Entries by Matt Kelso, BA

Pennsylvania Drilling Trends in 2018

With the new year underway, it’s an opportune moment to reflect on the state of unconventional oil and gas extraction in Pennsylvania and examine a few of the drilling trends. A logical place to start is looking at the new wells drilled in 2018. As always, but perhaps even more so than in previous years, […]

Pipeline Incidents Continue to Impact Residents

Pipelines play a major role in the oil and gas extraction industry, allowing for the transport of hydrocarbons from well sites to a variety of infrastructure, including processing plants, petrochemical facilities, power generation plants, and ultimately consumers. There are more than 2.7 million miles of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines in the United States, […]

Rapid Pipeline Development Affecting Pennsylvanians

In recent years, Pennsylvanians have had to endure numerous massive pipeline projects in the Commonwealth. Some of these, such as the Mariner East 2, the Revolution, and the Atlantic Sunrise, have been beset with continuous problems. In fact, both the Mariner East 2 and the Revolution projects had their operations suspended in 2018. The operators have […]

Pennsylvania Pipelines and Pollution Events

When people think about oil and gas extraction in Pennsylvania, they think about the tens of thousands of oil and gas wells in the state. It makes sense, because that’s where the process starts. However, while oil and other liquids can be shipped in tanker trucks, all of the producing gas wells in the state […]

Well Pad Violations in Pennsylvania

Emerging Trends We are always learning new things at FracTracker. While we have been analyzing and mapping oil and gas (O&G) violations issued by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in Pennsylvania since 2010, we have apparently been under-representing the total amount of issues associated with unconventional drilling in the state. The reason for the […]

What is the Life Expectancy of the Marcellus Shale?

  We have recently updated the PA Shale Viewer, our map of unconventional wells in Pennsylvania. As I updated the statistics to reflect the updated data, I noticed that the number of wells with an active status ticked downward, just as it had for the previous update. Pennsylvania Shale Viewer  View map fullscreen | How FracTracker […]

Does roadspreading of brine equate to oil and gas waste dumping?

The application of liquid oil and gas waste from conventional wells onto roadways for dust control and road stabilization is permitted in Pennsylvania, provided that operators adhere to plans approved by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). There are brine spreading guidelines that operators are required to follow, but overall, DEP considers roadspreading to be a beneficial […]

Recent Changes to Pennsylvania Maps

Recently, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) started to offer additional data resources with the introduction of the Open Data Portal. This development, along with the continued evolution of the ArcGIS Online mapping platform that we utilize has enabled some recent enhancements in our mapping of Pennsylvania oil and gas infrastructure. We’ve made changes […]