Frac on: Analysts do not expect new regulations this year.
Analysts says frac rules unlikely
ExxonMobil, XTO Energy and other shale-gas producers probably will not face US rules that would add costs of $100,000 per well, given comments at a Congressional hearing yesterday and the loss of a Senate seat by majority Democrats, FBR Capital Markets analysts said.
Irving, Texas-based ExxonMobil’s $30 billion acquisition of XTO is not in jeopardy, Benjamin Salisbury and other FBR analysts wrote in a report to clients today.
US laws making shale development “illegal or commercially impracticable” would let ExxonMobil terminate the deal without penalty, under the buyout agreement.
Democrats at the hearing praised the economic and environmental benefits of replacing fuels such as coal with cleaner-burning natural gas, indicating the party will emphasise jobs and the economy rather than restrictions on fracturing that might curb drilling by as much as 20%, the analysts wrote.
Environmentalists said chemicals in fracturing fluid contaminate drinking water.
“Democrats took a markedly accommodating approach to the environmental risk posed by hydraulic fracturing” during testimony yesterday by ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson and XTO founder Bob Simpson, the FBR analysts wrote, according to a Bloomberg report.
Weighing on the majority party was the 19 January loss in a Massachusetts special election of the US Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy until his death in August.
Republican Scott Brown won the election, costing Democrats a 60-vote majority needed to block a filibuster by minority Republicans.
Representatives Diana Degette and Jared Polis of Colorado and Maurice Hinchey of New York, all Democrats, introduced legislation in June that would require the industry to meet US Environmental Protection Agency standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Companion legislation has been introduced by Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
Degette “emphasised the importance of fracking to her Congressional district and repeatedly asserted that her primary concern was disclosure of chemicals, not prohibition of fracking,” the analysts wrote.
Regulation would add $100,000 to the cost of a well, the analysts said, citing a study by the US Energy Department.
Compliance with tighter rules would delay drilling times, reducing the number of wells drilled annually by 20%, they said, citing a study by IHS Global Insight.
The EPA has put “on the back burner” a study of fracking’s effect on drinking water that Congress ordered last year and has not funded, the FBR analysts wrote.
The results are at least a year away, they wrote.
The study will provide policy makers the information needed “to ensure adequate protection of public health and the environment,” House Energy and Environment subcommittee Chairman Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said at the hearing.
Markey’s comment indicates Congress will not consider those bills until the EPA completes its study, the analysts wrote.