Barnett Shale

Driller sues Flower Mound over drilling ordinance

Red Oak Gas sued the city after the Oil and Gas Board of Appeals denied variances the driller sought for a well site , the Town of Flower Mound reported. Red Oak Gas asked for 15 variances from the city's 1,000-foot minimum setback provision. A copy of the Flower Mound Leader's story is here. And read an earlier account of an Oil and Gas Board of Appeals meeting here.

Flower Mound said it has until July 21 to file a response to Red Oaks' June 27 filing in state district court. Town Council will meet July 17 in executive session to consider responses, the city said in a news release. "The Town Council has consistently been supportive of Flower Mound's current oil and gas well drilling ordinance, which attempts to balance the rights of mineral owners and the health, safety and welfare of the community," Mayor Jody A. Smith said in the release.

-- Jim Fuquay

Chesapeake postpones 8th Avenue drilling permit hearing

Chesapeake Energy today asked the city of Fort Worth to postpone a scheduled hearing next week on its request for a drilling permit at the controversial Eighth Avenue site near the Berkeley and Ryan Place neighborhoods. The move came after an hours-long meeting Monday afternoon with representatives of the two affected neighborhoods as well as surrounding neighborhoods and Councilman Joel Burns, who represents the near South Side area. Also present was a representative of William Davis, who owns the proposed drill site, and of urban planning firm Gideon Toal.

Tom Edwards, a gas well inspector for the city, said Chesapeake “just asked us to postpone the hearing. They’re not pulling their request for a permit.” He said Chesapeake did not indicate when it might seek another hearing.

A Chesapeake representative was not immediately available for comment. Because Chesapeake does not have waivers from property owners within the city's 600-foot buffer zone, City Council must approve the company’s drilling permit before it can be issued. A hearing on the permit had been set for July 8.

-- Jim Fuquay

Dale goes after leases in NE Tarrant County

  Here's the full story from S-T staffer David Wethe on Dale Resources' pitch to neighborhood groups in Colleyville, Southlake, North Richland Hills, and Keller for leases. The offer could apply broadly to people in Colleyville and Southlake. Don't have a lease offer from Dale? Read this story to find out more on what you can do to find out if you're eligible.

Here's S-T staffer Adrienne Nettles' story from earlier this week on the Southlake City Council's consideration of changes that would allow drilling closer to homes.

Pictured is a map of drill sites that Dale Resources says Chesapeake has secured in the affected Northeast Tarrant County area. Dale reps handed the map out to neighborhood leaders at a meeting Tuesday night.

-- Scott Nishimura

Chesapeake, Arlington landowner at odds over lease expiration

For what surely will not be the last time, a drilling company and landowner can't agree on whether operations began in time to keep a lease from terminating. Chesapeake Energy on Feb. 15 sued members of an Arlington family, maintaining that the company started grading the family's south Arlington property the day before the lease was to expire at midnight Jan. 23. Chesapeake also blames the city of Arlington for not acting quickly enough on its drilling permit, which the company said it filed Oct. 9. The city's on-line drilling information site advises allowing 13 weeks for a permit to be approved.

Lacking a drilling permit, Chesapeake says in its suit that on Jan. 22 it obtained a grading permit from the city and hustled right out to the site "with two bulldozers and other heavy machinery and ultimately built 825 feet of road, moved onto location approximately 3,800 tons of base rock and built a pad site 385 feet by 230 feet."  Not good enough, the family's attorney informed Chesapeake on Jan. 30. "The oil and gas lease was for a term of two years from Jan. 23, 2006, and expired without production on Jan. 24, 2008."

What does the lease say? Well, one clause says that if the lessee -- that's Chesapeake -- can't comply with the terms of the lease because of "any order, rule or regulation of governmental authority," then the lease is extended. Another clause says that "if Lessee is engaged in drilling or reworking operations" then the lease remains in effect. Dallas attorney Bill Masterson, who represents the family, argues that Chesapeake just didn't get the ball rolling soon enough on the drilling permit, and without a drilling permit, Chesapeake's not drilling a well. So the lease is over, says Masterson, who's drafting a court response to Chesapeake's suit.

And this is why we will always have lawyers.

-- Jim Fuquay

New drilling technologies boost returns on wells

Here's Jim Fuquay's Sunday story on new drilling technologies. This is the top of the story:

Spend a few million bucks putting together a lease, drilling a well and coaxing it to give up some of the natural gas locked up in the Barnett Shale, and what do you get? Maybe 20 percent to 30 percent of the gas that’s there.

Not good enough, producers say. They’re developing new techniques and technologies to boost that to 50 percent or more, and if they succeed, it could be the answer to what one petroleum engineer calls "the $100 billion question."

Horizontal drilling — turning a steel drill pipe 90 degrees from vertical to horizontal — is what made the shale happen. But that’s yesterday’s news.

Today, producers are making horizontal runs, called laterals, up to twice the industry’s more typical 3,000 feet. They are also making more fractures along those laterals and fracturing two adjacent wells at the same time in an effort to crack the hard shale like a windshield after a North Texas hailstorm. They are squeezing in an extra well bore between two existing wells, boosting recovery while using the existing drilling site, an increasingly scarce commodity as drilling moves into urban areas.

-- Scott

(Photo: archive at drill site in Weatherford)

Three injured in gas well incident in Alvarado

The Star-Telegram's Bill Miller has the story. Check back at star-telegram.com for updates.

-- Scott

From property taxes to injection wells

Here's an archive of recent Barnett Shale stories that appeared in the Star-Telegram:

• Gas drilling isn't likely to push property taxes up much
• Development offers a lesson in low-impact drilling
• Well plan injects pressure into waste water dispute
• On pipelines, city's hands tied
• Burns, Rangel will compete in council runoff
• Speedway Motorsports says it won't share its gas
• FW Council extends moratorium on saltwater injection wells
• Explaining Barnett Shale equipment
• East Side neighborhood group, driller, spar over drill sites
• Audit takes Texas Railroad Commission to task over well inspections
• City residents voice drilling concerns
• Mayor Moncrief says oil, gas income is not a conflict
• City has sharp eye on water disposal
• DFW council member Davis urges restrictions on drilling
• Chesapeake committed to Barnett Shale drilling
• Gas deals' fine print can be costly

-- Scott

Living in the shadows of a drill site (S-T video)

With hundreds of natural gas wells popping up in the region, some residents find living in the shadows of a drill site to be a "pain in the butt." Star-Telegram staff Bill Teeter has the sights and sounds in this video.

-- Scott

Waterway Park in Arlington gets $6,000/acre and 25%

The Waterway Park Neighborhood Association has signed a lease with Chesapeake Energy for its nearly 45 acres of common property at terms of $6,000 per acre and a 25 percent royalty. Residents in the neighborhood in far northwest Arlington who have not signed a lease, amounting to about half the households, can also sign at those terms. The company's original offer in the spring was $5,500 and 24 percent. Additionally, a no-drill zone around the neighborhood is expanded, according to information posted by the association.

-- Jim Fuquay

More on Trinity Trees

Lon Burnam fired off a letter yesterday asking the Texas Railroad Commission to hold a meeting about the Trinity Trees drill site, the one near University Drive next to the hike and bike trail.

You can read Burnam's missive here and check out stories about the Trinity Trees situation here:

City_gives_goahead_for_well_at_trinity_trees_site.htm

or here:

www.trinitytrees.org

-- Mike