Barnett Shale

Speedway gas deal goes through

The revenue-sharing deal for natural gas drilling at Texas Motor Speedway, which has been a source of controversy for more than a year, cleared its first hurdle today.

The Fort Worth Sports Authority, a quasi-governmental body, approved a revenue sharing agreement and other documents.

Here's background clips: Something smells in dispute at TMS, and it’s not gas

Speedway gets caught up in drilling race

Speedway, Fort Worth experience a few bumps along the way

And here's the documents showing how the contract works: Speedway contract

-- Mike Lee

More on the gas ordinance

The Oil and Gas Accountability Project, a non-profit environmental group, has also drawn up some suggestions and comments about the Fort Worth gas drilling ordinance.

Read 'em here: OGAP_Addendum.pdf

Bone up on the drilling ordinance

Fort Worth city officials is holding the first of two hearings on their new drilling ordinance at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden.

There's already been quite a bit of comment on the ordinance. 

The Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods and the League of Women Voters of Tarrant County

have weighed in with some objections and suggestions.

That's in addition to:

The recommendations from the task force that's been writing the ordinance

The minority report filed by neighborhood representatives on the task force

and Some sections written by the city staff.

The City Council will try to balance all those viewpoints when it takes up the ordinance in December.

-- Mike

Barnett Shale drilling rigs drop below 200

The number of active drilling rigs working in the Barnett Shale dipped to 192 as of Friday, down more than 10 rigs from a week earlier. It was the first large week-to-week change in the count since the months-long slide in natural gas prices that began in July. The rig count in the 16-county area included in RigData's weekly census has routinely remained above 200 for more than a year. Among other large drillers, Chesapeake Energy had 37 rigs, down from the roughly 40 it had been running, while Devon remained at a more typical level of 42 rigs. (EDITOR'S NOTE: We've removed an erroneous reference to XTO reducing its rig count. The Fort Worth company reported 19 rigs, about its level for the year. Thanks for the comment pointing out the correct number.)

-- Jim Fuquay

Saltwater spill in Brock

The owner of a nursery in Brock has sued XTO Energy over a saltwater spill that is alleged to have killed trees on eight to 10 acres.

That's the second saltwater leak in Parker County in the last couple of weeks. The first one happened in in Aledo on Oct. 30.

Meanwhile, Pro Publica, a non-profit investigative journalism publication, has weighed in with a debate about the safety of hydraulic fracturing:

http://www.propublica.org/feature/buried-secrets-is-natural-gas-drilling-endangering-us-water-supplies-1113/

-- Mike Lee

Chesapeake in $3.4 billion Marcellus deal with Norway's StatoilHydro

Chesapeake Energy announced Tuesday it will sell 32.5 percent of its 1.8 million acres of Marcellus Shale holdings to StatoilHydro for $1.25 billion in cash and $2.125 billion worth of future drilling costs. The two also will jointly explore for unconventional natural gas supplies worldwide. StatoilHydro is a publicly traded company created in 2007 with the merger of the Statoil, until  2001 a state-owned enterprise, and the oil and gas operations of Norsk Hydro. StatoilHydro, which has a Houston operations office, bills itself as the biggest offshore petroleum producer in the world. Under the terms of the deal, StatoilHydro from 2009 to 2012 will fund 75 percent of Chesapeake's share of drilling and completion costs in the Marcellus, a vast but still developing field located in Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia. It's Chesapeake's third big sale of shale interests this year. It previously sold a 20-percent stake of its Haynesville Shale assets to Plains Exploration & Production for $3.3 billion and a 25-percent stake of its Fayetteville Shale assets to BP America for $1.9 billion.

-- Jim Fuquay

Barnett Shale job fair set for Nov. 15

The first Barnett Shale Job Fair to be held since falling natural gas prices shut down the local leasing boom is on tap for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 15 at the Texas Motor Speedway Club, 3545 Lone Star Circle. Attendance at last year's fair, held in south Fort Worth, drew an estimated 5,000 people and about two dozen employers. The fair is sponsored by XTO Energy, KFWR/95.9 FM "The Ranch" and KTFW/92.1 FM "Country Legends."

-- Jim Fuquay

Drilling ordinance beginning to take shape

The City Council started digging into the competing proposals for Fort Worth's gas drilling ordinance Tuesday. They've got recommendations from the task force that was set up to review the ordinance, a minority report from neighborhood representatives on the task force, and separate recommendations from the city staff.

Catch the story at Star-Telegram.com

For those who want to do a little more reading, here's the power point digest that the City Council saw:

Council_presentation.pdf

The marked-up version of the ordinance:

Final 2008.pdf

The task force recommendations:

Recommendations 110408.doc.pdf

And the minority report:

Minority Report Final.pdf

Another vote for the Marcellus Shale

Associated Press quotes a Penn State University geologist in a Monday report saying the Marcellus shale region of the Appalachians could yield seven times as much natural gas as he earlier estimated, or several times the estimated size of the Barnett Shale. Terry Engelder said he now estimates 363 trillion cubic feet of gas could be recovered over several decades from the 31-million-acre core of the Marcellus in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.  Engelder presented his new numbers in Pittsburgh last week at a conference on Appalachian gas sponsored by the energy information firm Platts. He said he based his revised estimate on new figures from Chesapeake Energy Corp., the nation's largest natural gas producer. Fort Worth-based Range Resources has been a big fan of the field, and Range Chairman John Pinkerton told AP that the Marcellus "has the potential to be the biggest gas field in the United States." Oklahoma-based Chesapeake recently told investors and analysts that each square mile in the Marcellus could contain 30 billion to 150 billion cubic feet of gas. Engelder initially had estimated 9 billion cubic feet per square mile. "Geologists are still trying to size this play," Engelder said. "We don't really know how much gas is there and how much can be recovered." Most current estimates of the Barnett Shale's reserves are in the range of 40 trillion cubic feet, although the field has continued to outpace expectations.

-- Jim Fuquay