{"id":18441,"date":"2016-03-02T21:19:52","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T02:19:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18441"},"modified":"2016-03-02T21:19:52","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T02:19:52","slug":"top-drillers-shut-down-u-s-fracking-operations-as-oil-prices-continue-to-tank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18441","title":{"rendered":"Top Drillers Shut Down U.S. Fracking Operations as Oil Prices Continue to Tank"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 id=\"page-title\" class=\"page__title title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2016\/02\/28\/top-drillers-us-shut-down-fracking-operations-oil-prices\" target=\"_blank\">Top Drillers Shut Down U.S. Fracking Operations as Oil Prices Continue to Tank<\/a><\/h3>\n<article class=\"node-10348 node node-blog node-promoted view-mode-full clearfix\">\n<header>\n<p class=\"submitted desktop-only\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/sites\/beta.desmogblog.com\/files\/styles\/full_width_blog_image\/public\/blogimages\/BL26_crude_jpg_2289567f.jpg?itok=X76UOvCG\" alt=\"\" width=\"636\" height=\"482\" \/><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"horizontal-social-bar horizontal-social-bar-top clearfix\">It was a tumultuous week in the world of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/fracking-the-future\/\" target=\"_blank\">hydraulic fracturing (\u201cfracking\u201d)<\/a>\u00a0for shale oil and gas, with a few of the biggest companies in the\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span>\u00a0announcing temporary shutdowns at their drilling operations in various areas until oil prices rise again from the ashes.<\/div>\n<div class=\"field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field-items\">\n<div class=\"field-item even\">\nAmong them:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ohio.com\/blogs\/drilling\/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290\/money-strapped-chesapeake-halts-utica-marcellus-drilling-1.664289\" target=\"_blank\">Chesapeake Energy<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-02-24\/shale-driller-continental-posts-first-annual-loss-since-07-ipo\" target=\"_blank\">Continental Resources<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/fuelfix.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/25\/whiting-petroleum-halts-north-dakota-drilling-plans\/\" target=\"_blank\">Whiting Petroleum<\/a>. Chesapeake formerly sat as the second most prolific fracker in the\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span>\u00a0behind ExxonMobil, while Continental has been hailed by many as the \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.desmogblog.com\/2015\/12\/28\/miracle-american-oil-continental-resources-corporate-media-oil-exports\" target=\"_blank\">King of the Bakken<\/a>\u201d shale basin located primarily in North\u00a0Dakota.<\/p>\n<p>Halliburton too, the drilling services goliath and namesake of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.earthworksaction.org\/issues\/detail\/inadequate_regulation_of_hydraulic_fracturing\" target=\"_blank\">Halliburton Loophole<\/a>\u201d exempting the industry from\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span>\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency (<span class=\"caps\">EPA<\/span>) enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act as it applies to fracking operations, has recently announced it will\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2016\/02\/25\/investing\/halliburton-cuts-5000-jobs-oil-crash\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">cut 5,000 drilling jobs globally<\/a>\u00a0(8 percent of its workforce).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cContinental Resources Inc., the shale oil pioneer controlled by billionaire wildcatter Harold Hamm, halted all fracking in the Bakken shale formation in the\u00a0<span class=\"caps\">U.S.<\/span>\u00a0Williston Basin after posting its first annual loss since the company\u2019s public debut in 2007,\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-02-24\/shale-driller-continental-posts-first-annual-loss-since-07-ipo\" target=\"_blank\">wrote Bloomberg<\/a>. \u201cContinental said it has no fracking crews currently working in the Bakken. The company continues to drill there, focusing on areas with the highest returns, but will leave most wells unfinished this year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Chesapeake&#8217;s immediate future is just as bleak, if not more so, and it will\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ohio.com\/blogs\/drilling\/ohio-utica-shale-1.291290\/money-strapped-chesapeake-halts-utica-marcellus-drilling-1.664289\" target=\"_blank\">halt drilling<\/a>\u00a0in the Marcellus Shale, Utica Shale, Eagle Ford Shale and elsewhere. The company sits as the top-producing driller in both the Utica and the Marcellus.<\/p>\n<p>Whiting, the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/whiting-petrol-results-idUSL2N1632GE\" target=\"_blank\">most prolific<\/a>\u00a0shale oil producer in the Bakken, will halt\u00a0<em>all\u00a0of its fracking<\/em>\u00a0in the near-future. The company,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.proactiveinvestors.com.au\/companies\/news\/67209\/frackers-abandon-bakken-as-oil-prices-continue-to-bite-67209.html\" target=\"_blank\">83 percent<\/a>\u00a0of whose produced oil comes from fracking the Bakken, will simultaneously slash its spending budget by 80 percent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top Drillers Shut Down U.S. Fracking Operations as Oil Prices Continue to Tank It was a tumultuous week in the world of\u00a0hydraulic fracturing (\u201cfracking\u201d)\u00a0for shale oil and gas, with a few of the biggest companies in the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0announcing temporary shutdowns at their drilling operations in various areas until oil prices rise again from the ashes. Among [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5317,412,1775,723,11481,12732],"class_list":["post-18441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-desmog-blog","tag-hydraulic-fracturing","tag-oil-price-collapse","tag-shale-oil","tag-steve-horn","tag-us-fracking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18442,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18441\/revisions\/18442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}