Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Jan 31, 2012
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
Dominion Expects to Receive Shale Gas Export Permit in 2012
Last September, Dominion Resources filed an application with the Department of Energy (DOE) to begin exporting liquefied natural gas from its Cove Point terminal in Maryland—up to 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day (see this MDN story). Dominion Resources CEO Thomas Farrell said last Friday he believes the permit will be issued later this year.
PA DEP Debuts New Website for Easy Marcellus Drilling Info
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and their Office of Oil and Gas Management released a new website two weeks ago that makes it easier for the public to to access Marcellus Shale drilling permit records, drilling dates, inspections and enforcement information.
Kinder Morgan OH Marcellus Lateral Pipeline Project Dead?
It looks like a $520 million Marcellus Lateral Project pipeline that Kinder Morgan wanted to build spanning 240 miles from the West Virginia panhandle to Toledo, Ohio, and the 2,500 jobs it would have provided, is dead.
Washington Times: Is Obama Setting NG Up for a Fall?
It seems that MDN is not the only skeptic when it comes to President Obama’s election year conversion to supporting shale gas and fracking. An article in yesterday’s Washington Times asks the question, “Is the natural gas sector set up by Obama to be sabotaged?” Some industry observers believe the administration is publicly supporting fracking and drilling, while behind the scenes they are attempting to sabotage it:
Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Jan 30, 2012
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
MDN Weekly Update – Jan 29, 2012: Are You Serious Mr. President?
Last week’s MDN poll asked about the hot button question of whether or not you think the EPA should have a role in investigating water contamination in Dimock, PA. Although our weekly MDN polls often get criticized by anti-drillers, the MDN audience does not always think the way editor Jim Willis does! This week’s poll is evidence. More of you think the EPA has a role than those of us who don’t think so (including Jim). Here are the results:
Should the federal EPA investigate the Dimock, PA water contamination case?
Yes (52%, 142 Votes)
No (44%, 120 Votes)
Not sure (4%, 11 Votes)
Total Voters: 273
This Week’s Poll: Is President Obama Now a Fracking Shale Gas Supporter?
Just last week MDN wrote a “rant” about the out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and their latest attempt to smear hydraulic fracturing by inserting themselves into an investigation at Dimock, PA (see this MDN Weekly Update). EPA wants to control oil and gas drilling in this country, and their illicit ticket to ride is by trying to find at least one case where fracking has resulted in chemical contamination of ground water supplies. They’re looking for just a single case (of out an estimated 19,000 wells that will be fracked this year). Just a single, solitary case out of the hundreds of thousands of wells that have been fracked going back 50 years. Anything! Of course even if the EPA were to find a single case, it would still be statistically zero, but oh what a hatchet job the environmental extremists and media could do with a single case!
So MDN found it amusing, and we’re sure the EPA was apoplectic, when President Obama essentially said in his State of the Union address this past week that fracking is good and will result in 600,000 jobs (see this MDN story). But MDN is also suspicious of election year conversions. Most pro-drilling organizations and landowner coalitions have hailed Obama’s words in his speech, and since, as turning a corner. It’s given new hope to landowners in New York State that perhaps Gov. Andrew Cuomo will now have enough political cover to move forward with lifting the moratorium in that state (“hey, Obama says it’s OK).
MDN remains a hardened skeptic. “Show me the money!” Or in this case, “Show me you’re serious!” How can the President prove he is serious about shale gas drilling and his stated support of fracking? The first thing he can do is tell the EPA to butt out of Dimock. It is his EPA. The EPA, like it or not, is an arm of the presidency. It is an agency in the Executive branch of government. That means Obama is the boss. If he wanted to, he could tell Lisa Jackson to quit fiddling around in Dimock. Second, while he’s at it, he could tell Lisa to end the multi-year study of fracking the EPA is currently conducting. Fracking has been studied to death already—the EPA will learn nothing new. But the not-so-subtle threat is that the EPA will gin up enough suspect data to make a grab at regulating oil and gas drilling through the back door by controlling fracking. And where there’s a threat of government interference, there’s uncertainty, and where’s there’s uncertainty, companies are slow to invest and move forward. And when companies are slow to invest and move forward, less business is done and fewer jobs are created. Fracking is already heavily regulated in the individual states where it’s used. We don’t need the EPA usurping the states and adding yet another layer of regulation, smothering the industry.
Although oil is not natural gas, the two are closely tied together. Fracking has resulted in an unprecedented renaissance of oil drilling in our own country—witness the miracle of the Bakken fields of North Dakota. ND now has the lowest unemployment rate in the country and has had the lowest unemployment for what, going on two years now? Why? Fracking. ND is producing boatloads of oil. One of the ways to get oil from where it’s drilled to where it needs to be processed and sold is via pipeline. Obama effectively killed the Keystone XL pipeline that would have come from Canada, and along the way, would have gone through the Bakken and taken that oil, along with cheap Canadian oil, and transported it to the Midwest and the Gulf Coast. Want to prove your serious about fracking Mr. Obama? Reverse course and grant the permits to allow the Keystone pipeline to be built. That would be a huge way to show you’re serious about fracking and energy production in this country.
Saying something and doing something are two different things. We’ll take Obama’s statements supporting shale gas drilling and fracking, but it would be so much better if his actions backed up his words. Don’t hold your breath.
What do you think? Is Obama now a genuine convert and supporter of fracking and shale gas? Or is this just an election year stunt to get votes? Register your vote in this week’s poll along the right side of any page.
Below are the most recent “top 5” lists and the calendar of Marcellus-related events for the next two weeks.
Happy reading,
Jim Willis, Editor
P.S. MDN is working on a new permits report that will be published soon (in February). Keep watching MDN for details in the coming weeks. This new report is better than the last by orders of magnitude!
Cabot Letter to EPA: You Need to Rethink Dimock Decision
Cabot Oil & Gas President & CEO Dan Dinges sent a letter yesterday to federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson about the EPA’s sudden change of plans concerning the situation in Dimock, PA (the full letter is embedded below). The upshot of the letter? You need to rethink your recent decision to interfere in Dimock.
Obama Takes Credit for Shale Gas Drilling in Election Year
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this week (We Don’t Need More Foreign Oil and Gas), Obama supporters and long-time Democrat flacks John Podesta and Tom Steyer tried to make the argument that we don’t need Canada’s oil (and natural gas) because we now have enough of our own, thank you very much. Apparently Obama is getting heat for his disastrous decision to pander to environmental extremists and reject the Keystone XL pipeline that would not only have brought cheap Canadian oil to the U.S. (at a time of record-highs for oil), but also would have brought more U.S. oil to the U.S. from North Dakota’s Bakken field.
EQT Production Up 44% in 2011, Suspends Huron Shale Drilling
Pittsburgh-based EQT Corp. released 2011 results yesterday. Because of the prolific gas volumes in the Marcellus Shale, EQT reports production for natural gas was up an astonishing 44 percent over 2010. Some 42 percent of EQT’s production is from the Marcellus, which was up 18.9 percent last year.
EQT reports drilling 222 gross wells in 2011, 105 of them in the Marcellus Shale and 115 in the Huron Shale. The Huron is located mostly in western West Virginia, with very small slices in Ohio, Kentucky and Virginia. Because of slumping prices for natural gas, EQT has announced they are suspending drilling in the Huron and instead will concentrate on the liquids-rich portion of the Marcellus.
CONSOL Will Spend $130M Less on Marcellus Drilling in 2012
CONSOL Energy, the coal and natural gas giant with drilling operations in the Marcellus and Utica Shales, released it’s fourth quarter results along with a year-in-review yesterday. Even though the price of natural gas steadily declined during 2011, CONSOL was able to pay off all of its short term debt and ended the year with a cash balance of $376 million. CONSOL spent $1.4 billion on capital projects in 2011 and paid out dividends to shareholders totaling $96 million. The company has increased its regular quarterly dividend by 25 percent. The annual dividend is now $0.50 per share.
Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, Jan 27, 2012
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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