Issuance

Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) can be done safely “as long as the right protections are in place prior to issuance of any permits for the practice,” according to a draft report from North Carolina’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

The legal challenge by a consortium of environmental groups to the Department of Interior’s issuance of a permit to a unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc to drill a new well in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) has the “potential to virtually halt production in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Shell Oil President Marvin Odum.

The legal challenge by a consortium of environmental groups to the Department of Interior’s issuance of a permit to a unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc to drill a new well in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) has the “potential to virtually halt production in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Shell Oil President Marvin Odum.

The New York Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee this week reported out of committee legislation to suspend until June 1, 2012 the issuance of new permits to drill that use hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) to extract natural gas or oil.

Analysts for FBR Capital Markets called the Interior Department’s issuance of the first deepwater drilling permit since the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig a “positive incremental step toward normalization of the regulatory environment” in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), but they cautioned investors against chasing stocks with GOM exposure in the near term.

Republican Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, has requested all of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) documents related to its investigation of water well contamination in North Texas by Range Resources Corp.

Alaska Native and conservation groups have successfully challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) issuance of clean air permits to Shell Oil to drill and operate in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. The Alaska EPA regional office erred when it relied solely on compliance with the national ambient air quality standard for nitrogen oxide “as sufficient to find that the Alaska Native population would not experience disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects from the permitted activity,” said the federal Environmental Appeals Board in its decision. The three groups that challenged the permits were the Center for Biological Diversity; Earthjustice, on behalf of several conservation groups; and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope. The permits issued by the EPA authorize Shell Oil, a unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc, to construct and operate the 514-foot Frontier Discoverer drillship and its air emission units and to conduct other air pollutant emitting activities for the purpose of exploration in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the North Slope of Alaska. The producer is seeking to drill three exploratory wells in the Arctic seas.

Alaska Native and conservation groups have successfully challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA} issuance of clean air permits to Shell Oil to drill and operate in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

Atlanta-based AGL Resources and Naperville, IL-based Nicor Inc. said last week they plan a merger that would create a holding company with seven regulated gas distribution companies serving 4.5 million customers in Illinois, Georgia, New Jersey, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee and Maryland and with a rate base of $3.8 billion. The combined company would be one of the nation’s largest gas-only distributors.