EnergyFactor By ExxonMobil | Pespectives has a new home

Natural Gas

As the contribution of shale natural gas to our energy and economic security grows, people are seeking more information about how this resource is being produced. Today, ExxonMobil and XTO Energy launched a natural gas website to help address the key issues.

It looks like I wasn’t the only one who had issues with Ian Urbina’s stories in the New York Times on the economic viability of U.S. shale gas. Industry, media, government, academia, investment firms and others have criticized the articles based on the lack of facts and the use of questionable sources.


You really have to wonder why the New York Times is campaigning against cleaner-burning, domestically produced natural gas. In the latest installment (published first yesterday and now today), the Times questions the value of our country’s vast shale gas resources with little more than anonymous sourcing, two-year-old emails and analysis unsupported by fact.

A couple weeks ago, I pointed to a U.K. Parliamentary study that found that hydraulic fracturing–a method that’s enabling greater production of natural gas in shale and other formations–poses no more risk to the environment or water supplies than any other oil and gas production technique. What’s most important about hydraulic fracturing is ensuring that proper well design and water handling procedures are rigorously applied at every well. But public questions remain, and I think many people might be wondering, “So what exactly does ‘proper well design’ mean?”


A new study from the U.K. backs up what industry experts and others have been saying for years: that the hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) process used to produce shale gas and some other types of natural gas does not pose undue risks to the environment. The study was produced by the U.K. Parliament’s House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee.



  • Worth a deeper look...