Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, May 29, 2012

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:

Icahn’s Chesapeake Stake Puts Governance Before Value
Bloomberg
In 2009, investor Jeffrey Bronchick told directors of Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) that he was disgusted with their leadership.

Marcellus Shale Job Program Turns Unskilled Into Shale Workers
Rigzone
Professor Byron Kohut helps hundreds of low-income adults land coveted jobs in the booming shale-gas industry in Pennsylvania. But only the tough need apply, he said.

Upper Pottsgrove opposes state’s drilling exemption law
The Mercury
Although there is little chance anyone will begin drilling for natural gas in Upper Pottsgrove Township any time soon, the commissioners nevertheless voted unanimously May 21 to support a resolution opposing a new state law that would result in them having no say in the matter should it happen.

Chesapeake Selling Assets
The Intelligencer
Chesapeake Energy plans to sell more than 500,000 acres of leases and reduce director compensation to help eliminate debt – and pay back the $4 billion loan the company received from Goldman Sachs.

Fracking will present tough choices for rural poor
The Gaston Gazette
“Money poisons you when you’ve got it,” British author D.H. Lawrence writes in his 1928 novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover, “and starves you when you haven’t.” There may be no better quote to describe the tension in public debates over the controversial method of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for extracting natural gas from shale deposits.

Ramping up to use natural gas as a motor fuel
Philly.com
In the 1990s, natural gas was promoted as the motor fuel of the future. Utilities opened refueling stations and government agencies traded in their dirty diesel trucks for vehicles fueled with clean compressed natural gas (CNG).

Pa. natural gas interests spent $1.3 million on lobbying
Pocono Record
Five of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas drilling interests spent a staggering $1.3 million to lobby state government from January through March as lawmakers and the Corbett administration worked to approve a new impact fee on the industry.

Green Running Out
The Citizens’ Voice
The wind and solar industries in Pennsylvania got a boost the past several years from state energy mandates and financial aid, but continued growth for the industry may lie through other avenues as market conditions change.

Drilling-law updates overstep zoning rights, some say
Altoona Mirror
Signed into law by Gov. Tom Corbett on Feb. 14, House Bill 1950 was designed to update Title 58 – Oil and Gas – of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statues, which were previously untouched since the 1980s.

Industry supports Ohio’s new drilling rules
Ohio.com
The Ohio Oil and Gas Association supports Senate Bill 315, Ohio’s new rules on drilling. Here is the statement of Thomas E. Stewart, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association…

Permit For County’s First Marcellus Shale Compressor Station
Allegheny County
The Allegheny County Health Department has issued an air quality installation permit to Superior Appalachian Pipeline for construction of a compressor station at its Marcellus Shale natural gas production site on Kissick Lane in Frazer Township.

Energy Corp. of America raises $150M for wells
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
A major gas driller in the Marcellus Shale region has raised $150 million that it plans to spend developing wells throughout the Appalachian formation.

Columbiana’s Sanor Well Awaits Pipeline Infrastructure
The Business Journal
For weeks, there was little sign of activity at the well newly drilled on the Sanor farm along North Georgetown Road in Columbiana County. Then, in March, a convoy of trucks appeared and, for about a week, lined the two-lane road in Knox Township.

Activists Manipulate to Employ CEA as a Back Door Natural Gas Ban
Energy in Depth – NMI
We can argue endlessly about what effect low voter turnout rates have on the concept of “majority rule”— is the majority even really a majority the way most people understand the term? — but there’s no doubt one of the driving forces behind the construction of the U.S. Constitution was protecting the rights of the minority from the “tyranny of the 51%.”

Ernst to God, “Canada’s Lying!”
Energy in Depth – NMI
Last week I attended a presentation in Ithaca, New York, Tompkins County. The Unitarian Church in Ithaca hosted Jessica Ernst of Alberta, Canada to come in and speak to the public on her experience with the natural gas industry in Canada.

The Josh Fox Myth – A House of Green Paper
Energy in Depth – NMI
Normally I don’t spend much of my time reading blogs (except this one), especially those following articles related to Josh Fox.