Hinto Energy acquiring additional wells and 4,400+ acres in Utah

Hinto Energy reported on Wednesday the Company has entered into a letter of intent to acquire a 100% working interest in 9 natural gas wells and in excess of 4,400 gross leased acres in the Cisco Springs oil and gas field, in the Uintah Basin of Grand County, Utah. The company is planning to connect the well into the local gas gathering system, as soon as proper testing and evaluation is completed. They expect to complete the acquisition in May of this year. Fairfield Sun Times

Utah Regulators Approve 'Fracking' Disclosure Rule

Utah has joined a growing list of states that require energy companies to disclose which chemicals they employ in a controversial process used to stimulate oil and natural gas production.

The state Oil, Gas and Mining Board, by a unanimous vote, approved a new rule Wednesday that requires companies to use www.fracfocus.org to report the amount and type of chemicals used to hydraulically fracture any Utah oil and gas well.

FracFocus is managed by the Ground Water Protection Council and Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Hydraulic fracturing— known commonly as "fracking" — involves introducing explosive charges deep underground to perforate a completed well casing. A mixture of sand, water and chemicals is then pumped down the steel casing under high pressure to fracture the shale rock around it. The sand holds the new cracks open to allow previously inaccessible reserves of oil and natural gas to flow to the wellhead.
The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are currently studying hydraulic fracturing, with an eye toward possible federal regulation of the practice. Any such regulation would be "redundant," said John Baza, director of the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.

"Utah geology is unique. It can't compare with Texas, Oklahoma or the states back East," Baza said. "We think that fracking rules, as they're implemented and developed, should be unique to state programs."
Hydraulic fracturing has been blamed by landowners and environmental groups for groundwater contamination. The practice has even been highlighted in an Oscar-nominated documentary that included footage of a man lighting his tap water on fire.

Utah has seen a rise in drilling permit applications this year. As of Wednesday, the state had already received 141 more permit applications in 2012 than it did the prior year, and 471 more permits than the year before that.

The increased workload has environmentalists worried that state regulators won't be able to keep pace, even with the new disclosure rule.

Baza acknowledged that his agency hasn't added any new positions for nearly a decade. That's something he expects will change. Deseret News

Local Insights and Utah Insights updated on the Web

The Fall 2012 issues of Local Insights has been updated on the web.

This edition focuses on the most recent recession and the long-term unemployed.

The statewide edition includes a feature article on Unemployment Insurance Outcomes in Utah.

To see more, click here.









To receive a copy, call 801-526-9785

Wildfires threaten summer Rocky Mountain tourism

Searing, record-setting heat in the interior West didn't loosen its grip on firefighters struggling to contain blazes in Colorado, Utah and other Rocky Mountain states.

Colorado has endured nearly a week of 100-plus degree days and low humidity, sapping moisture from timber and grass, creating a devastating formula for volatile wildfires across the state and punishing conditions for firefighters.

"When it's that hot, it just dries the fuels even more. That can make the fuels explosive," said Steve Segin, a fire spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service.

Much of Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado are under a red flag warning, meaning conditions are hot, dry and ripe for fires. CBS News

State offers webcast on tar sands project hearing

The Utah Department of Environmental Quality will provide a live webcast of a hearing on the PR Springs tar sands mining project in Uintah County Wednesday and Thursday.

An administrative law judge will hear evidence from the state Division of Water Quality, which has granted a permit for the project, and an environmental group appealing the permit, Moab-based Living Rivers. 

The DEQ has said the hearing involves only those officially involved in the dispute and is not a public meeting subject to the state Open and Public Meetings Act.

So, while the hearing itself will take place in an upstairs conference room at the Multi-Agency State Office Building, 1950 West 195 North, Salt Lake City, the public will be free to observe the broadcast in the DEQ Board Room on the first floor.

"The public is expected to be respectful to other members of the public and the facility during the hearing," says the state’s web page on the hearing. "DEQ reserves the right to remove individuals who are unable to respect these requirements."

The hearing takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. For a link to the webcast, go to: http://www.deq.utah.gov/Online_Services/deqwebcasts.htm. Salt Lake Tribune

Utah home sales up in October

Utah home sales rose for the fifth straight month in October — up nearly 25 percent from last year, according to a new report from the Utah Association of Realtors. During the month, Utah Realtors sold 2,819 homes, townhomes and condos compared to 2,261 sales last year. It was the fourth consecutive month of double-digit sales increase. Since the beginning of the year, Utah home sales are up over 7 percent compared to the same 10-month period in 2010.

The month's inventory in Uintah County is 4.6 months and prices are up nearly 14 percent, a release states. Similarly, in Washington County, the month's supply is 6.5 months and the median price has increased about 11 percent from last October. Statewide, the number of homes on the market has come down more than 21 percent over the past year — the fewest amount of homes on the market since mid-2007 and the eighth consecutive month of double-digit declines. In October, the median price of homes sold in Utah was $174,750, down 3.6 percent compared to the same period last year.

In addition to Uintah and Washington counties, several other areas saw increasing prices, including Emery, Grand, Juab, Morgan and San Juan counties. The median price in Weber County stayed nearly the same, coming in at $139,500 compared to $137,990 last October. Deseret News

Environmentalists appeal state approval of tar sands mine

An environmental group opposing a tar sands mine planned for eastern Utah’s Book Cliffs on Monday filed an appeal based on water quality fears and asked the state to rescind its approval. The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining approved the permit two weeks ago, allowing Calgary, Alberta-based Earth Energy Resources to dig up bitumen-laced rock and soil near the boundary between Uintah and Grand counties. At first just 62 acres in Uintah, the project is meant to expand and operate in both counties.

The Moab-based group Living Rivers had until Monday to appeal Oil, Gas and Mining Division Director John Baza’s decision to the division’s board, and it did so with help from attorneys at Western Resource Advocates. Division spokesman Jim Springer said board appeals can take six months to a year to yield a decision. The Salt Lake Tribune

Tar sands development given go-ahead by Utah regulators

The state mining division director said adequate protections are in place for a tar sands project to proceed on the borders of Uintah and Grand counties, despite objections by environmental groups. The decision issued late Monday by John Baza follows a July 27 informal hearing in which he and other members of the regulatory agency took comments from opponents like Living Rivers and Peaceful Uprising, which argued the long-term impacts to air and water would be significantly detrimental.Specifically, the groups argued that the operation had the potential to contaminate tributaries that feed into the Colorado River and generate dust pollution to extract a fuel that contributes more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude oil.

The PR Springs Mine is being proposed by Canada-based Earth Energy Resources. It would occupy a 213-acre site and involve the open-pit mining of tar sands to extract 2,000 barrels of bitumen a day over a seven-year period. The Deseret News

Report: Abandon Utah's oil shale, tar sands

As Gov. Gary Herbert prepares today to stage the first of four statewide forums on Utah’s energy future, a Rocky Mountain environmental group has some advice: Forget oil shale and tar sands. Western Resource Advocates issued a 38-page report Tuesday on the energy and water inefficiency of either potential fuel source. The title: Fossil Foolishness: Utah’s Pursuit of Tar Sands and Oil Shale. The Boulder, Colo.-based legal and policy group commissioned a Boston University geographer to analyze the energy return on investment for oil shale. He determined that most research indicates that, at best, making fuel from the rock would generate twice the energy content of what it takes to produce. That compares to a 20-to-1 ratio or better for petroleum.

Additionally, the advocates insist, these potential fuel sources are too polluting and water intensive to win a place in Herbert’s vision for a clean-energy economy. They argue they also would require too many public subsidies to meet his test for market solutions. The Western Resource Advocates report cites state and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation estimates that Utah will exhaust its remaining share of Colorado River water by about 2020 — even without giving over any of it to new energy development. Utah’s potential for developing 634,000 barrels of oil a day by mining and then cooking oil shale would require somewhere between 90,000 and 150,000 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot, roughly 326,000 gallons, is about enough to supply two households for a year. While not armed with as much research about Utah’s tar sands, the environmental group believes that potential energy source faces similar efficiency issues. Salt Lake Tribune

Energy startup defends oil-sands project in Utah

An energy startup from Canada on Tuesday defended its plan to launch the first significant U.S. oil sands project in eastern Utah, after opponents argued it would dig up fragile topsoil and pollute groundwater. The criticism against the Earth Energy Resources Inc. project came during an informal hearing before the head of the Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining, who is considering whether to uphold his staff's approval of the company's operating permit. The Calgary, Alberta-based company insisted it won't pollute anything and will leave Utah's oil sands as clean as beach sand after processing with a citrus-based solvent.

"It will be a good project for Utah," company vice president Barclay Cuthbert testified. "We'll be providing energy that will be used in the state." The private company with 411 shareholders says it will turn out 2,000 barrels of oil a day after raising $35 million from private equity groups for the plant. Opponents said an oil-sands operation that produces so little petroleum isn't worth doing, given the potential damage to public lands. State officials responded that their job was simply to ensure Earth Energy follows environmental rules. Forbes

National park visits boom amid recession

Despite the recession, or perhaps because of it, 286 million visitors flocked to national parks last year, an increase of 10 million people. Utah's national park units attracted just over 9 million visitors during the year, up by 300,000. In Utah, Zion National Park attracted the most visitors of any park unit in the state: 2.7 million, up by 45,000. That set a new all-time visitation record. Zion also ranked No. 7 in visitation among parks nationwide. Elsewhere in Utah, park visit increases and decreases varied widely. Remote Rainbow Bridge National Monument attracted the biggest increase by percentage — 18.7 percent, or a jump of nearly 18,000 visitors. The biggest decrease was at Cedar Breaks National Monument, where visitation dropped by 8.5 percent or by nearly 46,000 people. Glen Canyon National Recreation Area (Lake Powell) attracted the second-most visits of any park unit in the state: 1.96 million visitors, up just 13,000 from the previous year. Bryce Canyon National Park attracted 1.2 million, up by a booming 16.6 percent.Arches National Park attracted 996,312 visitors, up 7.3 percent; Capitol Reef National Park attracted 617,208 visitors, up 2 percent; Canyonlands National Park attracted 436,241, nearly unchanged from 2008; and Dinosaur National Monument attracted 203,862, up 1 percent. Also, Timpanogos Cave National Monument attracted 138,571 visitors, up 12 percent; Natural Bridges National Monument attracted 92,023, nearly unchanged from 2008; Golden Spike National Historic Site had 45,334. The Deseret News