State Senator Joseph Scarnati III, from north-central Pennsylvania, has introduced a bill that would redefine the distinction between conventional and unconventional oil and gas wells throughout the state. In Section 1 of the bill, the sponsors try to establish the purpose of the legislation, making the case that: Conventional oil and gas development has a […]
Like most states, the data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection do not explicitly tell you which wells have been hydraulically fractured. They do, however, designate some wells as unconventional, a definition based largely on the depth of the target formation: An unconventional gas well is a well that is drilled into an Unconventional […]
The debate over the Keystone XL pipeline expansion project has grabbed a lot of headlines, but it is just one of several proposed major pipeline projects in the United States. As much of the discussion revolves around potential impacts of the pipeline system, a review of known incidents is relevant to the discussion. A year […]
Every six months, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) publishes production and waste data for all unconventional wells drilled in the Commonwealth. These data are self-reported by the industry to PADEP, and in the past, there have been numerous issues with the data not being reported in a timely fashion. Therefore, the early versions […]
Many people ask us how many wells have been hydraulically fractured in the United States. It is an excellent question, but not one that is easily answered; most states don’t release data on well stimulation activities. Also, since the data are released by state regulatory agencies, it is necessary to obtain data from each state […]
By Matt Kelso, Manager of Data and Technology Increasingly, the FracTracker Alliance is asked about oil and gas extraction on a national scale. To that end, we are in the process of developing a national dataset of oil and gas wells. Since the data is curated at the state level, it is a challenge to […]
Louisiana is the 21st state to have its own shale viewer map on the FracMapper section of our website: Louisiana Shale Viewer. Please click expanding arrows icon in upper-right corner of the map to access additional details, including the legend. In addition to production wells and salt water disposal wells, which are available in most […]
Sometimes, one vote really does make a difference. When the North Carolina state legislature attempted to override then-Governor Beverly Perdue’s veto of a bill designed to allow hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling in the Tar Heel State back in July 2012, one legislator pressed the wrong button, and was not allowed to correct her vote. With […]
Increasingly, FracTracker has been receiving requests to map oil and gas data from a variety of locations. Now for the first time since the roll-out of the ArcGIS Online-based FracMapper platform last year, we have content dedicated to understanding oil and gas data outside of the United States. Specifically, this map is focused on the […]
People often want to know which operators perform the best (or worst) among their peers in terms of adhering to the laws set forth in a given state. In principle, the easiest metric for determining this is to look at the ratio of violations issued per well, or VpW. However, in order to make that […]
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