A new University of Texas study says there is no direct link between groundwater contamination and frac’ing.

UT’s Energy Institute says contamination can occur due to spills above ground or mishandling of wastewater, arguing that these problems are not caused by frac’ing. We could have told you that, because this correlation is where microseismic technology steps in, working like an underground x-ray to keep frac’ing safe, so that operators can see exactly where they are and make adjustments in real time if needed.

An Energy Institute spokesman says no industry funds paid for the project. You can review the full results of the study here: http://energy.utexas.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=151&Itemid=160

And if you haven’t already, watch our own Peter Duncan in action in Ohio as he directly refutes the erroneous statements made against frac’ing in Gasland.

This week we ran across an awesome website via a bumper sticker in Houston, TX: http://www.rockinthebakken.com/

The site has merchandise for sale to show your support for drilling the Bakken shale as well as job postings, media coverage and even how to get financing for your Bakken-related business.

The Bakken shale play is an important part of the oil and natural gas development in the northern U.S. The Bakken is estimated to have as much as 3-5 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Way to market in a creative, clever way! MicroSeismic will certainly continue Rockin’ the Bakken, right along with North Dakotans!

An excellent article appeared in Oil Online this week and will appear in the February issue of Offshore Engineer. The piece highlights microseismic efforts and the benefits that MicroSeismic has been able to bring to our clients using this technology.

The author, Andrew McBarnet discusses in depth whether we are ready to move microseismic monitoring technology offshore, as well as the thought processes behind such a step.

We encourage you to read the full article here:

http://www.oilonline.com/default.asp?id=259&nid=37430&name=Passive+seismic+eyes+active+role+offshore

Research obtained from the study of 2011 mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas industry reveals an interesting trend; pipelines and foreign corporations spurred a surge in the value of these transactions, marking a new phase in the burgeoning U.S. shale boom.

Oil and gas companies spent $259 billion buying up other businesses during the year, a 14 percent jump over 2010, research firm Deloitte reported.

Though deals largely have been driven by grabs at land for producing oil and natural gas, 2011 saw growing interest in transporting the fuels to markets, said Roger Ihne, principal energy portfolio leader for Deloitte.

Two of the top three deals for 2011 were in pipelines and fuel storage, Ihne noted.

“That’s something we would have never expected and certainly had never seen before,” Ihne said. “Clearly, the amount that’s going to have to be spent on infrastructure, what we’ve seen is only a drop in the bucket in terms of what it’s ultimately going to be.”

Domestic production of oil and natural gas has boomed in recent years as technologies such as microseismic has allowed companies to reach harder-to-access reservoirs.

Mergers and acquisitions targeting companies that provide oil field equipment and services totaled $33.2 billion, or 13 percent of all oil and gas deals in 2011, and $10.1 billion, or 4 percent, was spent on acquiring refining and retail assets.

A growing portion of those deals involved foreign companies partnering with U.S. firms to gain shale drilling expertise that they can take overseas, Deloitte principal Trevear Thomas said.

Thomas said 2012 could bring more acquisitions as large corporations buy up smaller ones struggling with low U.S. prices for their natural gas.

“Given this low gas price environment that we are in, some of the independent producers that are not as well capitalized could be opportunities for others that are more capitalized to take them on,” Thomas said.

Natural gas closed down 2.4 cents to $2.45 per million British thermal units Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Can the U.S. Become Energy Independent? The answer to this comes from a rather unlikely source – Marc Goldman, a former milk company executive from New Jersey.

Marc is not well-known locally, let alone globally, but he did make the newspaper headlines in New York in the 1980s, by taking on the state’s powerful dairy interests and a system that kept milk prices artificially high by limiting competition among dairies.

After lengthy court battles and a small financial fortune spent on legal fees, Marc won the right for his Farmland Dairies to sell milk in all of New York City and its suburbs — a victory that led to a sharp drop in milk prices for many New Yorkers.

Today, Marc spends his time on another worthy crusade — promoting the Open Fuel Standard Act of 2011, known in the House as H.R. 1687 and in the Senate as S. 1603.

The proposed bills create a “free market for fuel,” just as his victory in New York created a free market for milk, by requiring car manufacturers to give owners a choice in the fuel they use in their vehicles.

The bills call for “fuel competition” to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign imports through greater use of domestic energy sources, and for an annually increasing percentage of automobiles sold in the United States to be flex-fuel capable.

This new law would require vehicles to be manufactured flex-fuel ready, adding less than $100 to the cost of each car, which would allow drivers to easily change the type of fuel their engine uses — from gasoline to other types of fuels, such as methanol or ethanol.

Such an option is available today in most cars in Brazil, where massive production of sugarcane ethanol has made Brazil the world’s first sustainable bio-fuel economy. It’s no accident that Brazil’s economy has been booming in recent years as the United States’ sags under high petroleum costs.

Rightfully, critics have complained that if the United States sharply increased the production of ethanol, made from corn or sugar, food prices would skyrocket globally.

This would be bad for everyone, and especially harm the poor.

But Marc’s answer lies in the United States huge reserves of natural gas — by some estimates over 2,500 trillion cubic feet of recoverable reserves. He notes that natural gas is easily converted into methanol, and methanol use could save drivers at least 80 cents per gallon for the same energy a gallon of gasoline today provides.

Marc’s point here is that once the fuel option opens up in Americans’ cars, the free market will work to meet the demand. Natural gas will boost demand and spur other forms of biomass fuel to be mass produced. And, as demand for oil drops, the fall-off in petroleum prices will be catastrophic for suppliers.

Today, the lion’s share of global oil reserves is under the control of OPEC, a cartel with many member states that are openly hostile to American interests.

As for environmental concerns, experiments show that methanol and ethanol fuels yield fewer hydrocarbon and nitrogen oxide emissions than gasoline.

It’s a win-win for consumers, the environment, and the country.

To the bills’ opponents, perhaps energy expert Dr. Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer and author, puts it best in a National Review article:

“In whose interest is it that Americans should continue to be denied fuel choice, that America’s vast natural gas, coal, and biomass remain unusable as a source of liquid fuel, that America continues to give hundreds of billions of dollars each year to foreign potentates bent upon our destruction, instead of paying our own people to make fuel out of our own resources, that a foreign cartel retains unlimited power to raise the cost of our fuel?

“We can set ourselves free, but action is required.”

South Dakota is the latest state to find themselves in an oil boom. Such news brings with it tremendous wealth in the form of increased employment and local business revenue.

The state isn’t poised to compete with North Dakota — which is expected to soon become the second-biggest oil-producing state behind Texas — but experts say that crude-carrying areas should prepare to see some of the same prosperity and problems.

The flip side of the coin is increased traffic, housing shortages and higher rents.

A recent town hall meeting called “Coming Down the Pipe” highlighted these concerns. The standing room only event featured experts from the oil industry, infrastructure and economics talking and answering questions about the frenzy in North Dakota’s oil patch and how they might relate to South Dakota’s future.

“We want people to understand the effect of development and the stress it puts on the community,” said Lynn Hammerstrom, former president of First Interstate Bank who lives in Belle Fourche, a town in northwestern South Dakota with about 5,700 residents.

“Make sure you focus. It’s all about planning,” said Gene Veeder, a panel speaker and executive director of McKenzie County Job Development Authority who said constructing single-family units and affordable housing should be a priority.

 “If you need 1,000 workers, you need to figure it out,” he said.

The panelists also said South Dakotans should embrace the possibilities. Truck drivers bring business, and communities will need parking, restaurants, truck stops and highway expansion — all of which will translate to more jobs, they said.

Shawn Wenko, a panelist and assistant director of the Economic Development Office in Williston, N.D., said the boom has brought jobs in all skill levels. Though oil is the No. 1 industry, agriculture and retail contribute to the economy, he said. Other job openings are in emergency services, medicine, education and dentistry.

“We’re seeing a boom of population while for generations or decades we saw a decline,” Wenko said. “The younger generation is now moving back. In northwest North Dakota, your graduates from there left in the 1990s because there were no opportunities. Now, they’re fighting to get back.”

President Obama’s call for an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy in last week’s State of the Union address was heard loud and clear. The United States must pursue all of its energy options – including increased domestic oil and natural gas production, coal, nuclear, renewables and more.

That includes unconventional energy sources. Certainly, the United States is realizing almost unimaginable growth in the development of oil and natural gas from shale, which is powering an economic boom in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas and others.

Just a few years ago, that hardly seemed likely. Yet, the latest data from the Energy Information Administration demonstrates how technological advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have dramatically increased America’s natural gas potential to the point that the EIA now says the U.S. is home to the second-largest natural gas reserves in the world, and that by 2035, 70 percent of the country’s gas supply will be produced by frac’ing from shale and tight rock formations.

Another unconventional energy source, oil shale, will be discussed this week by the House Natural Resources Committee as it considers legislation to promote access to U.S. resources. By all accounts this resource base is enormous. The largest and highest quality oil shale deposits are in sparsely populated areas of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, and the potentially recoverable oil from Western U.S. oil shale deposits is estimated at more than 800 billion barrels, or nearly three times the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia (267 billion). In its September 2011 report on North American resources, the National Petroleum Council notes that given the right technological advances, the potential of oil shale could be significant in terms of energy and jobs.

Several technologies have been developed around the world to make oil shale commercially viable in countries including Brazil, China and Estonia. With the United States holding nearly three times the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia in shale oil, we need the right policies to set the stage for commercial viability.

The president is right: an all-of-the-above approach is the best path for securing America’s energy future. In oil shale, the United States has another vast energy resource that can’t be dismissed – one that would be best developed by industry and the marketplace, guided by clear policies and a stable regulatory regime.

Let’s hope that even if the EPA makes headway on tougher frac’ing mandates, President Obama is able to stand by his pledge.

Beginning next week, The American Petroleum Institute (API) will be hosting a series of public workshops around the country the goal of which is to educate lawmakers, members of the public and various associations on shale gas and hydraulic fracturing.

The workshops are being held as part of a much-needed public relations effort to promote domestic sources and natural deposits of energy and lobby for what API President Jack Gerard has called “a course correction” in the nation’s energy policy.

According to the API, the workshops will take place in regions where hydraulic fracturing is conducted and where there are known shale gas reserves. The first session took place in Pittsburgh last fall, and demonstrated to participants how the natural gas and oil industry keeps itself accountable.

“These workshops emphasize the importance of our standards and certification program, demonstrate how states are successfully regulating hydraulic fracturing, and examine where we can improve,” said Gerard. “These are serious issues, and the industry is committed to moving forward with responsible development of our nation’s energy from shale.”

Coming workshops are planned in Little Rock, Ark.; Raleigh, N.C.; Annapolis, Md.; Trenton, N.J.; Charleston, W.Va.; Columbus, Ohio; Lansing, Mich.; Albany, N.Y.; Fort Worth, Texas; Oklahoma City; San Antonio; Denver; Bismarck, N.D.; Billings, Mont.; and Cheyenne, Wyo., according to API.

People wishing to participate must RSVP with the API, but participants are on an invite-only basis. (No word yet on how to get on that coveted list!)

ExxonMobil recently announced that they will move forward in the search for unconventional gas exploration in Germany alongside conventional gas production.

“(Germany) is most definitely an interesting market. We cannot achieve the energy strategy shift without gas,” Gernot Kalkoffen, Exxon Mobil Central Europe head, said in an interview with the Handelsblatt business daily.

“The gas infrastructure is good and gas is in demand in Germany,” he added.

Shale gas is thought to be plenty in at least six of Germany’s 16 states. Earlier this month, ExxonMobil said Germany is estimated to have 827 billion cubic meters of gas resources, of which 80 percent are in unconventional deposits (citing official German figures).

Germany relies mainly on imported pipeline gas for heating, transport and industrial applications. It would like to reduce its dependency on Russia’s 40 percent market share.

Gas can also play a big role in complementing politically desired renewable energies and cleaner fuels, which Germany is moving towards more quickly than first anticipated.

Since the 1960s, scientists have begun to understand that small earthquakes can actually be caused by humans. This discovery was made when the U.S. Army drilled a 12,000-foot well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, near Denver, to dispose of waste fluids. This activity generated a series of earthquakes in the area.

Later that decade, at an oil field in Rangely, Colo., tests were done and seismologists found that changes in the number of earthquakes recorded per year correlated with changes in the quantity of fluid injected into the ground.

“It’s important to recognize that the association between injection and triggered earthquakes has been known about for about 40 years,” said Mark Zoback, a Stanford University geophysicist.

In Texas, there are about 50,000 injection wells and only a handful of earthquakes a year.  It stands to reason that if hydraulic fracturing posed a significant public threat, this number would be much higher.

Although typically the world’s strongest earthquakes occur along the major fault lines, there are smaller, pre-existing faults all over. The common injection of water during the frac’ing process can change the pressure along these faults, causing them to slip and triggering small earthquakes, scientists say. In this way, frac’ing might cause an earthquake sooner than it would have occurred naturally.

“My preliminary studies suggest you almost never get induced earthquakes that are bigger than the natural earthquakes in an area,” said Cliff Frohlich, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin‘s Institute for Geophysics.

The goal researchers have is to identify and prevent a situation in which frac’ing might cause severe seismicity problems. This is where microseismic technology comes into play, using imaging technologies to look at subsurface rock formations, and to monitor frac’ing of wells in real-time.