4-14-14

TODAY'S LATEST ON HYDRAULIC FRACTURING FROM ENERGY IN DEPTH:

Washington Times, Editorial. At 8 percent, the California unemployment rate is higher than in all but three other states. The Legislature apparently likes it that way. The lawmakers are on their way to banning a technology that could create 200,000 jobs and inject millions of dollars into the state’s economy.   Glenwood Springs Post Independent, LTE. As a recent letter to the editor exemplifies, activists have been trying to push the claim that shale development will cause widespread birth defects and cancer, but those claims (and activists) have been debunked time and time again. The latest example can be found in a recent Colorado School of Public Health report. The report was highly criticized for its faulty methodology — most notably by Dr. Larry Wolk, chief medical officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE).  Reno Gazette-Journal. In a state world-famous as a gold producer, Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. is looking deep underground to make big bucks from previously untappable oil deposits, spending up to $130 million to identify the possible rewards.  Star Tribune. North Dakota’s oil boom has lured thousands of new workers to the state, but it still needs more. Minnesota’s neighbor to the northwest is on the verge of a new national advertising campaign that it’s calling “Find the Good Life in North Dakota.” The hope is to lure enough warm bodies — and skilled workers — to fill 25,000 jobs now vacant, and another 76,000 that it expects to see by the end of the decade.  Wheeling Intelligencer. Fossil Creek Ohio is signing Utica Shale leases in Marshall County, with plans to start sinking wells in the near future. The company said each well will cost up to $22 million to drill, compared to about $7 million that some companies have publicly said they are paying to drill in the Marcellus.  Athens News, LTE. It is time to get fracking here in Ohio. Former Obama Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar this past February said that hydraulic fracturing is safe….  ? Houston Chronicle. "The boom is in all areas of Texas' oil and gas industry. I have been watching the oil and gas industry for 40 years and I have never seen anything like this. This boom is the biggest thing to happen in Texas since Spindletop in 1901," said Bernard Weinstein, assistant director, Maguire Institute, Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University.   
Latest Texas oil boom creates population surge. Longview News-Journal. New census data show a population surge as the oil boom draws workers and families to oilfields around the country. Some of the nation’s fastest-growing communities include Midland and Odessa in the Permian Basin and three cities near North Dakota’s Bakken Shale field: Williston, Dickinson and Minot.  Corpus Christi Caller Times. Eagle Ford Shale growth is driving a nearly 25-percent revenue growth spurt at the Port of Corpus Christi, port officials said.  San Antonio Business Journal. The number of oil and gas wells in the Eagle Ford Shale reached 1,110 in the first quarter, down 61 wells — or 5 percent — from the final quarter of 2013, according to new data from oilfield-services giant Baker Hughes.