President Obama, Dr. Chu and Their Fracking Whopper

    …[It] was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground. – Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address On Thursday, Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu visited the National Energy Technology | Read More »

    The New York Times and Its Anti-Fracking Cargo Cult

    Another day, another distorted and fear-mongering attack from the Old Grey Lady on America’s natural gas industry. Headline: Add Quakes to Rumblings Over Gas Rush (originally published under the headline “Some Blame Hydraulic Fracturing For Earthquake Epidemic”; link may require subscription/signup) Nine quakes in eight months in a seismically inactive area is unusual. But Ohio seismologists found another surprise when they plotted the quakes’ epicenters: | Read More »

    On the Oil Spill Commission Report

    As many of you know, your humble correspondent is a veteran of 32 years of service in the oil and gas industry, currently serving as the operations manager for a small Gulf of Mexico exploration and production company. This week, the President’s Oil Spill Commission published its 380-page report on the BP blowout and spill on the Deepwater Horizon. I won’t pretend to have read | Read More »

    Deepwater Well Construction 101

    By any measure, the construction of a deepwater well involves “Extreme Engineering”. And like other applications of technology at the frontier of knowledge, proper operating practices are often a response to failure, and examination of lessons learned. The Deepwater Horizon disaster represents the first time deepwater drillers have experienced multiple failures of the redundant systems that are designed to keep a well from flowing uncontrollably. | Read More »

    Following the Money on Cap and Trade

    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is under attack by some of its members for its opposition to the Cap and Trade bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council, through its blogs and through the website whodoesthechamberrepresent.org maintains a running watch on those altruistic companies who have either quit the Chamber or publicly disputed its Climate Change position. To the NRDC, companies that stick with the Chamber’s | Read More »