Wyoming

With one of the nation’s most fossil fuel-intense state economies, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead is pushing a state/private sector initiative for a new testing center at the University of Wyoming to find ways to effectively store carbon dioxide (CO2) to develop markets for carbon and enhanced oil recovery (EOR).

In the face of the current robust oil and natural gas exploration/production (E&P) work in natural resource-rich states like Wyoming, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is prodding states to prepare for an inevitable downturn. EDF contends that in past boom-bust periods, operators abandoned many wells without properly capping and closing them.

Wyoming’s Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a three-year-old case in which landowner and environmental groups challenged the trade secrecy protection applied to the chemical disclosure part of the state’s rules covering hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The court has taken the case under advisement.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead and the Wyoming Pipeline Authority (WPA) have called on FERC to reject Trailblazer Pipeline Co. LLC’s proposed revisions to its natural gas quality standards, saying they would be not only harmful to the state but the rest of the nation as well.

Wyoming state regulators are pursuing expanded rules related to emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) and methane, both primary components of natural gas. They are seeking tougher mandates for leak detection and repair (LDAR) programs and drawing kudos from environmentalists.

Two centers backed by major industry leaders opened in September in the heart of the nation’s western oil/gas production areas: a state-of-the-art center for teaching the latest advances in natural gas compression in Oklahoma, and a digital rock physics laboratory in Wyoming.

While globally the U.S. shale development for oil and natural gas has been a game-changer, concerns about hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on a local level are threatening to sidetrack the domestic energy boom in places like Wyoming and Colorado, according to industry speakers at a symposium in Denver Thursday hosted by the law firm of BakerHostetler.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it is discontinuing the public comment period of its draft research report on alleged groundwater contamination from natural gas wells drilled near Pavillion, WY, which formally brings the agency’s inquiry into the matter to a close.

The Wyoming congressional delegation Monday asked Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to exempt Wyoming and other western states currently regulating hydraulic fracturing (fracking) from the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) final rule on the practice, saying not to do so would delay permitting and discourage production on public land.