MADISON COUNTY (AP) -- A natural gas drilling company that had counted on tapping the riches of New York's part of the Marcellus Shale has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection while the state's 4-year-old moratorium on hydrofracking remains in place.
Norse Energy Corp., based in Oslo, Norway, announced Friday that its western New York-based U.S. subsidiary had filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 reorganization.
Norse has 130,000 acres under lease for gas drilling in New York state, some of which is in Madison County. But the state Department of Environmental Conservation has had a moratorium on drilling permits since it launched an environmental impact review in 2008.
The DEC is developing new regulations for fracking, or high-volume hydraulic fracturing, a controversial technology used to free gas from shale.
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