NATIONAL

MUST READ: A Tale of Two Shale States. Wall Street Journal, Editorial. Politicians wringing their hands over how to create more jobs might study the shale boom along the New York and Pennsylvania border. It's a case study in one state embracing economic opportunity, while the other has let environmental politics trump development. The Marcellus shale formation—65 million acres running through Ohio, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and southern New York—offers one of the biggest natural gas opportunities.

A wedding of demand and technology. The Oklahoman, Editorial. Something burrowed, something blue. Something old, something new. Burrowed: 21,000 feet below the Permian redbeds of western Oklahoma, the Buffalo Creek 1-17 has produced natural gas in excess of 60 billion cubic feet. The Beckham County well, spudded in 2002 by Chesapeake Energy Corp, is believed to be only the sixth unit in Oklahoma history to reach this milestone. … Fracturing is something old and something new. It's been around for 60 years but is getting new attention in shale formations. It's the wedding of demand for cleaner energy with the supply of technology to produce it.

Energy Boom Fuels Hiring. Wall Street Journal. Oilfield services companies are doing a booming business amid the rush to tap North America's newfound troves of crude oil and natural gas. The discoveries are pushing U.S. energy employment to its highest level in two decades. Baker Hughes Inc. on Monday said its income in North America doubled last quarter from a year-ago to $440 million, despite weather-related disruptions in Canada that weighed on results

Russia’s ‘Petro-Power’: Regressing or Resurging? Houston Chronicle’s Fuel Fix, Economides. Depending on your reading preferences recently, you may be somewhat perplexed as to whether Russian ‘petro-power’ is in regression – or resurgence. According to the Shale Gas and National Security study recently published by the Baker Institute for Public Policy, not only is the U.S- led shale gas phenomenon a long-term global energy game-changer, it will also have the geopolitical benefit of diminishing Russia’s petro-powered hegemony, especially its stranglehold on gas-dependent Europe.

Texas bucks national unemployment trend. USA Today. Meanwhile, technological breakthroughs have let companies extract natural gas embedded in shale deposits. Barnett Shale in Fort Worth is one of the USA's largest gas fields, and drilling began at the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas in 2008. The number of oil and gas rigs in the state has jumped to 850 from 330 in July 2009, says Ana Orozco, economist for IHS Global Insight. Each rig employs a few dozen workers and leads to hiring by engineering firms, pipeline builders and other services.

Environmentalists are doing their best to shut down fracking. The Tennessean, Robert Bradley. Last year, the documentary Gasland made the issue a cause célèbre and was nominated for an Academy Award. It's a slick piece of propaganda that alleges fracking is responsible for widespread groundwater contamination. But John Hanger, the former head of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and self-described liberal, a subject of the film, called it "fundamentally dishonest."

New York Times Passes Gas. American Enterprise Institute, Hayward. By now just about everyone has jumped on board the natural gas bandwagon (see "The Gas Revolution," April 18, 2011). Its newfound abundance inside the four corners of the United States is proving to be a disruptive factor in the nation's energy mix. Cheap natural gas adds to the pressure on coal-fired electricity, but also makes wind and solar power much less feasible, even with massive subsidies. Natural gas-powered cars and trucks might offer a way of significantly lowering our oil imports, while at the same time the technology that has unlocked new gas supplies is starting to deliver a substantial increase in domestic oil production, reversing a 30-year slide. Cheap, abundant, domestically produced energy? Naturally all the usual suspects are unhappy about this.

Exxon looking to expand its natural gas holdings. Bloomberg. Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. natural gas producer since last year's purchase of XTO Energy Inc., is evaluating more acquisitions with an eye toward expanding its gas holdings. Exxon is assessing targets in more than a dozen gas-rich shale-rock formations worldwide, Jack Williams, president of the Irving, Texas-based company's XTO unit. The company has spent almost $3 billion to amass shale leases in Texas, Pennsylvania, Arkansas and Louisiana since closing the $34.9 billion purchase of XTO in June 2010.

Range Resources Q2 profit tops Street on higher output. Reuters. Gas focused explorer and producer Range Resources Inc posted its fourth consecutive estimate-beating quarterly profit helped by higher production and backed its output growth forecast for the year. For the April-June period, the company's net income was $51.3 million, or 32 cents a share, compared with $9.1 million, or 6 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, the Fort Worth, Texas-based company earned 27 cents a share.

Quakes Push Arkansas to Limit Gas-Waste Wells. Wall Street Journal. Arkansas regulators are expected Tuesday to order the closure of some underground storage facilities that natural-gas drillers use to dispose of contaminated water because of concerns they are causing earthquakes. The ban would only affect part of the state and wouldn't stop drilling in the Fayetteville Shale gas field there. But it highlights how water issues—including the disposal of waste tied to the controversial hydraulic fracturing process—have emerged as a major challenge for the oil and gas industry across the U.S. NOTE: Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission hearing announcement HERE.

Concerns about fracking process. Santa Maria Times, Rep. Lois Capps. I agree with your editorial that oil companies should disclose chemicals used in drilling. In fact, I’ve been pushing a bill in Congress, the FRAC Act, that would accomplish this important goal. Oil and gas companies continue to tell the public their drilling projects are safe. But those same companies refuse to back up their claims by disclosing the chemicals they use. The public has a right to know what’s being done to their land and the water they drink, and what risks those actions may carry.

INTERNATIONAL

Hail shale gas, a force in the energy balance. The Australian, Op-Ed. Shale gas, while now contributing to a gas glut in the US, may be looming as one of the most important developments in the world's energy geopolitical balance. Gas supplies are a raw nerve issue in Europe, which remains concerned about its dependence on Russia, a nervousness exacerbated by the disruption of gas supplies from Libya earlier this year. Now there's a report financed by the US Department of Energy saying US gas production from shale formations will quadruple between 2010 and 2040.

Hydro-fracking equipment vandalized. CBC News. Seismic recording equipment that is used to detect natural gas was hit by vandals in central New Brunswick. The equipment, which was used to discover natural gas for the purposes of hydro-fracking, was found near Cumberland Bay. RCMP Sgt. René Bernard said the vandalism happened over the weekend.

Nationalisation talk 'may hit fracking plan'. BusinessLIVE. Increasing talk of nationalisation may raise the risk profile for SA and cause international oil and gas producer Shell to re-evaluate its potential $200 million (about R1.34 billion) investment in searching for gas shale in the Karoo. The group is one of three that have applied to explore for gas shale in the ecologically sensitive Karoo basin. The others are Bundu Oil & Gas and Falcon Oil & Gas. SA's Sasol has also earmarked areas within the Karoo.

Fakir should be silent. Business Day, LTE. Saliem Fakir, the normally omniscient head of the WWF’s Living Planet unit, confesses that "we simply don’t have sufficient knowledge on the issue " (Shale gas not cheap, Letters, July 25). But ignorance is no bar to opinion, and so he blusters on about shale gas not being cheap. Perhaps he can explain why the arrival of large amounts of shale gas in the US has seen the price of natural gas fall precipitately. Sorry, I forgot, he knows nothing about shale gas.

LOUISIANA

Big news in Texas portends good news for Louisiana‎. Alexandria Town Talk, Editorial. Louisiana has long been a leader in energy production -- so much so that the economy, especially in Lafayette and points south, whip-lashes when oil prices soar or plummet. At the same time, Louisiana's known stores of natural gas are huge and getting bigger. Since 2007, for example, energy employment in the Shreveport--Bossier City area has increased 78 percent, compared with 4 percent statewide. Credit the Haynesville Shale play in northwest Louisiana for that. Today, energy interests are in Central Louisiana, assessing the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale play, which runs through the region.

MICHIGAN

Food & Water Watch calls for fracking ban. UPI.com. With Michigan sitting on 20 percent of the world's available fresh water resources, fracking of shale gas deposits should be banned, an activist group said. The Detroit City Council last week passed a resolution that supports a ban on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Lynna Kaucheck with the advocacy group Food and Water Watch said Detroit sent a strong message that fracking is a danger to public health.

NORTH DAKOTA

ND Quarterly Report Shows Strong Economy. KFYR-TV. North Dakota taxable sales went up 34 percent during the first quarter of 2011, compared to the same time period last year. Tax Commissioner Cory Fong says the strong report shows 13 of the state’s 15 sectors saw gains. The only sectors with decreases were Information and Utilities industries. The Retail-Trade sector -- which is a sign of consumer confidence -- went up more than 8.5 percent. Fong says ripple effects from the oil boom are being noticed across the state.

Oil field village hopes to preserve its beauty. Bismarck Tribune. The people of White Earth wonder, will anyone help them save a small, beautiful piece of North Dakota? They are only a few and they fear they have no influence, much less the political clout to prevent their own valley from becoming an oil field waste dump. Many of them work in the oil field or profit from it somehow, and they have a harder question of conscience to settle: If they take the money, what must they give in return?

Trucking the Bakken. Oil & Gas Journal. The North Dakota Petroleum Council worked jointly with state officials to develop a Drive Safely public service campaign. What's an oil boom look like? Years ago, I would have envisioned drilling rigs and roughnecks. That image remains true, but a recent trip to the Bakken formation in North Dakota expanded my thoughts about a boom to include trucks, thousands of trucks, going to and from the oil fields.

3 injured in ND oil well explosion. Associated Press. Authorities say two men were severely burned and another man suffered minor injuries in an oil well explosion near Beach in western North Dakota. Department of Mineral Resources director Lynn Helms says the fire started Sunday morning when natural gas ignited during drilling operations. Helms says the blaze will likely burn for about a week before it's under control. Helms says two men were critically injured in the blaze and were flown to a hospital burn center in the Minneapolis area.

NORTHEAST

Alternative gas pocket beckons drillers to NY. Press & Sun-Bulletin. While the spotlight is fixed firmly on the Marcellus Shale, some energy firms think the key to widespread natural gas production in New York might lie a few thousand feet deeper. The Utica Shale -- an energy-rich rock formation that lies several thousand feet below the Marcellus Shale across an equally massive swath of the Northeast -- is stirring the interest of drilling companies with footprints in central and southern New York.

Business Council cites potential for job growth. Legislative Gazette. The drilling of 500 gas wells a year in New York would lead to the creation of 62,620 jobs, a $2.7 billion boost to the economy and $1 billion in local, state and federal taxes, according to a report released by the Public Policy Institute of New York State Inc. Under the premise that the state's environmental agency will be adopting standards to avoid negative environmental impacts of shale gas exploration, the Public Policy Institute's report examines the economic benefits of drilling for natural gas in New York.

Wheatland Tube Plans $11.4M Expansion. Youngstown Business Journal. Wheatland Tube Co., a division of the John Maneely Co., plans to pump $11.4 million into its plant in Howland to help increase the production of pipe used in the exploration of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale, officials said Monday. The Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved a job-creation tax credit of 40% over six years to help the project, which is expected to add at least 20 jobs.

SGEIS Gets Graded. WBNG-TV. A few weeks ago New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation released a preliminary report outlining where hydro-fracking could be permitted within New York. Monday night, Ithaca leaders met with neighbors to talk about the report and what concerns remain.

Gov. Corbett's Marcellus Shale panel's suggestions a good first step. Patriot-News, Chesepeake Bay Foundation. Drilling for natural gas in Pa. represents the single largest potential environmental impact since coal mining. Thousands of wells, hundreds of miles of pipelines, rebuilt roads and hundreds of millions of gallons of water are used. This single industry will fundamentally change our landscape culturally, economically and environmentally.

Large Crowd Talks Marcellus Driling In Morgantown. WV MetroNews. Morgantown continues to be a hotbed when it comes to discussing drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus shale. A crowd topping 300 jammed the WVU College of Law Monday night for a public meeting hosted by House of Delegate members of the state legislature's Marcellus Shale Joint Select Committee. There were more than 60 speakers during the meeting that latest to nearly 11 p.m.

Shale's impact depends on perspective. Altoona Mirror, Editorial. Marcellus Shale's impact on the Pennsylvania economy and certainly its potential for future growth is important. We recognize that. But it's troubling to hear claims that the economic impact may be overstated. Last week, Sharon Ward, director of the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, said that Penn State's economic-impact study - its third, funded by the natural gas industry and not the university - "continues to overstate the economic benefits and underestimate the costs of increased drilling in the Marcellus Shale."

Corbett's group toothless by design. Erie Times-News, Op-Ed. Gov. Tom Corbett's Marcellus Shale blue-ribbon commission issued many recommendations in its final report, but, sadly, Corbett wouldn't allow it to even consider addressing a drilling tax. By not being able to evaluate the top issue involving natural gas drilling, Corbett has made it impossible to take this group's work seriously. It's not just too bad, it's bad government. It's not leadership. It's intellectually dishonest. It's dumb.

Boards fuel boom, but at what cost? Wilkes Barre Times-Leader, Editorial. For another disheartening example of Pennsylvania’s blundering, behind-the-curve response to the ongoing natural gas boom, look to its public school districts. Many districts in the Marcellus Shale region, including several in Susquehanna and Wyoming counties, cashed in during the past two years by leasing school property to drilling companies, according to a report by Sarah Hite in Sunday’s edition of The Times Leader.

Wellsburg May Allow Drilling in City Limits. State Journal. After a bit of controversy, it looks like natural gas drilling may take place in and around the city of Wellsburg after all. On Monday, city leaders explained their change in plans. Wellsburg originally adopted laws that forbid drilling inside the city limits or within a one mile radius, but Mayor Sue Simonetti said the main reason is money.

Autopsy Results Pending For Gas Drilling Death. WDTV. A coroner says autopsy test results are pending in the death of a worker at a natural gas well in southwestern Pennsylvania. The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the death of 20-year old Kerry Duncan. Duncan was from Amma West Virginia and worked for Target Drilling.  He was killed shortly before 4:00 Friday morning at a well in Franklin Township.