In great news for the Texas oil and gas industry, as well as the Texas economy, drilling at the Eagle Ford Shale, a band of rock in south Texas containing a mixture of light, sweet crude oil, natural gas, and high quality condensates, may outpace last year’s boom. UK based…
As many Texas oil and gas lease owners know, fracing creates new channels in rock that can increase extraction rates for the recovery of fossil fuels. However, some claim that the process contaminates groundwater or risks air quality. The traditional process works by pumping fracturing fluid into the well-bore at…
The American Petroleum Institute (API) has strongly, and rightly, criticized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) again over its rejection of petitions to waive requirements for cellulosic bio-fuels. These bio-fuels are created from plant matter instead of fossil fuels, and include corn-based ethanol. API joined with American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers,…
With all the news about the false controversy involving hydraulic fracturing, the Railroad Commission of Texas is pre-emptively addressing concerns about another important issue for the Texas oil and gas industry–natural gas flares. Commissioner David Porter announced that the Eagle Ford Task Force will study the issue of whether Texas’s…
In April 2012, President Obama signed an executive order creating a six person committee to coordinate efforts among three government agencies to research the risks and benefits of unconventional oil and gas production. The committee is composed of two members each from the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency,…
Abundant oil and gas in Texas and the rest of the U.S. has already proven to have significant economic benefits, and not just to mineral owners in Texas and the U.S. It will continue to benefit the country as technology in this sector continues to improve. Our energy independence has…
The film Gasland purported to show how communities are adversely affected by hydraulic fracturing (also known as “fracing”). This film was full of inaccuracies and half-truths, and was apparently intended to incite opposition to fracing by masquerading as a “scientific” documentary. Environmentalists and politicians with a specific anti-energy agenda use…
Texas oil and gas operators have, in some ways, born the brunt of the misguided and ill-informed policies towards the energy industry of the Obama administration and the EPA. Plaintiff’s Exhibit Number 1: In 2010, a senior Environmental Protection Agency official, Alfredo Juan “Al” Armendariz, who was in charge of…
Bayside Petroleum Company, based in Dallas, Texas, has been busy increasing its oil and gas production by renewing or acquiring leases in two mature oil and gas fields in Texas. Bayside recently renewed its leases in the Muscadine Field in Tyler County, Texas in preparation for rejuvenating this field, first…
It seems like a noncontroversial statement to say that increasing the supply of a product will lower its price. But because of politics, that statement still elicits arguments and recriminations in Washington when the discussion is about oil or gas production. At a March 20, 2012 press conference, American Petroleum…