Reply With Quote
BigOil cartel and its financial operations are certainly much more so sophisticated now. TBthinks BigOil is a purely innocent player, NOT rigging the markets.
BigOil cartel and its financial operations are certainly much more so sophisticated now. TB
BigOil cartel and its financial operations are certainly much more so sophisticated now. TB
‘Market Madness: A Century Of Oil Panics, Crises, And Crashes’
Oil not only powers the engines of industry and commerce, it also fuels anxiety, panic, and fear in the market like no other commodity can—and is responsible for some of the biggest economic upheavals of the last century.
In Market Madness: A Century of Oil Panics, Crises, and Crashes, stock analyst Blake C. Clayton tempers the craze surrounding oil exhaustion through a combination of historical investigation and sober, persuasive analysis. His book is a lucid, credible riposte to apocalyptic ravings about “peak oil.” Clayton examines how such panics have persisted through the decades, all unfounded, yet devastating to the market. Market Madness enjoins consumers, policymakers, and brokers to abstain from hysteria and remain informed about what the future of energy truly holds.
http://www.nationalmemo.com/weekend-reader-market-madness-a-century-of-oil-panics-crises-and-crashes/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Wee kend_Reader&utm_campaign=Weekend%20Reader%20-%202015-03-08
lol boutons building his strawmen.BigOil cartel and its financial operations are certainly much more so sophisticated now. TB
Feel free to link where I said I thought Big Oil is innocent. You cant.
I'm not a fan of big industry in general, much less the oil companies. However, that does not give me license to lie. Take note.
You lie.
Suite of Bills Would Close Fracking Loopholes
Members of Congress have just introduced a set of bills (called the Frack Pack) that would end exemptions that the oil and gas industry currently receive from some of the country’s bedrock environmental laws -- the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. These bills and their sponsors include:
- The FRAC Act (Rep. Diana DeGette, Sen. Robert Casey) closes the “Halliburton Loophole” which exempts most fracking from underground drinking water protections. The bill minimizes drinking water contamination, requires public disclosure of fracking chemicals and helps guard against earthquakes caused by fracking.
- The BREATHE Act (Rep. Jared Polis) reduces air pollution from the oil and gas industry by requiring them to aggregate related sources under common ownership to determine total emissions.
- The FRESHER Act (Rep. Matt Cartwright) forces companies to get permits before they increase stormwater runoff from oil and gas well pads and related infrastructure.
- The CLEANER Act (Rep. Matt Cartwright) closes a loophole allowing oil and gas production to avoid hazardous waste requirements -- a provision that helps to prevent mismanagement of these dangerous materials.
- The SHARED Act (Rep. Jan Schakowsky) requires testing of water sources near planned oil and gas operations to help determine the source of water contamination and reduce the costs of investigations.
Friends of the Earth’s Climate and Energy campaigner Kate DeAngelis offers the following statement in response:
The Frack Pack is an important first step toward stopping the oil and gas industry from profiting from the destruction of local communities and the pollution of our air and water. Oil and gas companies must be held to the same standards as other industries when it comes to protecting public health and the environment. Friends of the Earth strongly supports this bill, but recognizes that no protections can make fracking safe, and the only real solution is a ban on this destructive practice.
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire...king-loopholes
Oil and Gas Billionaire Pressured Oklahoma Scientist to Ignore Fracking-Earthquake Link
A trove of emails were released by the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS), which regulates the state’s oil and gas industries, in response to public records requests from news outlets such as Bloombergand EnergyWire.
They appear to reveal that oil and gas billionaire Harold Hamm, known as the founding father of the U.S. fracking boom, inserted himself into the conversation about whether fracking was causing a dramatic upsurge in earthquakes in the state.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/04/01/harol...g-earthquakes/
head Cheney/Halliburton exempted, mysteriously
Researchers Discover Fracking Fluids in Pennsylvania Well Water
Researchers using a sensitive chemical analysis say they have found evidence of fracking fluids in well water near a shale gas drilling site in Pennsylvania. It’s one of the first scientifically do ented cases of fracking fluids seeping into drinking water.
Groundwater contamination has been a contentious issue surrounding fracking, or hydraulic fracturing. And now researchers have offered comprehensive scientific evidence of contamination rising up through well water. “Although media reports of incidents are common, published reports are few,” the authors of the new study say.
http://gizmodo.com/researchers-disco...+%28Gizmodo%29
Farmers are watering your food with fracking chemicals
In the Kern County program, Chevron’s leftover water is mixed with walnut s s, a process the company says extracts excess oil. The water then flows to a series of treatment ponds. The treated water is launched into an eight-mile canal to the Cawelo Water District, where it is sometimes further diluted with fresh water. The water supplies 90 Kern County farmers with about half their annual irrigation water.
The program is a good deal for oil companies, which view the water as an expensive nuisance. And it’s a bargain for the water districts.
There’s a certain amount of WTF to all this — because we don’t even know what’s in this fracking waste, at least not until June 15. That’s when California’s fracking regulations kick in and force oil companies to disclose the chemicals they are using. I mean, maybe just wait to find that out before using it to water our cherries?
Here are the key points from the story:
Over the last two years, Scott Smith, chief scientist for the advocacy group Water Defense, collected samples of the treated irrigation water that the Cawelo Water District buys from Chevron. Laboratory analysis of those samples found compounds that are toxic to humans, including acetone and methylene chloride — powerful industrial solvents — along with oil.
They found methylene chloride aka dichloromethane at 56 parts per billion. The EPA’s safe drinking water level is 5 ppb.
http://grist.org/food/farmers-wateri...bad-chemicals/
8 Dangerous Side Effects of Fracking That the Industry Doesn't Want You to Hear About
Radon gas, anyone?
With the recent confirmation by the U.S. government that the fracking process causes earthquakes [3], the list of fracking's deadly byproducts is growing longer and more worrisome. And while the process produces jobs and natural gas, the host of environmental, health and safety hazards continues to make fracking a hot-button issue that evenly divides Americans [4].
To help keep track of all the bad stuff, here's a roundup of the various nasty things that could happen when you drill a hole in the surface of the earth, inject toxic chemicals into the hole at a high pressure and then inject the wastewater deep underground.
But first, let's take a look at some of the numbers [5]:
- 40,000: gallons of chemicals used for each fracturing site
- 8 million: number of gallons of water used per fracking
- 600: number of chemicals used in the fracking fluid, including known carcinogens and toxins such as lead, benzene, uranium, radium, methanol, mercury, hydrochloric acid, ethylene glycol and formaldehyde
- 10,000: number of feet into the ground that the fracking fluid is injected through a drilled pipeline
- 1.1 million: number of active gas wells [6] in the United States
- 72 trillion: gallons of water needed to run current gas wells
- 360 billion: gallons of chemicals needed to run current gas wells
- 300,000: number of barrel of natural gas produced a day from fracking
And here are eight of the worst side effects of fracking you don't hear about from those slick TV commercials paid for by the industry.
1. Burning the furniture to heat the house.
During the fracking process, methane gas and toxic chemicals leach out from the well and contaminate nearby groundwater. The contaminated water is used for drinking water in local communities. There have been over 1,000 do ented cases [7] of water contamination near fracking areas as well as cases of sensory, respiratory and neurological damage due to ingested contaminated water.
In 2011, the New York Times reported that it obtained thousands of internal do ents from the EPA, state regulators and fracking companies, which reveal that "the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity [8] at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle."
A single well can produce more than a million gallons of wastewater, which contains radioactive elements like radium and carcinogenic hydrocarbons like benzene. In addition, methane concentrations are 17 times higher in drinking-water wells near fracking sites than in normal wells. Only 30-50 percent [5] of the fracturing fluid is recovered; the rest is left in the ground and is not biodegradable.
“We’re burning the furniture to heat the house,” said John H. Quigley [8], former secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. “In shifting away from coal and toward natural gas, we’re trying for cleaner air, but we’re producing massive amounts of toxic wastewater with salts and naturally occurring radioactive materials, and it’s not clear we have a plan for properly handling this waste."
2. Squeezed out.
More than 90 percent of the water used in fracking well never returns [9] to the surface. Since that water is permanently removed from the natural water cycle, this is bad news for drought-afflicted or water-stressed states, such as Arkansas, California, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Texas and Wyoming.
"We don't want to look up 20 years from now and say, Oops, we used up all our water," said Jason Banes [10] of the Boulder, Colorado-based Western Resource Advocates.
The redirection of water supplies to the fracking industry not only causes water price es, but also reduces water availability for crop irrigation.
"There is a new player for water, which is oil and gas," said Kent Peppler [10], president of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. "And certainly they are in a position to pay a whole lot more than we are."
3. Bad for babies.
The waste fluid left over from the fracking process is left in open-air pits to evaporate, which releases dangerous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the atmosphere, creating contaminated air, acid rain and ground-level ozone.
Exposure to diesel particulate matter, hydrogen sulfide and volatile hydrocarbons can lead to a host of health problems [11], including asthma, headaches, high blood pressure, anemia, heart attacks and cancer.
It can also have a damaging effect on immune and reproductive systems, as well as fetal and child development. A 2014 study conducted by the Colorado Department of Environmental and Occupational Health found that mothers who live near fracking sites are 30 percent more likely to have babies with congenital heart defects [12].
Research from Cornell University indicates an increased prevalence of low birth weight [13] and reduced APGAR scores in infants born to mothers living near fracking sites in Pennsylvania. And in Wyoming's Sublette County, the fracking boom has been linked to dangerous es in ozone concentrations. A study led by the state's Department of Health found that these ozone es are associated with increased outpatient clinic visits for respiratory problems [14].
4. Killer gas.
A recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that homes located in suburban and rural areas near fracking sites have an overall radon concentration [15] 39 percent higher than those located in non-fracking urban areas. The study included almost 2 million radon readings taken between 1987 and 2013 done in over 860,000 buildings from every county, mostly homes.
A naturally occurring radioactive gas formed by the decay of uranium in rock, soil and water, radon—odorless, tasteless and invisible—moves through the ground and into the air, while some remains dissolved in groundwater where it can appear in water wells [16]. It is the second leading cause of lung cancer worldwide, after smoking. The EPA estimates approximately 21,000 lung cancer deaths [17] in the U.S. are radon-related.
"Between 2005-2013, 7,469 unconventional wells were drilled in Pennsylvania. Basement radon concentrations fluctuated between 1987-2003, but began an upward trend [18] from 2004-2012 in all county categories," the researchers wrote.
That trending period just happens to start when Pennsylvania's fracking boom began: Between Jan. 1, 2005, and March 2, 2012, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection issued 10,232 drilling permits [19]; only 36 requests were denied.
5. Shifting sands.
In addition to all the water and toxic chemicals, fracking requires the use of fine sand, or frac sand, which has driven a silica sand mining boom [20] in Minnesota and Wisconsin, which together have 164 active frac sand facilities with 20 more proposed. Both states are where most of the stuff is produced and where regulations are lax for air and water pollution monitoring. Northeastern Iowa has also become a primary source.
"Silica can impede breathing and cause respiratory irritation, cough, airway obstruction and poor lung function," according to Environmental Working Group [21]. "Chronic or long-term exposure can lead to lung inflammation, bronchitis and emphysema and produce a severe lung disease known as silicosis, a form of pulmonary fibrosis. Silica-related lung disease is incurable and can be fatal, killing hundreds of workers in the U.S. each year."
"I could feel dust clinging to my face and gritty particles on my teeth,” said Victoria Trinko [22], a resident of Bloomer, Wisconsin. Within nine months of the construction of frac sand mine, about a half-mile from her home, she developed a sore throat and raspy voice and was eventually diagnosed with environment-caused asthma. She hasn't opened her windows since 2012.
Across the 33-county frac sand mining area that spans Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, nearly 60,000 people [23] live less than half a mile from existing or proposed mines. And new danger zones will likely pop up around the nation: Due to the fracking boom, environmentalists and public health advocates warn that frac sand mines could spread to several states [24] with untapped silica deposits, including Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia.
Bryan Shinn, the chief executive of sand mining company U.S. Silica Holdings said in September that due to the fracking boom, they "see a clear pathway to the volume of sand demand that's out there doubling or tripling [25] in the next four to five years."
6. Shake, rattle and roll.
On April 20, the U.S. Geological Survey released a long-awaited report [3] that confirmed what many scientists have long speculated: the fracking process causes earthquakes [26]. Specifically, over the last seven years, geologically stable regions of the U.S., including parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, have experienced movements in faults that have not moved in millions of years. Plus, it's difficult or impossible to predict where future fracking-caused earthquakes will occur.
"They're ancient faults," said USGS geophysicist William Ellsworth [26]. "We don’t always know where they are."
Ellsworth led the USGS team that analyzed changes in earthquake occurrence rates in the central and eastern United States since 1970. They found that between 1973–2008, there was an average of 21 earthquakes of at least magnitude three. From 2009-2013, the region experienced 99 M3+ earthquakes per year. And the rate is still rising. In Oklahoma, there were 585 earthquakes in 2014—more than in the last 35 years [4] combined.
"The increase in seismicity has been found to coincide with the injection of wastewater in deep disposal wells in several locations, including Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Ohio," the report states. "Much of this wastewater is a byproduct of oil and gas production and is routinely disposed of by injection into wells specifically designed and approved for this purpose."
For many years, Oklahoma's government has been reluctant to concede the connection between fracking and earthquakes. In October of last year, during a gubernatorial election debate with state Rep. Joe Dorman, a Democrat, Governor Mary Fallin, a Republican, declined to say [27] whether or not she believed earthquakes were caused by fracking. Fallin was re-elected.
But the government has finally come around. The day after the USGS report was released, on April 21, the Oklahoma Geological Survey, a state agency, released a statement [28] saying that is it "very likely that the majority of recent earthquakes, particularly those is central and north-central Oklahoma, are triggered by the injection of produced water in disposal wells."
The same day, the state's energy and environment department launched a website [29] that explains the finding along with an earthquake map and what the government is doing about it all. According to the site, "Oklahoma state agencies are not waiting to take action."
Now there is a split between the state's governmental branches: Two days after the executive branch admitted that fracking causes earthquakes, the state's lawmakers, evidently unmoved by the trembling ground, passed two bills [30], backed by the oil and gas industry, that limit the ability of local communities to decide if they want fracking in their backyards.
7. The heat is on.
Natural gas is mostly methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas that traps 86 times as much heat as carbon dioxide. And because methane leaks during the fracking process, fracking may be worse than burning coal, mooting the claim that natural gas burns more cleanly than coal.
"When you frack, some of that gas leaks out into the atmosphere," writes 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben [31]. "If enough of it leaks out before you can get it to a power plant and burn it, then it's no better, in climate terms, than burning coal. If enough of it leaks, America's subs ution of gas for coal is in fact not slowing global warming."
A recent international satellite study [32] on North American fracking production led by the Ins ute of Environmental Physics at the University of Bremen in Germany found that "fugitive methane emissions" caused by the fracking process "may counter the benefit over coal with respect to climate change" and that "net climate benefit…is unlikely."
"Even small leaks in the natural gas production and delivery system can have a large climate impact—enough to gut the entire benefit of switching from coal-fired power to gas," writes Joe Romm [33], the founding editor of the blog Climate Progress. "The climate will likely be ruined already well past most of our lifespans by the time natural gas has a net climate benefit."
8. Quid pro quo?
Finally, one of the more insidious side effects of fracking is less about the amount of chemicals flowing into the ground and more about the amount of money flowing into politicians' campaign coffers from the fracking industry.
According to a 2013 report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington [7] (CREW), contributions from fracking trade groups and companies operating fracking wells to congressional candidates representing states and districts where fracking occurs rose by more than 230 percent [7] between the 2004 and 2012 election cycles, from $2.1 million to $6.9 million.
That is nearly twice as much as the increase in contributions from the fracking industry to candidates from non-fracking districts during the same period, outpacing contributions from the entire oil and gas industry to all congressional candidates. Republican congressional candidates have received nearly 80 percent of fracking industry contributions.
"The fracking boom isn’t just good for the industry, but also for congressional candidates in fracking districts," said CREW executive director Melanie Sloan [34].
The candidate who has received the most in contributions from the fracking industry is Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX). Barton received more than $500,000 between the 2004 and 2012 election cycles—over $100,000 more than any other candidate in the nation. It should come as no surprise that Barton sponsored the Energy Policy Act of 2005 [35], which exempted fracking from federal oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
On April 21, Colorado and Wyoming filed a lawsuit [36] challenging the new federal fracking regulations [37] issued last month by the Bureau of Land Management for onshore drilling on tribal and public lands, claiming that the rule, which regulates underground injections in the fracking process, "exceeds the agency's statutory jurisdiction."
"The debate over hydraulic fracturing is complicated enough without the federal government encroaching on states’ rights," said Colorado Attorney General Cynthia H. Coffman, in a statement [38]. "This lawsuit will demonstrate that BLM exceeds its powers when it invades the states’ regulatory authority in this area."
Coffman, a Republican, is married to Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman (CO-8), also a Republican. Coffman and two other GOP representatives from the state, Scott Tipton (CO-3) and Doug Lamborn (CO-5), have sponsored a trio of bills—H.R. 4321, 4382 and 4383 (called the “3 Stooges” bills [39] by environmentalists)—that would fast-track leasing and permitting for drilling and fracking on public lands. These three congressmen, each of whom have received more than $100,000 in contributions from the oil and gas industry, sit on the Natural Resources Committee and naturally oppose federal regulations on fracking.
Short-Term Thinking
Fracking proponents point to the fact that it produces natural gas and jobs; indeed takes credit for boosting the economy during the recession. But at what cost to public health and the environment? And can the true cost be known when there is a lack of transparency in the fracking industry?
With little federal oversight, states have created a non-uniform patchwork of regulation: Illinois requires fracking companies to disclose information about the chemicals they use before they drill and monitor groundwater through the process, while Virginia doesn't require any disclosure.
"So far, the industry has successfully fended off almost all federal regulation of fracking, in part through key exemptions from federal laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act, which otherwise would allow the EPA to directly regulate fracking and other aspects of oil and gas production," says CREW [7].
The FRAC Act [40] (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act) would require the energy industry to disclose all chemicals used in fracturing fluid and also repeal fracking's exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Of course, everyone wants reliable domestically produced energy that creates jobs and energy independence. But nothing comes for free. And in the case of fracking, still with so many unknowns, the price in the long run may be too great.
That's part of the message that Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) hope the American public gets. On April 22, Earth Day, the two lawmakers introduced the Protect Our Public Lands Act [41], H.R. 1902. The strongest anti-fracking bill ever introduced into Congress, it seeks to ban fracking on public lands. Today, 90 percent of federally managed lands are open for potential oil and gas leasing; the remaining 10 percent are reserved for conservation, recreation, wildlife and cultural heritage.
"Our national parks, forests and public lands are some of our most treasured places and need to be protected for future generations,” said Pocan [42]. "It is clear fracking has a detrimental impact on the environment and there are serious safety concerns associated with these type of wells. Until we fully understand the effects, the only way to avoid these risks is to halt fracking entirely. We should not allow short-term economic gain to harm our public lands, damage our communities or endanger workers."
Sounds logical enough. But with oil and gas money steering the Republican-controlled Congress, the bill is dead in the radioactive wastewater.
http://www.alternet.org/environment/...ter1035560&t=7
OPEC’s push for market share is working, slowly but surely
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said Wednesday its share of the global oil supply edged up slightly from 32.8 percent in April to 32.9 percent last month, the latest sign the cartel’s plan to keep churning out oil is allowing it to carve out a bigger corner of the market, albeit slowly. That figure was 32.1 percent in February.
The group’s daily crude oil production grew by 24,000 barrels in May, rising to 30.98 million barrels, it said in its monthly oil report.
OPEC’s biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, bolstered its daily output by another 25,100 barrels, getting up to 10.33 million barrels – about 5 percent higher than its production averaged in the first quarter.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/06/10/o...ly/#33457101=0
Oil and Gas Co's Disposal of Wastewater Causes Sharp Rise in Quakes
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ise-in-quakes/
Cancer-Causing Chemicals Found In Drinking Water Near Texas Fracking Sites
Scientists have found elevated levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the drinking water in North Texas’ Barnett Shale region — where a fracking boom has sprouted more than 20,000 oil and gas wells.
Researchers from the University of Texas, Arlington tested water samples from public and private wells collected over the past three years and found elevated levels of heavy metals, such as arsenic. Their findings, released Wednesday, showed elevated levels of 19 different chemicals including the so-called BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylenes) compounds.
Heavy metals are toxic when ingested, and BTEX compounds are considered carcinogenic when ingested. Exposure to BTEX compounds is also associated with effects on the respiratory and central nervous system. The study found elevated levels of toxic methanol and ethanol, as well.
The researchers were clear that they had not determined the source of the metals and chemicals. However, they noted that “many of the compounds we detected are known to be associated with [fracking] techniques,” and said the data support further research on the potential of fracking contamination.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...rinking-water/
‘F*ck you f*ggot:’ Texas oil exec stops his car to punch a gay pedestrian unconscious
A Texas oil executive swore at a gay couple he passed in his vehicle, stopped his car in a lane of traffic, got out, and proceeded to knock a man unconscious, the Dallas Voice reports.Anthony Fera, the president of Houston’s MidStar Energy LP, has been charged with assault.
In April, Andy Smith and Paul von Wupperfeld, who are married, were walking in Austin when, the couple says, Fera drove by and almost mowed them over.
“I hollered out, ‘you nearly hit us.'” Smith writes in his statement to police. Fera reportedly replied, ‘ you got.’” Smith and Fera exchanged a few more words before Fera exited his car, punched Smith in the head, ran back, and resumed driving.
Von Wupperfeld writes in his own statement that Smith’s face following the attack “was swollen and bloody from where he had been punched, with cuts on his nose, right cheek, and chin. He was unconscious for around 30-45 seconds. When he came around he was groggy and disoriented.”
Smith suffered “a fractured nose, a black eye, lacerations, scrapes, and a shoulder injury,” according to the Gay Star News. Fera was arrested earlier this month; his bail was $5,000.
Smith is the executive director of the Texas Instruments Foundation.
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/06/fck-...e+Raw+Story%29
The debt that fueled the U.S. shale boom now threatens to be its undoing.
Drillers are devoting more revenue than ever to interest payments. In one example, Continental Resources Inc., the company credited with making North Dakota’s Bakken Shale one of the biggest oil-producing regions in the world, spent almost as much as Exxon Mobil Corp., a company 20 times its size.
The burden is becoming heavier after oil prices fell 43 percent in the past year. Interest payments are eating up more than 10 percent of revenue for 27 of the 62 drillers in the Bloomberg Intelligence North America Independent Exploration and Production Index, up from a dozen a year ago. Drillers’ debt ballooned to $235 billion at the end of the first quarter, a 16 percent increase in the past year, even as revenue shrank.
“The question is, how long do they have that they can get away with this,” said Thomas Watters, an oil and gas credit analyst at Standard & Poor’s in New York. The companies with the lowest credit ratings “are in survival mode,” he said.
The problem for shale drillers is that they’ve consistently spent money faster than they’ve made it, even when oil was $100 a barrel.
The companies in the Bloomberg index spent $4.15 for every dollar earned selling oil and gas in the first quarter, up from $2.25 a year earlier, while pushing U.S. oil production to the highest in more than 30 years.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/06/19/t...bt/#30727101=0
Unconventional Gas and Oil Drilling Is Associated with Increased Hospital Utilization Rates
Abstract
Over the past ten years, unconventional gas and oil drilling (UGOD) has markedly expanded in the United States. Despite substantial increases in well drilling, the health consequences of UGOD toxicant exposure remain unclear.
This study examines an association between wells and healthcare use by zip code from 2007 to 2011 in Pennsylvania.
Inpatient discharge databases from the Pennsylvania Healthcare Cost Containment Council were correlated with active wells by zip code in three counties in Pennsylvania.
For overall inpatient prevalence rates and 25 specific medical categories, the association of inpatient prevalence rates with number of wells per zip code and, separately, with wells per km2 (separated into quantiles and defined as well density) were estimated using fixed-effects Poisson models.
To account for multiple comparisons, a Bonferroni correction with associations of p<0.00096 was considered statistically significant.
Cardiology inpatient prevalence rates were significantly associated with number of wells per zip code (p<0.00096) and wells per km2 (p<0.00096) while neurology inpatient prevalence rates were significantly associated with wells per km2 (p<0.00096).
Furthermore, evidence also supported an association between well density and inpatient prevalence rates for the medical categories of dermatology, neurology, oncology, and urology.
These data suggest that UGOD wells, which dramatically increased in the past decade, were associated with increased inpatient prevalence rates within specific medical categories in Pennsylvania.
Further studies are necessary to address healthcare costs of UGOD and determine whether specific toxicants or combinations are associated with organ-specific responses.
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/art...l.pone.0131093
Oh frack, now there's radiation in Pennsylvania's water
The results showed levels of radium 226 and radium 228 totaling 327 picocuries per liter at one location, and 301 picocuries per liter of radium 226 at another location.In plain English, that means both samples had 60 times the EPA drinking water standard of 5 picocuries per liter.
“There's something in here that's not supposed to be here,” Dufalla said.
“It's highly suggestive that it may be due to drilling operations, or at least the wastewater,” Stolz [a biologist at Duquesne University] said.
Gas industry officials dismiss that theory, saying there is no evidence that fracking wastewater is being illegally dumped into abandoned mines or streams. The Marcellus Shale Coalition declined our request for an interview.
“That stuff coming out of there will eventually get in your drinking water in Pittsburgh. Eventually it's going to get there,” Dufalla said.
Radium does not go away quickly. The half-life for radium 226 is 1,600 years, meaning even then it will still be half as potent at it is today.
In the state of Pennsylvania, home to the lucrative Marcellus Shale formation, 74 facilities treat wastewater from the process of hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. “fracking”) for natural gas and release it into streams. […]
Recently, a group of Duke University scientists decided to do some testing. […] “Eventually, we just went and tested water right from a public area downstream.”
Their analyses, made on water and sediment samples collected repeatedly over the course of two years, were even more concerning than we’d feared. As published today in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, they found elevated concentrations of the element radium, a highly radioactive substance. The concentrations within sediments in particular were roughly 200 times higher than background levels. In addition, amounts of chloride and bromide in the water were two to ten times greater than normal.
Just last week, fracking in Pennsylvania was linked to higher rates of cancer, skin conditions, heart disease and neurological problems.
But calm down, guys.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/0...r?detail=email
The energy industry and proponents of fracking say the technology can be used safely and that fears of pollution and health risks are overblown.
Are Oil & Gas Producers Fracking Wells at Depths That are Too Shallow?
A new study reports that about 16% of wells were fracked at depths less than a mile below the surface–and sometimes much less.
The average well fracking depth in the U.S. is 8,300 feet, but 6,900 (16%) were fracked at less than a mile below the surface and 2,600 (6%) at less than 3,000 feet. The researchers reported 850 wells in Texas, 720 in California, 310 in Arkansas, and 300 in Wyoming that were fracked at less than 3,000 feet.
Nationally the average amount of water used per well was reported as 2.4 million gallons. Leading water users were Arkansas (5.2 million gallons), Louisiana (5.1 million gallons), West Virginia (5 million gallons), and Pennsylvania (4.5 million gallons).
Some 2,000 wells shallower than one mile and 350 wells shallower than 3,000 feet were fracked with more than 1 million gallons of water. This practice was most common in Arkansas, New Mexico, Texas, Pennsylvania, and California. The researchers noted:
Because hydraulic fractures can propagate 2000 ft upward, shallow wells may warrant special safeguards, including a mandatory registry of locations, full chemical disclosure, and, where horizontal drilling is used, predrilling water testing to a radius 1000 ft beyond the greatest lateral extent.
The study calls into question at least in some cases the oil & gas industry’s claim that fracking occurs at depths so far below the water table as to make virtually impossible for contaminants to enter the water supply.
A study released last year by Jackson and others, that oil & gas drillers used a production method called acid stimulation and hydraulic fracturing to drill wells near the Pavillion, Wyoming, gas field that contains both natural gas and sources of drinking water.
http://247wallst.com/energy-business...F7+Wall+St.%29
I was buying some HCl at Home Depot to pickle some steel.
The sales guy, ex-Halliburton, said he didn't know that Muriatic acid was HCl, but that he put lots of HCl down fracking wells and had the burned gloves and clothes at the end of every day to show for it.
40 Earthquakes Hit Frack-Happy Oklahoma in Last 7 Days
Yesterday Oklahoma recorded five earthquakes centered near Crescent, Oklahoma, some of which were felt in at least five states—Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas.
Three of the quakes measured above 4.0-magnitude and the biggest of these was a 4.5-magnitude earthquake, the strongest earthquake in the region since a magnitude-4.9 near Conway Springs, Kansas, on Nov. 12, 2014.
The strongest magnitude earthquake on record occurred onNov. 5, 2011 and registered as 5.6-magnitude.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/07/28/40-ea...d84df-85879165
frackers BUSTED by the Saudis
Low Oil Prices Force Producers to Delay $200 Billion in New Drilling Projects
Financial Times: Oil Groups Have Shelved $200bn in New Projects as Low Prices Bite
The world’s big energy groups have shelved $200bn of spending on new projects in an urgent round of cost-cutting aimed at protecting investors’ dividends as the oil price slumps for a second time this year.
The sell-off in oil has been matched by a broader slump in copper, gold and other raw materials, pushing the Bloomberg commodities index to a six-year low over concerns of weaker Chinese growth and rising supplies across the board.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articl...ntech+Media%29
If only that $200B would be spent on solar and wind and new and smarter electrical networks.
Shallow Fracking Wells May Threaten Aquifers
Several thousand near-surface hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations for oil and natural gas production in the U.S. pose a potentially significant risk of contaminating drinking water sources, according to a new analysis. This first national assessment of fracking focused on well depth raises particular concerns about fracking wells less than a mile deep
Shallow wells are cheaper and easier to operate, says Robert B. Jackson of Stanford University, who led the new study. “However, they pose a greater risk for groundwater contamination since they are close to drinking water aquifers.” These groundwater sources can rest from hundreds to thousands of feet below the surface, and natural geologic cracks or faults and past drilling activities can provide a pathway between shallow fracking sites and an aquifer, allowing fracking chemicals, oil, and methane to reach drinking water supplies. Currently, groundwater in Wyoming and California is being investigated for possible fracking-related contamination.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/shallow-fracking-wells-may-threaten-aquifers/
U.S. Shale-Oil Boom May Not Last as Fracking Wells Lack Staying Power
Shale wells start strong and fade fast, and producers are drilling at a breakneck pace to hold output steady. In the fields, this incessant need to drill is known as the Red Queen, after the character in Through the Looking-Glass who tells Alice, “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”
The U.S. is producing 7.8 million barrels of oil a day, more than it has in a quarter-century. Crude from shale formations has cut reliance on imports and put the U.S. closer to energy independence than it’s been since 1989. The International Energy Agency predicted last year that the U.S. would overtake Saudi Arabia by 2020 as the world’s largest producer.
Whether current production can hold up is the subject of debate. David Hughes, a geoscientist and president of Global Sustainability Research, has examined the life span of shale wells. “The Red Queen syndrome just gets worse and worse and worse,” he says. “The higher production goes, the more wells you need to offset the decline.”
Global Sustainability’s Hughes estimates the U.S. needs to drill 6,000 new wells per year at a cost of $35 billion to maintain current production. His research also shows that the newest wells aren’t as productive as those drilled in the first years of the boom, a sign that oil companies have already tapped the best spots, making it that much harder to keep breaking records. Hughes has predicted that production will peak in 2017 and fall to 2012 levels within two years.
“The hype about U.S. energy independence and ‘Saudi America’ is deafening if you look at the mainstream media,” Hughes says. “We need to have a much more in-depth and intelligent discussion about this.” On Oct. 7, Abdalla Salem el-Badri, OPEC’s secretary general, said at a conference in Kuwait that U.S. shale producers are “running out of sweet spots” and that output will peak in 2018.
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles...-staying-power
peak easy oil is passed, peak easy fracking may already be passed.
Citigroup report: Worries of $33 oil leaving markets “nervy”
There’s a “conceivable reality” U.S. oil prices may plummet to a new 11-year low of $33 a barrel or lower this year, according to a Citigroup report released Wednesday as oil prices dipped to a six-year low near $40.50 per barrel.
The new “How low can oil go?” report contends that capital markets are “getting nervy” and one of the only ways to stop this downward trend is for North American shale companies to lose more access to capital during the next phase of borrowing negotiations in October, called redetermination.
In February 2009, closing U.S. oil prices last bottomed out at $33.98 a barrel during the Great Recession.
Oil prices are currently in a free fall from a variety of factors including a struggling Chinese economy, strong Saudi and Iraqi production, and the anticipated Iranian influx of oil as soon as next year.
Temporarily stable oil prices near $60 a barrel boosted false confidence from April through June and rig counts and production levels rose — only to see the bottom fall out since the beginning of July. Citi called it a “clearly false recovery.”
Citi sees mostly bearish pessimism the next couple years with oil futures showing prices near $50 a barrel by December 2016 and below $55 a barrel even for December 2017. Eventually, there should be a price breakout back to the $60 to $80 a barrel range, but that is not expected in the near future.
In the U.S., oil production is continuing with Cushing, Oklahoma storage near capacity and more crude simply being moved to the Gulf Coast as a storage alternative. Also, the glut is expected to build up in September as refineries undergo seasonal maintenance after record levels of gasoline production this summer.
Common sense dictates shutting down more North American production, Citi noted, “yet shutting down current production is both costly and can be permanent.” So causing such shutdowns likely will require lower prices over a more extended time frame.
In another report, Citi concluded that a fast V-shaped oil recovery or even a slower U-shaped bounce back will not occur. After an extended and ongoing drop in oil prices, a “series of Ws” is expected with U.S. production ticking up every time prices increase and, thus, driving prices back down.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2015/08/19/c...vy/#33909101=0
I paid $1.75 regular gal several months ago, why is it $2.25 now?
An interesting article explaining oil prices and the continued viability of US shale oil/gas.
http://www.oil-price.net/en/articles...-ingenuity.php
Here's an interesting article making the case for profitability at $5-$20 per bbl pricing. Don't worry Noutins. Big Oil will be fine.
http://www.manhattan-ins ute.org/pdf/eper_16.pdf
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
