Crane was a keynote speaker at the Jefferies 2012 Global Clean Technology Conference in New York City.

On the ground, the shale boom is a mixed bag as rural landowners weigh the alternatives of securing lucrative royalties at the cost of their land being part of an oil/gas industrial push that critics contend is threatening local environments and public water supplies. The Los Angeles Times last Sunday profiled the dilemma through a feature on two brothers with dairy farms in the rich Marcellus Shale in western New York.

A judge in Pennsylvania has denied a request by several Dimock Township families to force Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. to continue delivering potable water to their homes.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has granted Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. permission to discontinue potable water deliveries to several Dimock Township residents by Nov. 30.

A couple from Susquehanna County, PA, at the center of a controversial mineral rights case wants the state’s Supreme Court to throw out a lower court’s ruling and end the anxiety shared by energy companies and landowners alike over uncertain ownership rights in the Marcellus Shale.