Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Jun 20, 2013

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

New York

Albany Fracking Rally A Bore
Natural Gas Now
There was an (anti) fracking rally in Albany this week, the latest in a series of nonsensical events where natural gas opponents from various states gather as “New Yorkers,” sing, preaches to themselves and issue each other atta-boys and atta-girls for what is childish behavior in most eyes.

Ohio

Ohio has approved 731 Utica shale permits, 358 wells drilled
Akron Beacon Journal
Through June 15, Ohio has approved 731 Utica shale permits. Of that total, 358 wells have been drilled, according to the latest data from the Ohio Department of Natural Rresources. A total of 102 wells are in production. A total of 29 drilling rigs are working in Ohio. A total of 25 new permits were approved: Five in Belmont County, 11 in Carroll County, two in Guernsey County, three in Harrison County, three in Noble County and one in Trumbull County.

Dozen threats to water, air, land emerge as biggest shale-drilling risks
Akron Beacon Journal
Storage and treatment of liquid drilling wastes, air emissions of methane, water withdrawals for drilling and site construction are among the biggest problems facing shale gas drilling in Ohio and other states. Those four problems top a list put together by researchers Nathan Richardson and Hal Gordon of Resources for the Future, a nonprofit group based in Washington, D.C. Their group surveyed 215 experts from government agencies, industry, academia or nongovernment organizations who were asked to rank 264 separate drilling threats from most serious to least serious.

Leppo Rents Begins Specialty Company to Focus on Oil and Gas Industry
Rental Equipment Register
Leppo Rents, a Bobcat dealer with six Ohio locations, recently opened a new rental company in Carrollton, Ohio, to focus on the oil and gas industry. The new rental center is called Razor Rents to differentiate it from Leppo Rents, because Razor will have a unique focus, specializing in equipment for contractors working on extracting methane, propane, butane gas and oil from the Utica Shale. Razor Rents will not function as a Bobcat dealer, although it is renting Bobcat products.

Pennsylvania

Low Cost Leader Ultra Petroleum Will Be A Leader In The Natural Gas Producer Rebound
Seeking Alpha
Ultra Petroleum Corp. is an independent E & P natural gas company. It has 53,000 net acres in and around the Pinedale and Jonah fields in the Green River Basin in southwest Wyoming and 260,000 net acres in the Pennsylvania Marcellus shale play. UPL grew production (before the recent natural gas price crash) by 1,911% from 2001 – 2011. It grew 1P reserves by 1,019% during the same period. It had an average ROE of 36%. UPL is and has been a low price production leader.

National

Shale Plays Pump Up Pipeline Sector
Engineering News-Record
These are good days for pipeline engineering and construction firms. There is a steady flow of work, thanks to booming natural-gas and oil production from U.S. shale plays, increased use of gas for power generation and other factors. The activity is driving a major expansion and reworking of the nation’s natural-gas, oil and natural-gas-liquids pipeline network.

Mitsubishi Heavy Reviving LNG Tank Business as Shale Gas Booms
Bloomberg
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., with products including ships, nuclear plants and air conditioners, has revived its business of making liquefied natural gas tanks amid the shale-gas boom in North America. Mitsubishi Heavy, which suspended the LNG tank business after last delivering storage units in 2009, wants to win at least one order every two years to supply the containers at receiving terminals, Nobuyuki Nishioka, general manager of the company’s new LNG project management department, said in an June 17 interview.

Anti-Keystone billionaire to launch a social media campaign against the pipeline
The Canadian Press
San Francisco billionaire Tom Steyer, a friend to Barack Obama and a major Democratic financier, is unveiling a social media campaign on Thursday that aims to rally the president’s formidable online army of supporters against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Steyer and a coalition of environmental and social justice groups will be in the U.S. capital to step up their efforts against Calgary-based TransCanada, a company they accuse of wanting “to reap billions in profits by getting the United States to allow the shipping of dirty tarsands oil across America’s heartland for export to China and beyond while the United States will get very little in return.”

Gasland II and Anti-Energy Extremists
RealClearEnergy
Domestic crude oil production surpassed imports during the week ending May 31, according to an Energy Information Administration report. That’s a milestone that hasn’t been reached in 16 years and underscores the conviction that North American energy security can be realized – if we resolve to achieve it.