Citing three recent chemical spills at one well site, Pennsylvania regulators ordered Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. to halt its use of a drilling technique that uses liquids to fracture rock and release natural gas. The state order applies to eight of Cabot’s drilling sites, all in Susquehanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania. The order the toughest action the department has ever taken against a company drilling into the potentially lucrative Marcellus Shale formation. Cabot is one of dozens of oil and gas exploration companies flocking to Pennsylvania and New York in pursuit of Marcellus Shale gas. Earlier this year, state officials blamed Cabot’s drilling operations for causing methane to seep into some nearby residential water wells in Susquehanna County, leaving the water unsafe to drink and the wells a potential danger to explode.
......The lubricant used in "fracing" the gas well is called LGC-35 CBM and is supplied by Houston-based Halliburton Co., which initially provided an information sheet saying that chemicals in the product are potential carcinogens. Halliburton now claims called it “relatively innocuous,” although it may cause eye, skin and breathing irritations.
..... Marcellus Shale - The massive shale-rock formation lies 5,000 to 8,000 feet underground in an area covering more than 50,000 square miles — about the size of Greece — and stretching across New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, including southern Madison County. The industry has long known about the gas in the Marcellus shale — but it wasn’t until gas prices rose in recent years and a new shale-drilling technology was proven in Texas over the past decade that companies decided it was profitable to pursue. If the Marcellus shale ends up producing even a small fraction of the recoverable gas that is projected to be there, it will be the largest gas field ever in the United States. (www.oneidadispatch.com)
