Tagged: gas

‘Gasland 2’, a sequel to the 2010 documentary ‘Gasland,’ premiers this weekend in New York City. The original film focused on land owners alleging that oil and gas development on their land contaminated their water sources. The movie is thought to have brought the terms ‘fracking’ into the mainstream. The films’ director, Josh Fox, says the sequel investigates how government and regulatory agencies have dealt with what affected land owners say is contamination by industry.

The Powder River Basin Resource Council has drawn up a list of recommendations to protect groundwater resources during energy production.

The group’s Jill Morrison says they want the state to document how much water is available in aquifers, and to limit how much water can be used for oil and gas production in certain areas where water resources are scarce.

“Because we know, for example, in the Powder River Basin, we’ve really drawn down our main aquifer that supplies domestic use … through the coalbed methane development,” Morrison said.

The Wyoming Occupational Safety and Health Administration is proposing a rule that would require workers to wear flame-resistant clothing within 75 feet of an oil and gas well bore.
 
The agency is taking public comments on the proposal and will hold a public hearing on Oct. 5 in Casper.

John Robitaille, of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, says industry would welcome the rule since many already follow it now.
 
But Robitaille says some companies would rather use the special clothing on an as-needed basis.

The Department of Interior has authorized a 60 day extension of the comment period for the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed hydraulic fracturing regulations, following concerns from the oil and gas industry. The rules would call for companies that use fracking to disclose the chemicals they use, and address waste water and drilling issues.

The Wyoming Oil and Gas Commission says that workers from Chesapeake energy are making progress in trying to control a gas leak near Douglas.  Commission Supervisor Tom Doll says that efforts will continue through the weekend.

On Tuesday at the oil rig caused the well to release an unknown quantity of gas into the air,and some residents were evacuated.  Weather conditions hampered containment efforts, but one evacuee, Kristi Mogen,is frustrated that the company is not acting faster. And she’s upset that the wells were drilled so close to her house in the first place.

A Tuesday oil rig accident northeast of Douglas continues to spew gas into the atmosphere.

At last count, 50 of 67 residents volunteered to evacuate the surrounding area of the leak, staying in hotels paid for by the site’s natural gas operator Chesapeake Energy.

No injuries have been reported.

Oil and gas commissioner Tom Doll says it’s unclear how much gas has been lost.

Gas prices have risen quickly in Wyoming over the past month in keeping with national trends.

The average statewide cost reached $3.61 per gallon this week. That’s almost a 47-cent increase from a month ago, according to GasBuddy.com, a company that tracks prices at gas stations across the U.S. and Canada.

Wyoming’s average gasoline cost is still $.28 cheaper than the national average.

A new report tracks the amount of oil and gas drilling that’s gone on over the past 10 years in different counties across the Rocky Mountains.

Julia Haggerty, one of the authors of the report, says the pace and scale of drilling has a profound effect on local communities – not only during the height of a boom, but in the time right before and after. Haggerty says more research needs to be done on how counties rebound after a bust.

Oil and gas jobs in Wyoming rose sharply in 2011, according to the state Economic Analysis Division.

There were more than 18,000 drilling, mining and support jobs in Wyoming as of November. That’s almost 3,000 more than a year before.

State Senior Economist Jim Robinson says these jobs are a subsector of the mining industry, and this growth is a sign of a thriving energy industry.