Requesting

The California Department of Conservation (DOC) is requesting that oil and natural gas operators voluntarily disclose where they are using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) for their drilling operations and what chemicals are being used in the process. Meanwhile, the state legislature has reintroduced a proposal to require the drilling information, which already has been enacted by several states across the country and is being voluntarily disclosed by many of the biggest operators in the shale business (see Shale Daily, March 30).

The battle for Southern Union Co. continued Thursday after Williams countered by 10% a $40/share offer made earlier this month by Energy Transfer Equity LP (ETE), putting a $44/share cash deal on the table, which is worth a total enterprise value of $9.4 billion (see Shale Daily, July 6).

Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake Operating Inc. and Little Rock, AR-based Clarita Operating LLC agreed Friday to halt drilling waste injection activities at two disposal wells while a potential link between injection activities and earthquakes in the Fayetteville Shale region is examined.

A story about the dangers of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking), which was published by the New York Times last weekend, was “deliberately misleading,” the former chief of Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said Monday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has fired off letters to the chairmen of key committees requesting that they make recommendations or report legislation before the Fourth of July recess that would address the “unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico [GOM].”

Magnum Gas Storage LLC’s nonbinding open season for its Magnum Gas Storage Project, which closed July 31, generated responses from 26 bidders requesting more than four times the capacity offered, the company said Thursday.

As natural gas prices continue to decline in North America while staying resiliently high in Asia, Kitimat LNG Inc. said Tuesday it is requesting formal expressions of interest from potential users of, and investors in, its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal at Bish Cove, BC.

As natural gas prices continue to decline in North America while staying resiliently high in Asia, Kitimat LNG Inc. said it is requesting formal expressions of interest from potential users of, and investors in, its proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal at Bish Cove, BC.

The Wyoming State Engineer’s Office (SEO), which in December began requesting information from coalbed methane (CBM) operators about wells producing only water, has canceled or suspended permits for 239 wells in the state’s Powder River Basin and is looking for more wells to shut down. In December the SEO targeted 296 wells in the Crazy Woman and Clear Creek drainages of northeastern Wyoming, issuing show cause letters to 10 natural gas operators. Two of the operators contested the recommended actions; permits for all but 57 of the wells were eventually canceled or suspended. The SEO said it has now targeted another 42 operators and 992 wells, all with a history of production of water with no attendant gas production over the past five years. CBM well permits issued by the SEO in that time frame contain a standard condition allowing for a review after five years. State Engineer Pat Tyrrell said the SEO effort is not an attempt to stop or hinder gas exploration, development or production — it is “an effort to make sure the operators are producing gas from the resultant water production.” A significant number of the targeted wells may have already been abandoned or are planned for abandonment, Tyrrell said. In December the SEO modified conditions for new CBM well permits, putting in place a July 2007 recommendation of the state’s Coalbed Methane Task Force requiring a threshold water-to-gas ratio of 10 barrels/Mcf in the first two to three years of water production. The current round of show cause letters requires operators to justify why their SEO well permits should not be canceled or suspended.