Results

Controversial former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz left his job at the end of April, but his fingerprints are on an agency rule calling for stricter ozone standards that would affect Barnett Shale natural gas interests in Wise County, TX, energy companies and industry groups said.

Williams said Monday its adjusted earnings per share will be “significantly lower” than first quarter results, primarily because of an unexpectedly sharp decline in natural gas liquids (NGL) margins in May and June at Williams Partners LP.

The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced the results of Tuesday and Wednesday lease sales in the Dakotas and New Mexico. They brought in nearly $29 million combined: $3.3 million from the Dakotas and $25.6 million from New Mexico.

Federal officials have confirmed that two agencies studying the effects of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) are conducting their work in Washington County, PA, near a Marcellus Shale drilling and impoundment site that is the target of a lawsuit.

A study of data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that showed the percentage of wells with pollution events has declined, thanks at least in part to the state’s regulation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), was not “peer-reviewed,” as it was originally described, according to an editor’s note issued since the study’s release.

The Ohio House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted in favor of an energy bill that also creates new rules for hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the state. The bill is to be sent to Gov. John Kasich for his signature.

A bill that would create rules governing hydraulic fracturing (fracking) passed a key committee in the state House of Representatives on Wednesday and is scheduled to be submitted to the full House for a floor vote on Thursday.

In about 18 months the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) should be able to tell the energy industry, and everyone else, just how productive the Three Forks formation, which lies below the Bakken Shale, might be.

Continuing its basement-to-the-penthouse rise in the energy sector, North Dakota’s latest oil/gas production statistics make the state that had no drilling rigs operating in 1999 now the second biggest oil producer in the nation, trailing only Texas.