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Fossil-Fuel-Hating Sierra Clubbers Plan to Protest Shale Insight

haterAnti-coal, anti-natural gas, anti-oil, anti-logic…the radicals who make up the Sierra Club are anti-everything. They can’t even stand themselves! Self-loathing seems to be a requirement for membership. The Allegheny sub-group of the Sierra Club is planning to protest in front of the David L Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh this coming Thursday morning. Why? Because presidential candidate Donald Trump is scheduled to speak and they HATE HIS GUTS. They also hate frackers and those who support them, like your humble editor. There’s no better unifier on the left than hatred. MDN will be on location at the event and if we get a chance we’ll snap a picture or two of the nutters out front protesting. Meanwhile, here’s the Sierra Club game plan for Thursday…
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Range Resources Completes Buyout/Merger with Memorial Resource

tie-the-knot.jpgAs MDN previously reported, Range Resources, the very first driller in the Marcellus Shale (in 2004) and one of the largest Marcellus drillers, has decided to take advantage of the down market and branch out into another shale play (see Range Resources Buys Louisiana Driller in Deal Worth $4.4B). In May Range announced a deal to buy Memorial Resource Development Corp. (MRD) in a stock swap/debt assumption deal worth $4.4 billion. MRD holds 220,000 acres of leases and drills in the Terryville Field in northern Louisiana. Essentially Range has purchased themselves a Gulf Coast operation which sets them up nicely to export natural gas to Mexico. That’s at least part of the attraction. Perhaps another part of the attraction is that gas from Terryville Field, part of the Cotton Valley Tight Gas formation, is cheaper to drill and in many cases just as productive as shale wells in the Marcellus. Last Thursday Range reported receiving final stockholder approval for the merger/buyout, and last Friday Range reported that the deal is now done…
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Small WV Driller Looks for $30M to Drill 20 New Wells

drilcoDrilco, a small West Virginia drilling company, is looking to land 23 investors who are willing to plunk down a $1.3 million each (for a cumulative $30 million) to help the company drill more wells. According to the Drilco prospectus (below), Drilco wants to fund their 2016 1H Drilling Program with $30 million to drill 10 vertical and 10 horizontal wells throughout five crude oil and natural gas producing zones. The formations Drilco is targeting include: the Big Lime formation, the Big Injun Sandstone, Berea Sandstone, and Upper Devonian Shale and the Marcellus Shale. The ten vertical wells will be completed using multi-stage frac methods through the use of lateral jet perforating and bridge plug completion. Each of the ten vertical wells and ten horizontal wells will be drilled on various leaseholds held by Drilco in West Virginia. Please note: MDN has permission to share the prospectus below (called a private placement memorandum). MDN does not endorse the offering (nor do we not not endorse it). We simply bring it to you to highlight what one small driller is doing to raise money to keep on drilling, and to point out there may be more drilling on the way in the seven counties where Drilco currently has some 15,000 acres under lease…
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Cheniere Restructures Management Team, Finishes Train 2

cheniereAfter firing Cheniere Energy’s CEO and co-founder last December, Charif Souki, corporate raider Carl Icahn then installed his own puppet to run the LNG exporting company (see Carl Icahn Installs New Puppet as CEO of Cheniere Energy). The man Carl hired is Jack Fusco. Apparently Jack is confident in himself and in the future of Cheniere, because snapped up $1.5 million worth of Cheniere’s stock not long after he assumed the role of CEO (see Carl Icahn’s Cheniere CEO Buys 37,604 Shares of Stock). We have a pair of updates for Cheniere: first, we have some musical chairs and new appointments in the senior management ranks of Cheniere. Jack (i.e. Carl Icahn) is making changes. Second, the company announced that Train 2 at the Sabine Pass Liquefaction Project is now substantially complete and they’ve taken it over from the builder, Bechtel. Why go on about an LNG export plant in southern Louisiana?…
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Congressmen Blast EPA Over New Methane Regulations

Last week the U.S. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee held a public hearing titled, “A Solution in Search of a Problem: EPA’s Methane Regulation.” The chairman of the Committee, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment, U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), delivered prepared opening statements that were scorchers. Both Congressman didn’t beat around the bush–they called out the EPA for the extreme overreach they’ve been engaged in, particularly with this latest travesty in attempting to control the oil and gas industry via the back door of methane regulations. Here’s how it went down (grab a fire extinguisher!)…
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New IEA Report: Worldwide Investment in Energy Dropped 8% in 2015

ieaThe International Energy Agency (IEA) is a European run and influence group of 29 countries that fervently believe the sky is falling, and that Mom Earth is toasting. Yep, global warmists. According to the IEA, the group is “an autonomous organisation which works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 29 member countries and beyond. The IEA has four main areas of focus: energy security, economic development, environmental awareness and engagement worldwide.” Er, ah, right. That makes it plain as day. Anyhow, the socialist IEA has no problem charging a king’s ransom for the reports they periodically issue. Last November the IEA issued their annual World Energy Outlook, predicting the world will see $80/barrel oil by 2020 (see IEA World Energy Outlook Predicts $80 Oil by 2020). ***Children! Please stop your laughing! Some people still believe in peak oil theory and it’s not nice to make fun of them!*** Back to center. The IEA has just published another new report–this one the first annual World Energy Investment report. As the authors point out: The “lifeblood” of the global energy system is…investment. That is, money. Without it, new sources of energy don’t appear. The IEA’s report says in 2015 global investment in energy went down 8% over 2014 levels. But for IEA there was good news in the bad news–almost all of the drop was in fossil fuel investment, whereas investments in so-called renewable sources of energy continued to increase last year. So says the IEA…
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Obama DOL White-Collar Overtime Reg Affects O&G Industry

overtimeYou did know that it’s not only the Obama EPA that routinely overreaches by issuing draconian regulations, right? Other Obama agencies, like the Dept. of Labor (DOL), are also guilty of draconian overreach. On May 18, 2016, the DOL published new changes that affect who is and who is not exempt from charging overtime. With the wave of the DOL’s magic wand they doubled the minimum salary necessary for white collar jobs to be “exempt” from overtime. That is, if you now earn a salary below $47,476 annually (or $913 per week), and if you work more than 40 hours a week, it doesn’t matter what your job is–you will be owed overtime for any hours over 40. Which may sound just dandy. Except if your company can’t afford to pay it, you’re about to get laid off, fired or otherwise put out to pasture. Tell me again how much Obama loves me. Employers have until December 1st to figure out what the heck to do, and how to comply, with these draconian new regulations. The legal beagles at law firm K&L Gates have put together a handy guide to help…
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GTL Discovery Converts Methane into Methanol at Room Temp

fesiGas-to-liquids (GTL) plants often convert natural gas into methanol. Methanol is one of the most commonly used substances in the chemical industry–used to produce antifreeze, fuels, solvents and many types of plastics. Converting methane (or natural gas) into methanol has been around for a while–but converting it at room temperature, using far less energy, is new. Scientists at KU Leuven and Stanford University have figured out how to do it. And it’s a really big deal…
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Sep 20, 2016

best of the restThe “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: MPLX’s plan to pipe northeast condensate; NY AG Schnedierman’s 2010 Playmate of the Year; Shale Crescent gains steam; CELDF radicals denied again; Statoil completes sale of Marcellus acreage in WV; Vermont gas pipeline given green light for construction; will the Dakota Access Pipeline get “Keystoned”?; natgas market is well into rebalancing; Aubrey McClendon’s wine collection sold at auction for $8.4M; and more!
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