Venezuela finds new front in attack on U.S. fracking: water

Venezuela sought to open a new front in its months-long verbal assault on the U.S. shale oil industry on Wednesday, suggesting it posed a grave threat to water supplies. In the latest criticism of the hydraulic fracturing technology that has yielded a gusher of crude supplies in Venezuela's biggest oil market, oil minister Asdrubal Chavez cited the "huge environmental impact" from shale. "This does not seem to raise any concerns among the governments promoting it or the companies involved," he told an OPEC seminar in Vienna attended by chief executives of some of the world's biggest oil companies, including Exxon and BP, both of which operate in U.S. shale. More…