Some farmers in New York think they’ve found a way to get around the state’s new law that banned hydraulic fracturing using water. Their method? Liquefied Petroleum Gas.
The Snyder Farm Group, according to Natural Gas Now, has contracted with the Texas-based Tioga Energy Partners to use propane fracking technology which is not banned by Gov. Cuomo. the contract is to drill a fracked Utica Shale well to be followed by a fracked Marcellus Shale well, using LPG on both.
The landowners say because water won’t be used, it avoids the ban on high volume fracking imposed by Andrew Cuomo in December 2014. the plan calls for gelled propane to be mixed with sand for fracking followed by the recapturing of the gas when it returns to the surface.
The plan has also led environmentalists to now claim there are too many loopholes in the state’s fracking ban.