Left: Cabin Run orphaned oil well, Morgan County, Ohio. Many of the older oil and gas wells were either perfunctorily plugged, or else not at all. Right: The Pennsylvania DEP thinks this Bradford Township explosion in McKean County, PA might have been due to a nearby abandoned gas well that was drilled in 1881. In […]
Marcellus Shale violations issued by the Pennsylvania DEP from January through April, 2011. Violation information from April was recently posted on the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) website, and two new violations datasets have been posted on our DataTool as well, including: PA MS Inspections, Violations, and Enforcements: 1-11 to 4-11, and PA MS Inspections, […]
Year to date drilled wells in Pennsylvania. Click the map for a larger, dynamic view. I have updated the 2011 drilled wells information on FracTracker’s DataTool. There are several interesting trends to point out, including: Percentage of wells from the Marcellus Shale formation Drilling operator trends Non Marcellus horizontal well data Marcellus Shale and Other […]
In yesterday’s Post-Gazette, Don Hopey discussed an analysis by PennFuture which saw a notable decline in fines in the first quarter of 2011, as compared to the same period last year. The implication is that the DEP is not backing up violations with fines under Governor Corbett’s administration to the same degree that it did […]
Changes Over TimeEvery time I think about the number of violations issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Bureau of Oil and Gas Management, I am struck on the one hand by the sheer magnitude of them–last year, the DEP issued 2,704 violations(1), a number that everyone would like to see go […]
Towanda Creek, Bradford County, PA On April 19, a well being hydraulically fractured by Chesapeake Energy suffered a blowout, or a loss of control of the wellhead, releasing thousands of gallons of hydraulic fracturing fluid onto the ground and into nearby Towanda Creek. Actions by officials at the county, state, and federal levels show some […]
Earlier this month, I examined 2010 oil and gas violation data for Pennsylvania on a summary level. Now I’m going to focus just on Marcellus Shale wells, and from the perspective of trying to determine the extent that drilling operators and location have on the likelihood of increased violations for any given well. There are […]
Reposted from the Department of Environmental Protection website: HARRISBURG — At the direction of Governor Tom Corbett, acting Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Michael Krancer today called on all Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling operators to cease by May 19 delivering wastewater from shale gas extraction to 15 facilities that currently accept it under special […]
2011 Marcellus Shale drilled wells (green circles) and permits issued (red stars). For a larger, dynamic view, please click the image. All Marcellus Shale permits issued (red circles) and drilled wells (green circles). Please zoom in for a closer look in the denser portions of the map. Sometimes it seems like the oil and gas […]
Horizontal gas wells in Virginia in 2008 to 2009. Note that they are all clustered in the extreme western portion of the Commonwealth. According to the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy’s (DMME) Division of Gas and Oil, there are 30 horizontal gas wells that produced gas between January 2008 and December 2009 (1). […]
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