Entries by Matt Kelso, BA

Ethylene Cracker Would Contribute Jobs, Air Pollution

Last year, Shell Chemicals announced its intentions to build a multi-billion dollar ethylene cracker “in Appalachia”, effectively setting the stage for a bidding war between Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. There have been numerous other plans for such plants in the area, including a recent partnership trying to get Aither Chemicals catalytic cracking process up […]

PA Oil and Gas Inspection Data Available

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has updated their delivery mechanism of violation data, and it is now possible to search all inspections, including those that do not result in violations. To test it out, I downloaded all oil and gas inspection data from January 1, 2011 to January 16, 2012. Here is a summary […]

PA DEP Oil and Gas Site Updated

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has at long last updated their webpage for the Office of Oil and Gas Management. Screenshot of newly updated Office of Oil and Gas Management website at the Pennsylvania DEP The changes are more than cosmetic; the entire data delivery system has been updated as well, where the use […]

DataTool MS Permit Updates Throughout the Marcellus Shale Region

Marcellus Shale permit data has been updated in recent days for the following states: New York Ohio Pennsylvania West Virginia Permits throughout the Marcellus Shale Region. Please click the gray compass rose and double carat (^) to hide those menus. In addition to the above updates, I have verified that there are currently no Marcellus […]

Youngstown Earthquake Related to Gas Extraction Industry?

Youngstown, Ohio rang out the old year in style, with a magnitude 4.0 earthquake that apparently felt as far away as Buffalo, but received attention nationally (See the LA Times blog titled 4.0 quake hits Youngstown Ohio. Yes, Ohio.) There is a widespread notion that the temblor was related to Class II injection wells in […]

Updated Drilled Wells Data for PA

Three drilled wells datasets for Pennsylvania have been updated or created, including: 2011 Drilled Wells in Pennsylvania (2011-12-16) (all oil and gas wells) All MS Drilled Wells in PA (2011-12-16) (Marcellus Shale only), and PA Municipalities with MS Wells: Count and Density (Marcellus Shale only) The last of the three datasets is the most unique, […]

Violations per Well by Operator, Part 2: Bad Actors

Recently, I conducted an analysis of the legacy of each Marcellus Shale operator’s violations over time, normalized by the number of wells each company has drilled, in a metric that I call Violations per Well, or VpW. While that analysis was cumulative, I’ve had FracTracker readers ask if the VpW from one year predicts the […]

Drilled Marcellus Shale Wells per Month

The following chart takes a look at the number of drilled Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania, from 2006 through November, 2011. The accompanying trend line is included, not so much to predict December’s total, but to show the relatively decent R2 value.  That is to say, despite the occasional peaks (e.g., September 2010) and troughs […]

Violations per Well by Operator Over Time

The following chart contains all operators that have either drilled a Marcellus Shale well in Pennsylvania from March 6, 2006 to November 27, 2011, or have been issued a Marcellus Shale related violation by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection between January 1, 2008 and September 30, 2011. Results are cumulative, thereby reflecting each company’s […]

PA Data Updates, New DataTool Charting Functionality

Several oil and gas datasets from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) have been updated on the FracTracker DataTool, including: Active MS Permits in PA (2011-10-26) 2011 Drilled Wells in Pennsylvania (2011-10-26) All MS Drilled Wells in PA (2011-10-26) 2011 Marcellus Shale Violations in PA Additionally, a Pennsylvania zip code dataset from the US […]