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CSSD Bestows First Certification for Sustainable Drilling: Chevron

FirstIn March 2013, the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) burst onto the scene. It had been a closely guarded secret, the creation of a few hand-picked people from both industry and the environmental movement working together to see if there is any common ground on which both sides can agree that shale development would be safe, sustainable AND affordable. They worked hard for over a year and finally hammered out a set of 15 standards that if a driller (or midstream company or contractor) would meet, it would get a stamp of approval from both the industry and environmental groups as being a good goobie–a safe driller. We were somewhat skeptical from the start (see Important: Drillers & Enviros Form New Group, Launch Cert Program). However, the time for skepticism may be over. Today the CSSD announced they have certified their very first driller–one of their founding members–Chevron…
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GreenHunter Gets Green Light for 4 New OH Injection Wells

This one won’t please the anti-drilling nutters in Ohio. GreenHunter Resources (division of Magnum Hunter) announced on Tuesday they have received permits and have concluded successful testing to bring four new Utica/Marcellus wastewater injection wells online in Meigs County, OH. With the addition of these four new injection wells, GreenHunter will be operating a total of 13 such wells. Each of the new wells can handle 3,000-5,000 barrels of brine/wastewater per day. According to GreenHunter, most of that new capacity coming online is already spoken for. They already have major drillers locked up as customers for the new capacity because the need is so great. The company also says the wells are ready to be begin accepting wastewater that’s barged down the Ohio River (hint hint U.S. Coast Guard)…
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Gastar 2015 Budget: Scaling Back Marcellus/Utica Drilling

A pair of announcements issued by Marcellus/Utica driller Gastar Exploration on Monday. One of the announcements is that the company is floating another 17 million shares of stock to help raise more operating capital. The second (we would argue related) announcement is a brief update on Gastar’s 2015 capital budget. The company will spend $257.3 million in 2015, comprised of $222.7 million for drilling, completion and infrastructure costs; $28 million for land and seismic expenditures; and “other” costs of $6.6 million. The interesting tidbit in Gastar’s 2015 budget announcement is how much they spend to drill a well in various plays, including the Marcellus and the Utica, and that in 2015 they won’t drill very much in the northeast…
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Air Products Wins Contract for TX LNG Plant, Marcellus Connection?

This is the kind of story MDN enjoys telling–connecting dots that others haven’t noticed. In broad brush strokes, Air Products announced on Tuesday that they have won the contract to provide two massive liquefied natural gas heat exchangers for Freeport LNG in Freeport, Texas. The heat exchangers will take two years to build and both will be built at their Wilkes-Barre, PA plant. At first blush you may not think there is a connection to the Marcellus/Utica, but there is. Here’s how the Air Products announcement all ties together for the Marcellus Shale (and what you won’t find anywhere else)…
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CONSOL/Noble IPO for CONE Midstream Hopes to Raise $423M

Three weeks ago MDN brought you the news that CONSOL Energy together with Noble Energy (two drillers who joint venture together on some Marcellus drilling) have joined forces to form a midstream (pipeline) company called CONE Midstream to hook up pipelines to their Marcellus wells (see CONSOL & Noble Energy Form New Marcellus Midstream Company). The new pipeline company will take the corporate form of a master limited partnership, or MLP. Yesterday Noble announced an initial public offering (IPO) for “units” in the new company (think shares of stock). The companies hope to sell 20.1 million units and raise $422.6 million for the fledgling midstream company…
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Scientific American Reporter Admits Real Reason He Hates Fracking

For years MDN has made the case that so-called environmental groups and individuals highly placed in the environmental movement are not opposed to shale drilling because “fracking contaminates water supplies” and all of the other arguments they frequently throw out as red herrings to confuse and obfuscate. Recent studies by the federal government and researchers at top universities are proving the converse–that fracking and shale drilling doesn’t contaminate water, the environment, etc. Our observation and contention (for years) has been these people have had a philosophical snap–a mental breakdown–and they now irrationally hate all fossil fuels as a source of energy. Maybe they overdosed on Frosted Flakes and Captain Planet cartoons on Saturday mornings as children…who knows? What is indisputable is their abject hatred of oil and gas simply because it comes from the ground (“extractive”) and it’s based on carbon–the same element their own bodies are based on. How utterly stupid is that? We have yet more proof that these nutters infest even storied publications like Scientific American
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The Urgent Case for a Ban on Food & Water Watch

The anti-drilling nuts at Food & Water Watch (FWW) just keep getting nuttier. FWW is a highly partisan, highly anti-drilling non-profit that raises huge sums of money to fund faux research and efforts to get fracking, shale drilling–anything to do with fossil fuels–banned. We often refer to them as “odious” because that’s precisely what they are. They lie so often about shale drilling it’s hardly worth mentioning any more. Their lies aren’t doing the trick, so they’ve amped it up a notch and have just issued a brand new report titled, “The Urgent Case for a Ban on Fracking” (full copy below). Hence the title of this article. We think there’s a much stronger case to be made to ban FWW than to ban fracking…
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