Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, May 3, 2013

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

New York

New Dandy CNG Station Opens in Sayre
WETM-18
There’s a new place in the twin tiers to fill your vehicle with fuel. The catch is it has to run on compressed natural gas. Thursday Dandy Mini Marts opened up their second natural gas fueling station on Elmira Street in Sayre. Right now the price of natural gas for your car is at $1.99 a gallon. The natural gas they sell is all from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

Gasland Part II Leaves Landowners Out on the Streets
Energy in Depth – NMI
One of the landowners denied entrance to the Gasland Part II premiere in trendy Tribeca several days ago describes her experience. Film festival security were determined to keep out ticket holders who might ask Josh Fox questions and challenge his distortions of the facts.

Ohio

Hickory Bend Investment Could Reach $1B
Energy in Depth – Ohio
NiSource COO Chad Zamarin came to the Mahoning Valley this week to meet with local officials and reporters, revealing the project could see even more investment in the next few years: “We believe our initial $300 million project has the potential over the next few years to be $1 billion worth of investment in this very footprint” – Chad Zamarin

Conventional drillers make plans to survive shale boom
CantonRep.com
GonzOil sank just two wells last year, down from the 15 or so it drilled four years ago. The company also had to lay off an employee. They aren’t the only conventional drillers to be squeezed by the new focus on shale drilling in Ohio.

Marathon Petroleum ‘Optimistic’ on Utica Condensate Plans
NGI’s Shale Daily (paid or free trial access required)
Although condensate production in the Utica Shale is occurring at a slower-than-anticipated pace, Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) said it has completed the conceptual engineering for condensate splitters at its refineries in Kentucky and Ohio, part of a $300 million investment to put the company in position to handle increasing volumes in the future. During a conference call with financial analysts on Tuesday to discuss 1Q2013 earnings, MPC Vice President Michael Palmer, who is in charge of supply distribution and planning, described the current landscape for condensate in the Utica as “somewhat volatile.”

Pennsylvania

Drilling down, but gas industry here to stay
Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice
Even as drilling activity has noticeably declined, the natural gas industry will remain part of the area’s economic landscape for generations to come, industry officials said at NEPA Energy Day in Scranton. About 300 people turned out Thursday for the event designed to acquaint business and civic leaders in Northeast Pennsylvania with the process and opportunities of natural gas in an era when new drilling in the region is waning.

Meeting of minds on gas drilling
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader
Energy company alliances and business groups gathered Thursday for a gas-industry pulse-check and to talk about where Marcellus Shale drilling is headed. With drilling operations less than 30 miles from Northeastern Pennsylvania’s population centers, Helen Humphreys, a Williams energy company spokeswoman, said it is good to let the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre community know what’s happening in the industry.

West Virginia

Chesapeake Pumps More Oil, Earnings Spike
The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register
Chesapeake Energy’s Shawn Couch well in Ohio County yielded daily averages of 505 barrels of oil and 290 barrels of natural gas liquids during the first three months of this year.

National

What’s More Dangerous – Puppies or Fracking?
Drillinginfo
I decided to create a fear-based campaign on something OTHER than frac’ing, just to see how easy it would be, using actual data and academic studies, as flawed as they may be. America is killing its young people. The killer? Vicious young dogs. Predators that prey preferentially on our kids. Dog bites occur every 75 seconds and over 1,000 citizens require emergency care EVERY DAY as a result of this deadly scourge. In 2012 alone, over 37 people, half of them children, were KILLED in vicious young dog attacks, ranking puppies higher than baby snatchers in childhood mortality.

In Texas and Nationwide, Many Shales Left to Explore
The Texas Tribune
The Cline Shale, thousands of feet underground in a roughly 10-county swath, is just one of many little-tapped shale formations in Texas and across the nation, geologists say. That means the potential for oil and gas discoveries is theoretically huge, and the reason is technology. The rock-breaking process known as hydraulic fracturing, coupled with the ability to drill horizontally underground, has allowed drillers to retrieve oil and gas from previously inaccessible areas.

Spread of Hydrofracking Could Strain Water Resources in West, Study Finds
New York Times
The rapid expansion of hydraulic fracturing to retrieve once-inaccessible reservoirs of oil and gas could put pressure on already-stressed water resources from the suburbs of Fort Worth to western Colorado, according to a new report from a nonprofit [anti-drilling] group that advises investors about companies’ environmental risks.

Oil drilling technology leaps while clean energy stumbles
The Oklahoman
By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made from plant waste or algae — or powered by hydrogen or cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. When the sun didn’t shine or the wind didn’t blow, power would flow out of batteries the size of tractor-trailers. Fossil fuels? They were going to be expensive and scarce, relics of an earlier, dirtier age. But in the race to conquer energy technology, Old Energy is winning.