Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Jan 9, 2013

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

Ohio

Could landowners be held liable for drilling cleanups?
Akron Beacon Journal
Could you be left holding the bag for the cleanup of environmental contamination? It turns out that you could.

Blocksom’s Patriot Land Co. Buys Calex, Crab Creek Sites
Youngstown Business Journal
The sprawling and long vacant former Calex Corp. property on Wilson Avenue here has been purchased by Patriot Land Co. LLC of Lisbon, a holding company affiliated with Patriot Water Treatment LLC of Warren and Patriot Energy Partners LLC, all operated by entrepreneur Andrew Blocksom.

Pennsylvania

Lycoming County Natural Gas Power Plant Meets the Usual Opposition
Energy in Depth – NMI
Plans are in the works for the first ever Marcellus Shale fired natural gas power plants in Pennsylvania. Permits for the first, in Bradford County, have already been approved. A hearing on a plant proposed for Lycoming County took place last week.

Stop Throwing Your Fracking Fish At Our Heads
Canon-McMillanPatch
State Rep. Jesse White talks about the new movie ‘Promised Land’ and shares information about best practices for Marcellus Shale drilling outlined in a new report—one he said the gas industry paid for.

West Virginia

Natural gas production up 50 percent in WV in 2011
State Journal
Natural gas production rose 50 percent in West Virginia in 2011. The state’s production rose to 385,500 thousand cubic feet, or mcf, up from 256,600 mcf in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Natural Gas Annual, released Jan. 7.

National

Frack Nation Hits A Home Run for the Good Guys
Energy in Depth – NMI
The movie Frack Nation premiered Monday night.  The film is a case of the good guys hitting a home run that changes the entire game.  It reclaims the debate by telling the truth about Josh Fox, his movie Gasland and hydraulic fracturing.  It excels in weaving together the science and the story in high-quality cinema, giving voice to ordinary citizens impacted by the campaign against natural gas being spearheaded by wealthy NIMBY’s.

Oil, gas industries see boon without tax increases
Washington Times
Oil and gas industry leaders are urging President Obama to forgo tax increases in his second term and instead embrace more domestic energy production as a way to jump-start the economy and create jobs.

The New Power Map: World Politics After the Boom in Unconventional Energy
Foreign Affairs
The energy map of the world is being redrawn — and the global geopolitical order is adrift in consequence. We are moving away from a world dominated by a few energy mega-suppliers, such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela, and toward one in which most countries have some domestic resources to meet their energy needs and can import the balance from suppliers in their own neighborhood.

U.S. Natural Gas: 3-to-6 Month Forecast
Seeking Alpha
In attempting to forecast the price of natural gas it’s the uncompleted well count, not the drilling rig count, that has some significance. So many wells have been drilled in the last couple years but left uncompleted that the natural gas rig count, which has fallen all the way down to 431 recently, has little meaning.

Natural Gas Vies With Electric Hybrids in GE Auto Fleet
Bloomberg
General Electric Co. (GE)’s commitment to buy 25,000 electric autos, promoted as the largest ever when it was announced more than two years ago, is taking a detour. The obstacle: Customers of GE’s corporate fleet-services unit wanted more options.

The ethane asylum: Big time ethane rejection in the shale gas world {NGL falling price}
Free Republic/Oil & Gas Financial Journal
By Rusty Braziel – Ethane in Mont Belvieu posted at 22.5 cnts/gal on Friday, continuing the NGL’s descent into the abyss that started mid-2012. The last time we saw ethane at this level was back in 2002. With natural gas prices hanging in there above $3.00/MMbtu, there is no doubt about it. We are deep into ethane rejection economics.