Tag Archives: Matt Mead

Chesapeake well leaks in Wyoming, residents evacuate | Reuters

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Chesapeake well leaks in Wyoming, residents evacuate | Reuters.

Dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes after a Chesapeake Energy-operated well leaked natural gas and drilling mud in Wyoming, the company said on Wednesday.

Chesapeake lost control of a shale well late on Tuesday while installing a casing, triggering the leak, the company said in a statement. It wasn’t clear how much gas or fluid escaped the well.

A “cloud” of gas could be seen a mile away from the blown-out well, said Russ Dalgarn, coordinator for the Converse County Emergency Management agency in Wyoming.

No injuries, explosion or fires have been reported, and air quality readings near the well were “normal” on Wednesday, with the leaked gas “dissipating into the atmosphere,” Chesapeake coordinator Kelsey Campbell said in a statement.

The company has plans to “bring the well under control” as soon as safety conditions permit.

The cause of the incident was under investigation.

Sixty-seven residents within a 2.5 mile radius of the stricken well were asked to evacuate, Chesapeake said. The evacuation was voluntary, and several residents chose to remain in their homes.

“A blowout in a well builds uncertainty and distrust. We need more careful monitoring and regulation of drilling activities in the state,” said Bruce Pendery, program director at Wyoming Outdoor Council, an environmental group that has pressed for heightened scrutiny of drilling in the state.

The boom in on-shore production in shale oil and gas — often near homes and populated areas — has heightened concern about these accidents. The Rockies and Northern Plains region has stepped up drilling of promising oil and gas reserves in the Niobrara Shale, which straddles Colorado and Wyoming.

The regional office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is sending an inspector to the site of the accident. EPA received reports of an oil sheen on an irrigation channel and a pond near the well, said agency spokesman Martin McComb. Neither is a source of drinking water for nearby communities, he said.

Chesapeake may have encountered a pocket of high-pressure natural gas while drilling the well, McComb said.

Chesapeake said the oil-laden drilling mud that leaked from the well is mostly being contained on site.

Oklahoma City-based Chesapeake is the No. 2 U.S. natural gas driller. Last year, it signed a joint-venture agreement with Chinese national oil firm CNOOC for a third of its Niobrara interests.

Around a year ago, Chesapeake had a blowout on a well in the natural gas-rich Marcellus shale of Pennsylvania. It took six days to bring under control and prompted a fierce backlash among area residents opposed to the drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, in which water, sand and chemicals are pumped deep underground to fracture hydrocarbons-bearing shale rock.

In Wyoming, Governor Matt Mead said the state will investigate this week’s incident, to get a “better sense of what can or should be done in the future.”

Chesapeake shares rose 2 percent to $18.13 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday

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Wyoming governor decries planned federal fracking rules

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Wyoming governor decries planned federal fracking rules – Natural Gas | Platts News Article & Story.

An Interior Department spokesman said Monday that the department would review a letter from Wyoming Governor Matt Mead critical of the federal government’s plans to formulate rules to regulate hydraulic fracturing operations on federal lands.

“We will review the letter and respond directly to the governor,” Interior Department Press Secretary Adam Fetcher said.

On Thursday, Mead wrote to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, calling for the Bureau of Land Management, the Interior agency that is expected to formulate the federal rules, to refrain from creating regulations for fracking operations on federal lands that would duplicate or supplant the state’s existing fracking rules.

Mead requested that the BLM “defer to states, like Wyoming, that adequately and effectively manage hydraulic fracturing.”

BLM and Interior officials began talking last fall about plans to create new rules to regulate fracking operations on federal lands, chiefly in the Rocky Mountain West. Salazar testified about these efforts before the US House Natural Resources Committee on November 16.

A draft copy of the proposed rules, which Platts obtained in February, would require operators to disclose the chemical contents used in fracking fluids, while providing protection for trade secret data.

The Interior Department has not announced when it would officially release the draft rules for public comment, Fetcher said.

“We hope that industry, the public and other stakeholders will take the time to provide their input once a draft is actually on the table for public comment,” he added.

In his letter, Mead said such federal regulations would replicate rules that Wyoming has had on the books since 2010, when it became the first state to enact rules specifically aimed at regulating hydraulic fracturing.

“Wyoming’s rules address well-bore integrity and flowback water, require the disclosure of hydraulic fracturing constituents and apply on federal, private and state lands,” Mead wrote. “These rules were developed based on sound science and a thorough public process. They are intended to protect public health, safety and the environment while allowing economic growth.”

Mead wrote that he found it “troubling” that the BLM had drafted similar rules pertaining to fracking on federal land, “including land where the mineral interests are federal,” as well as on acreage where the federal government controlled the surface lands.

“Such layering of federal rules on top of existing state rules is unnecessary, burdensome and unreasonable,” Mead said.

The proposed new regulations are part of the Obama administration’s “all-of-the-above” energy strategy to promote the use of all forms of energy. That strategy “starts with an all-out effort to boost American production of oil and gas,” Fetcher said.

“As we continue to expand domestic natural gas production, in large part made possible because of new technologies like hydraulic fracturing, it is critical that the public have full confidence that the right safety and environmental protections are in place,” he said.

Microsoft plans to build data center in Cheyenne – BusinessWeek

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Microsoft plans to build data center in Cheyenne – BusinessWeek.

Microsoft Corp. has agreed to invest up to $112 million to build a new data center in southeast Wyoming, Gov. Matt Mead announced Monday.

Mead said work on the center near the state capital of Cheyenne should begin soon and should be operational next spring.

The state of Wyoming has pledged $10.7 million in grants and incentives for the project. Microsoft is making an initial $78-million investment and plans to go up to $112 million, Mead said.

Mead said the center ultimately may employ about 40 people in jobs that pay well over the local average. He said the data center promises to generate $25 million in tax revenues over five years.

Mead noted that Cheyenne has racked up other recent coups in the competitive world of attracting high-tech facilities. The National Center for Atmospheric Research recently choose Wyoming’s capital city as the site for construction of one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers and other private companies have located facilities there as well.

“We’re looking good. We’ve got some great momentum,” Mead said. “My hope is it won’t be too soon, that we don’t just mention ag, energy, tourism and small business, it will also add to that list, as a common practice, technology.”

Officials said the center will help expansion of Microsoft’s cloud computing efforts. Cloud computing allows workers to retrieve computer programs and key documents stored remotely using any device with an Internet connection.

Christian Belady, general manager of Data Center Services in Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services group, issued a statement through Mead’s office.

“Microsoft is excited to once again expand its cloud infrastructure and services capacities for our customers in Wyoming and the region,” Belady said. “We greatly appreciate the work that the governor, the economic development team and local officials in Cheyenne and Laramie County have done to make Wyoming a smart place for Microsoft to do business.”

Bob Jensen, head of the Wyoming Business Council, said the state is putting up $10.7 million in various incentives to lure Microsoft, including $5 million from data center recruitment funds provided by the Wyoming Legislature.

Randy Bruns, head of the Cheyenne-Laramie County Corporation for Economic Development (LEADS), said Microsoft has committed to provide certain salary levels. “The qualifying jobs have to be 150 percent of the county average or greater,” he said. “Those are our numbers. They’ve agreed to meet or exceed those numbers.”.

Bruns said the center will employ people from Wyoming as much as possible. He said the state for years has been educating people who could perform such jobs, but has been sending them out of state because of a lack of employment opportunities.

Although officials said they had agreed not to give the specific location of the data center, Bruns said it’s being built on property owned by Cheyenne-LEADS west of Cheyenne. The NCAR supercomputer is also in the area.