Grasping For Straws, They Never Give Up

For some very odd reason, this story made the front page of the Los Angeles Times today:

One year ago, the Environmental Protection Agency finished testing drinking water in Dimock, PA, after years of complaints by residents who suspected that nearby natural gas production had fouled their wells. The EPA said that for nearly all the 64 homes whose wells it sampled, the water was safe to drink.

Yet as the regulator moved to close its investigation, the staff at the mid-Atlantic EPA office in Philadelphia, which had been sampling the Dimock water, argued for continuing the assessment.

The article then goes on to summarize three cases (Dimock, PA; Wyoming; and, Texas) -- all of which were closed by the EPA. 

So, what gives?

"Someone" refuses to let these stories die. If the story was about UFOs, these would be considered "conspiracy theory stories" and written off as "junk science."

But folks are not wasting their time with "conspiracy theories" and "junk science" when it comes to fracking. Something else is needed to explain this.

My hunch: there is some big money behind this movement (conspiracy theory, yes, I know; LOL). Most likely: big money in the form of campaign contributions for politicians and/or political movements. Some speaker who gets $50,000/speech needed an "LA Times" story to give some credibility to his speeches; some rationale for his speaking fee. In the case of researchers, they need federal grant money to survive. My hunch is this article will be attached to the boiler plate application Mr Jackson will use to request more federal money for more "research." It would not surprise me at all if this front page story began as a press release. The whole story does not ring true.

But this is the good news:

• after literally decades of drilling and fracking, and tens of thousands of fracked wells, the conspiracty theorists can only come up with three "controversial" wells, and two of them are non-stories; the EPA officially closed all three
• even if there was an iota of truth, it sounds like the ppm is so low as to be unmeasurable, and perhaps less than what nature puts there (don't quote me out of context)
• so many untruths (the biggest of course when it is stated that methane does not naturally occur in water -- it does)
• not one of these three wells was in the Bakken or the Eagle Ford
• every alledged "problem" was actually a drilling/casing problem and NOT a fracking problem; folks are confusing drilling with fracking.

Literally grasping at straws.

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I need a bit of music to rest my soul --

Yellow River, Christie

Pennsylvania Says Oil Company Can Go Back to Work on Dimock Area Wells

Link here.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection gave Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. permission to resume activities at seven Dimock area wells it has drilled. The Aug. 21 action came after the Houston independent demonstrated that the wells fully complied with state laws, their mechanical integrity was sound, and the wells are not contributing to previously discovered methane migration, a DEP spokesman said.

The agency has not cleared Cabot to resume drilling new wells in the area, he added. If data indicate that the methane’s source has been eliminated or that methane in the aquifer has been returned to background levels, DEP’s consent order and agreement provides that Cabot could do so, the spokesman told OGJ by e-mail on Aug. 22.

I'm not exactly sure what to make of the second paragraph, but Cabot seems happy with new ruling. See link for Cabot's reaction. 

Tag: much ado about nothing.

Thursday Morning Links -- CLR Putting Oil in Storage; Crude-by-Rail 40%; XOM Earnings Surprise; NYT in Williston; ATT On a Tear

See disclaimer and welcome: this is not an investment blog; make no investment decisions on what you read at this blog. 

Continental Resources (CLR) posts 2Q12 production results: production up 76% yoy, and 11% over 1Q12.

From Yahoo InPlay:

Continental Resources reported 76% production increase YoY in Q2 of 2012: Co announced that expects to report record total production of 94,852 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) for the second quarter ended June 30, 2012, a 76 percent increase over production of 53,984 boepd for the second quarter of 2011.

During the quarter, production exceeded sales by 147,000 barrels of oil as a result of the Company placing oil in storage in anticipation of higher prices. The Company expects to report an average realized oil price of $80.56 per barrel and an average realized natural gas price of $3.51 per Mcf for the second quarter of 2012, yielding an average realized price of $61.69 per Boe (barrels of oil equivalent). 

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At Independent Stock Analysis, this one caught my eye, but there are several others:

“North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources director Lynn Helms says as much as 40 percent of the state’s oil exports are being shipped by train” at Fuel Fix.  

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With recent comments from "anon 1" about the Eagle Ford, this should be interesting from RBN Energy:  The Eagle Ford Crude Story, Part II.

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For investors only, from Yahoo In-Play: 

Exxon Mobil clarification: Large Q2 earnings beat included special items: Earlier we reported Q2 EPS of $3.41 (net income of $15.91 bln) beat the $1.96 consensus, however that included a $7.5 bln net gain associated with divestments and tax related items. Backing out that $7.5 bln gain, Q2 EPS was closer to ~$1.80, below consensus. Our original earning comment has been edited.

XOM popped to ~$87 on the headline "beat" but subsequently sold off the the $84 level after the release was parsed. The stock is currently just below the $85 level (-0.3%) in the premarket.

Comment: one has to chuckle. Too hard to explain.

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Will it ever end? I thought the EPA testing at Dimock, Pennsylvania, was complete. Hardly. It is being reported that the EPA has concluded ALL water testing at Dimock. The story does not explicity say (although I read through it quickly and could have missed it) that this testing had nothing to do with fracking. This time it had to do with non-fracking chemicals:

Overall during the sampling in Dimock, EPA found hazardous substances, specifically arsenic, barium or manganese, all of which are also naturally occurring substances, in well water at five homes at levels that could present a health concern. In all cases the residents have now or will have their own treatment systems that can reduce concentrations of those hazardous substances to acceptable levels at the tap. EPA has provided the residents with all of their sampling results and has no further plans to conduct additional drinking water sampling in Dimock.  

No further plans to conduct additional drinking water sampling in Dimock. I guess even the EPA gets tired of some of this craziness.  I assume the EPA has moved on to North Dakota.

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The New York Times went to Williston and this is all they could find on the downside due to the boom: traffic, housing challenges, and dust. That was it. Traffic, housing challenges, and dust. What they did not find: terrorists; roadside bombs; civil war with threat of chemical agents; starvation; empty shelves; lack of water, sewer, electricity; joblessness; gouging at the grocery stores; problems with fracking; oil spills; derailments; lack of shelter. All they found was traffic, housing challenges, and dust. My hunch is the journalist never really went to Williston; she posted her story from Ohio. Had she actually been in Williston, she would have mentioned mosquitoes.

[NY Times reported a loss...again.
The net loss was $88.1 million, or 60 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $119.7 million, or 79 cents a share, in the period a year earlier, when the company wrote down the value of its regional newspapers, which it later sold.]

By the way, speaking of traffic: I haven't been in NYC recently, but my hunch is that traffic in NYC is much, much worse than anything in Williston. When in Williston I only have two rules: a) avoid left hand turns at all costs; and, b) if in a left hand turn lane, stop as far back as possible to allow trucks to make that challenging left turn. Of course traffic is worse in Williston than it once was: hello!

Oh, and this. The Bakken boom began in Montana in 2000; in North Dakota in 2007. The Bakken boom may be the biggest energy story of the decade (2000 - 2010), and it took five years, or 12 years, depending on where you want to start, for the NY Times to travel that far west of the Hudson. Incredible. 

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Actions have consequences. By killing Keystone XL 1.0, the President has made it easier for the Chinese to get another foot in North America's energy-resource door. Great article/link at the WSJ sent to me by a reader. Thank you.

President Obama may not want to exploit the energy buried in Canada's Alberta oil sands, but China sure does. Think of Monday's $15.1 billion offer by China's state-owned Cnooc to buy Canadian energy giant Nexen as a post-Keystone XL Pipeline bid to replace the U.S. as Canada's biggest energy investor and market.

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For investors only, at Forbes, ATT on a tear:

Data continued to be AT&T’s primary growth driver, with revenues from wireless data and U-Verse broadband and video services growing respectively by 19% and 38% over the year-ago quarter. More importantly, however, the carrier saw discipline in meting out handset subsidies and operational efficiency return to its ranks as wireless EBITDA margins came in at 45% and operating margins at a best-ever 30.3%.

On the subscriber additions front, AT&T was able to add 320,000 postpaid connections during the quarter, a sequential increase of more than 70% as the new iPad bolstered net additions despite a saturated wireless market. Increasing competition from rivals Verizon and Sprint in an increasingly saturated wireless market is gradually causing subscriber growth to slow, and the availability (or not) of LTE in certain markets could be key to attracting new subscribers as well as retaining old ones from hereon.

I have used Sprint forever, and am still a Sprint customer, but ATT has nothing to fear from Sprint.  ATT is up a staggering $1.00 today, a new 52-week high (one of many this year) and still pays over 5%. Compare that to US Treasury bonds.

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Meanwhile, for those interested in US-owned companies, GM hits a new low.

General Motors Co. stock fell 1.2 percent Wednesday, closing at $18.80, down $0.22, on worries about Europe — the first time the Detroit automaker's stock has closed below $19 a share since its initial public offering.

The Detroit automaker has seen its share price tumble by more than 52 percent since it reached a high closing price in January 2011 of $38.90, just after going public in November 2010. The company has shed more than $30 billion in market capitalization over the last 18 months, and now is worth about $29 billion.

And GM is still $42 billion in the hole; President Obama says otherwise. 

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WOW! What is the capital of Israel? I thought it was Tel Aviv, but I guess it's much more complicated.

 

Twinkies and Fracking

Another great article from PennEnergy.

That wasn’t always the case. Nitrilotriethanol, for instance, is not a compound most people are familiar with. Without a specific reason to be concerned about it, the chemical can be written off in the public consciousness as easily as thiamine mononitrate. It’s just another big word that’s probably not worth worrying about. Of course, one of those big words is used in fracking fluids. The other is an ingredient in Twinkies. But on paper, they’re both big, complex words seemingly uninteresting to the average person. That unfamiliarity and un-interestingness could have kept people from concerning themselves with fracking. Then somebody’s tap water caught fire, and everything changed. 

It's a great article but unfortunately one needs an eighth-grade education to be able to read it to the finish and understand it. 

Dimock, Pennsylvania, Water Safe To Drink -- EPA -- Yes, a Fracking Story

If you missed the story, like I did, it's not your fault: the EPA released the news six (6) minutes after 6:00 p.m. last Friday, after the news cycle for the week was over. Incredible.

Link here.

Something tells me the first-gay president won't mention it when he visits Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said drinking water is safe to consume in a small Pennsylvania town that has attracted national attention after residents complained about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas.

The EPA has tested water at 61 homes in Dimock, Pennsylvania, where residents have complained since 2009 of cloudy, foul-smelling water after Cabot Oil & Gas Corp drilled for gas nearby.

"This set of sampling did not show levels of contaminants that would give EPA reason to take further action," Roy Seneca, a spokesman for the regional EPA office, said about the final set of data released Friday. The agency released data for only 59 of the homes as they could not contact residents at two of them.

Dimock -- 2nd Set of Tests Also "Clean" -- Nothing About the Bakken, But About Fracking

Link here to PennEnergy.

The US Environmental Protection Agency completed a second set of samples at 20 private drinking water wells in Dimock, Pa., and did not find contaminant levels which warrant immediate action, EPA’s Region 3 office in Philadelphia said on Apr. 6.

The announcement followed one on Mar. 15 reporting similar findings from tests of the first 11 of 60 private water wells which EPA has agreed to study.

A spokesman for Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., which operates several natural gas wells in the area, said EPA’s findings were consistent “with literally thousands of pages of water quality data accumulated by state and local authorities and by Cabot.”

Click on "Dimock" at the bottom of the blog for additional posts on this subject, if interested.

Story: Dimock, Pennsylvania ---- Photo: Belfield, North Dakota

I'm sure this page at the link will be changed by the time some of you get to it. It is so ridiculous that even the host will try to find a relevant picture. Not a "more" relevant picture, but a relevant picture.

The EPA says first tests of the well water coming from Dimock, Pennsylvania, reveal that the water is safe to drink. Dimock is home to a fair amount of fracking natural gas wells.

The accompanying photo is of an oil pipeline in North Dakota where no natural gas wells are fracked (or if they are, a bare minimum). Wells in North Dakota are much, much deeper, and are oil wells, not natural gas wells. (Yes, natural gas accompanies the oil but that's a different story.)

And so it goes.

But in the "what goes around, comes around" category, a recent story about fracking in California in the LA Times was accompanied by a photograph from Dimock, Pennsylvania. Here's that link.

One would think that local newspapers reporting on a local story would have local photographs, but it appears that budget cuts and/or pure laziness makes it imperative/easier to simply cut/paste or otherwise link stock photographs from the internet.

Blogs do that all the time, but mainstream, print media with websites?  Mainstream, print media outlets are turning into blogs.

California Fracking With Little Oversight -- OMG

Link here.

Energy companies across California are injecting a mysterious mix of chemicals into the ground to tap oil deposits while frustrating attempts to regulate the controversial process, known as hydraulic fracturing.

The procedure has drawn the greatest attention in the Rocky Mountain West and Northeast, where states have debated moratoriums to develop regulations after toxic chemicals were found in nearby drinking water. But a quieter battle is being waged in the Golden State, which could be a candidate for increased "fracking" because of its unique geology. Last year, the energy industry scuttled a bill that would have enlisted California in the growing ranks of states that require companies to disclose what they put into the ground. At least nine states have such guidelines.

"... a mysterious mix of chemicals..." ... hydrogen dioxide.....just to name one.

Shocked. I am shocked.

And it gets worse: the "huge" photo at the top of the story about fracking in California was not taken in California. It was taken near Dimock, Pennsylvania, where just hours ago it was reported that the EPA found no health concerns with fracking near the town of Dimock.  One would think that with 49,000 active wells in California, the LA Times could have taken a photo of at least one California well (compare with 6,600 active wells in Northa Dakota). North Dakota now produces more oil with those relatively few wells than California.

Also, note how the LA Times spells "fracking."

STOP THE PRESSES! EPA FINDS NO HEALTH CONCERNS WITH FIRST PENNSYLVANIA WELLS

Can they stop trucking in water for flushing toilets?

Updates

December 26, 2012: in passing,

In August, 2012, court documents showed that residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania town who say their well water was poisoned by a gas driller agreed to a confidential settlement with Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. Soon afterward, the Department of Environmental Protection said Cabot had met its obligations under a 2010 consent agreement and will be permitted to put seven previously drilled wells in Dimock Township back in production. That's a rural area in northeastern Pennsylvania.

September 15, 2012: And New Yorkers, who have never seen an oil well in the Bakken, are complaining about fracking. It looks like they got bigger problems closer to home. Google 70-foot sink hole over sewer in Brooklyn. August 23, 2012:  Pennsylvania says oil company can now go back to work on Dimock area wells.

July 26, 2012: I spoke too soon. Now ALL the tests are done. -- EPA.  I guess the Dimockians weren't happy with "final" results, complained enough, and EPA went back in, this time testing for naturally occurring metals.

May 14, 2012: Final set of tests "clean." Case closed.  

April 10, 2012: Second set of tests from Dimock are also "clean" -- EPA.

Original Post

Initial results from samples of the first 11 of 60 water wells in Dimock, Pennsylvania, did not show contamination levels that could present a health concern, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 3 office in Philadelphia said on Mar. 15. Samples from 6 of the 11 wells showed the presence of methane, sodium, chromium, or bacteria, but in concentrations within the range for safe drinking water, it said.
 
Houston independent Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., which operates several natural gas wells in the area, said in a statement that it was pleased EPA’s data confirmed earlier findings that Dimock well water meets all regulatory standards.

Link here.

Do you remember this story? This was first posted back in January when the EPA was trucking water into Dimock, to flush toilets over fears of health concerns.

Strangest Story of the Month -- EPA Cancels Drinking Water Tanker -- Why Are They Trucking in Drinking Water to Flush Toilets? -- Dickinson Press

Link here.

This has to be one of the strangest stories of the year.

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency abruptly changed its mind Saturday about delivering fresh water to residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania village where residential wells were found to be tainted by a natural gas drilling operation.

Only 24 hours after promising them water, EPA officials informed residents of Dimock that a tanker truck wouldn’t be coming after all. The about-face left residents furious, confused and let down — and, once again, scrambling for water for bathing, washing dishes and flushing toilets.

Agency officials would not explain why they reneged on their promise, or say whether water would be delivered at some point.

Exactly why is anybody trucking in drinking water to flush toilets, or even for showering for that matter?

Hey, lay a pipeline!

North Dakota has WAWS in place. They've been trucking water into Dimock for the past three years; they could have laid a pipeline by now. Unless someone is afraid of a drinking-water-pipeline spill.

You have to go through several google pages to get to some background.

Here is the January 6, 2011, story before the EPA changed its mind (less than 24 hours later):

Federal regulators are considering trucking to households in a Pennsylvania town where residents say wells have been polluted by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas.

Only a month after declaring water in Dimock safe to drink, the Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering action after residents supplied the with hundreds of pages of data that link water pollution to fracking.

Dimock residents began complaining of cloudy, foul-smelling water in 2008 after Cabot Oil & Gas Corp began fracking, which involves injecting chemical-laced water and sand into wells to release gas in shale rock deep below the surface.

Environmentalists say fracking pollutes fresh water as fluids seep from drilling wells into aquifers and other supply sources.

Cabot had trucked water to a dozen Dimock households for three years until November when state regulators agreed it could stop. Now residents are onto the last of their water. Some are using pondwater for showers.

I can understand why the Dimock folks are confused.

This story is better written:

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has promised to deliver water to a northeastern Pennsylvania village where a natural gas driller has been accused of tainting homeowners' wells with methane and possibly hazardous chemicals, residents said Friday.

Homeowners in Dimock Township have been without a reliable supply of clean water since Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., the Houston-based drilling firm blamed for polluting their aquifer, stopped making daily deliveries more than a month ago.

Three Dimock residents said the EPA told them Friday that it's hiring a private contractor to deliver water to their homes, about 20 miles south of the New York state line. The EPA said Friday that no decision had been made.

The EPA told residents only a month ago their water was fine, then backtracked as more sampling data came in that the agency said merited further investigation.

Cabot won permission from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to stop daily deliveries of bulk and bottled water on Nov. 30. Since then, anti-drilling groups have been paying to have water delivered to about a dozen households. But the deliveries are sporadic and, with winter setting in, residents say they can't continue indefinitely. 

It's too bad the federal government isn't as interested in the Devils Lake, ND, problem as the Dimock Township, PA, problem.

But back to the Dimock dots:

• trucking in drinking water to flush toilets? Am I missing something here?
• using pondwater for showers? -- the EPA just said the water was safe to drink -- pondwater is safer than EPA "safe drinking water" for showering?
• "possibly" is the operative word
• no pipeline after three years of trucking drinking water? -- even western North Dakota planned and executed the WAWS project in less time -- and that covered a much larger area, and many, many more cities; even a third-world country can get pipeline for water; I think independent water providers put in pump stations for fracking companies within months in the North Dakota oil patch
• why is the federal govt trucking in water, and not the state?

Too bad we don't have Sam Kinison around any more:

World Hunger, Sam Kinison