The oil and natural gas industry will only get one seat on a 14-member commission appointed by Maryland's Democratic governor to develop recommendations on safe shale drilling in the state's western panhandle, which touches the Marcellus Shale.
According to Governor Martin O'Malley's Tuesday announcement of the commission's members, the oil and gas industry will be represented by Chevron Senior Advisor for Government Affairs, Jeffrey Kupfer. Kupfer was previously a senior vice president at Moon Township, Pennsylvania-based Atlas Energy, a Marcellus driller that Chevron purchased in November.
"The commission will study the short-term, long-term, and cumulative effects of natural gas exploration and production in the Marcellus Shale, best practices, and appropriate changes, if any, to the laws and regulations concerning oil and gas," O'Malley said.
Seven of the 14 advisory committee members are residents of the two Maryland counties that are prospective for shale: Allegany and Garrett, the state's westernmost counties, wedged between Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
Environmentalists got three seats on the commission, which will be chaired by geologist David Vanko, the Dean of the College of Science and Mathematics at Towson University.
Five state and local politicians were named to the panel, including Democratic state delegate Heather Mizeur from liberal Montgomery County in the Washington suburbs.
Mizeur sponsored a bill in the past legislative session that would ban hydraulic fracturing in the state until the US Environmental Protection Agency issues its study of the effects of fracking on drinking water in 2014.
The commission is tasked with making recommendations by the end of the year regarding a state-wide severance tax -- currently oil and gas production is taxed at the county level -- and standards of liability for shale drillers.
By August 2012, the Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Initiative Advisory Committee is supposed to have developed a set of best practices for shale gas extraction in Maryland. No later than August 2014, the commission must produce a final report covering economic and environmental impacts and comprehensive water rules.
"The department currently has the authority in state law and regulation to place all reasonable conditions in permits necessary to provide for public safety and to protect public health, the environment, and natural resources," Maryland Department of the Environment Secretary Robert Summers said.
"What is lacking is a complete understanding of the risks inherent in deep drilling and fracking and consensus about how to protect against those risks," he added.
About one-quarter of Garrett County's land mass, 128,000 acres, is prospective to the shale with 122,000 acres already leased, according to county economic development officials.
While there are no comparable figures for Allegany County directly to the east, it is estimated that less than 100,000 acres in that county are prospective to the Marcellus.
Producers have told county officials that they estimate Garrett County alone has 1 to 8 Tcf of recoverable gas and could support 1,600 wells drilled over 50 years on a one well per 80 acre spacing.
Three companies have dominant land positions in the county, according to local records: Fort Worth, Texas-based Chief Oil & Gas, Calgary-based Enerplus, and Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Samson.
Samson filed for a Garrett drilling permit two years ago and still is waiting for it to be approved. Chief plans to apply for two permits this year, it has said.
