The Akron Beacon Journal has done a great job of cataloging a condensed list of who is actively drilling—or intends to drill—in the Utica Shale. There are 23 companies in the list. No surprise that Chesapeake is #1 with 325 of the 498 permits handed out so far.
Here’s the entire list of 23 companies, along with a rundown of who’s drilled all 48 wells currently in production:
Seneca Resources, the drilling arm and subsidiary of National Fuel Gas Company, released a brief statement today announcing some very impressive initial flow rates on six recently completed Marcellus Shale wells in Lycoming County, PA—some of the best results in the Marcellus we’ve seen:
An important new scientific study was released by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) on Jan. 9 that tests 127 water wells in the Fayetteville Shale area of north-central Arkansas. Fracking for natural gas began in the Fayetteville Shale in 2004, and since then, some 4,000 wells have been drilled. There were good historical records available for the 127 water wells to compare pre- and post-drilling results. Who woulda thunk we would actually use science to determine whether or not fracking is safe? What a novel concept.
The study is titled “Shallow Groundwater Quality and Geochemistry in the Fayetteville Shale Gas-Production Area, North-Central Arkansas, 2011” (full copy embedded below). What did the USGS find? They found that fracking didn’t affect water wells. No chemical contamination. Nada.
An excellent report on natural gas pipelines in Pennsylvania issued in December has just come to our attention. The report (full copy embedded below) was created by PA Gov. Tom Corbett’s Energy Executive, Patrick Henderson, as a requirement under the state’s new Act 13 drilling law. The report provides a brief history of natural gas pipelines in the state with an excellent overview of how pipelines are regulated and who regulates them, followed by 16 recommendations for lawmakers to consider in crafting new policies.
Among the recommendations: Run new pipelines along existing local and state road right-of-ways; make it easier to share pipeline capacity without forcing a pipeline into becoming a public utility (with the associated nightmare of heavy regulation); and the state’s Public Utility Commission should create and maintain a comprehensive map displaying the routes for all shale gas pipelines.
Energy giant BP, like energy giant ExxonMobil, are both drillers in the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays. They both also publish an annual energy outlook that shares their latest thinking about where the world’s energy markets are headed in the next few decades. ExxonMobil’s annual Outlook for Energy was published in December (see ExxonMobil Predicts World Fossil Fuel Usage Up 5% by 2040). BP’s Energy Outlook 2030 was just released this month (full copy embedded below). The word “shale” appears a lot.
Research company IHS, which has produced many excellent reports over the year, particularly in the area of energy, is releasing a brand new report titled Energy and the New Global Industrial Landscape: A Tectonic Shift later this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. A copy of the Executive Summary for the new report is embedded below.
According to the new report, unconventional energy in the U.S.—shale gas and tight oil plays—is changing not only the U.S. but the world by reviving U.S. manufacturing, creating 1.7 million jobs here at home and adding $62 billion to federal and state coffers—and that’s just for 2012!
Anti-drillers in and around Kent, Ohio have some helpful suggestions for elected officials in Kent: ban fracking. And if you can’t ban it, make zoning so onerous that the practical effect would be to ban it. And if you can’t do that, be sure to pass a law that blocks access to all water supplies around Kent so drillers have no way of fracking. And if you can’t do that… See a theme developing here?
Back in July MDN told you about a deal the Columbiana County Port Authority hoped to do with Marathon Petroleum to sell Marathon 3.6 acres in along the riverfront in Wellsville, OH so they can build a transfer station (truck terminal) to accept natural gas liquids and oil from local shale drilling by truck and, load it onto barges which would then float downriver for refining (see Columbiana Port Authority Helps Shale Industry).
Two actions taken on Monday by the Port Authority significantly advanced the ball down the field toward making the deal a reality:
In news related to the soon-to-be built Marcellus Shale Constitution Pipeline (being built by Williams), Iroquois, a major interstate natural gas transmission pipeline, announced today they plan to move forward with development of a new interconnect project that will expand their existing compressor station and metering facilities in Wright, New York in anticipation of the new Constitution pipeline connecting to the Iroquois at Wright. Plans call for Iroquois’ new construction to be completed by March 2015 when the Constitution plans to go in service.
From the Iroquois/Constitution joint press announcement:
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: