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Marcellus/Utica Midstreamer PVR Bought by Regency Energy for $5.6B

bigger fish smaller fishPVR Partners, formerly known as Penn Virginia Resource Partners, will now just be formerly. Period. PVR is a major midstream company (pipelines and processing plants) with big operations in the PA Marcellus Shale after buying Chief Gathering last year (see PVR Buys Chief Gathering/Marcellus Pipelines for $1B). They also announced last year that they would spend $380 million to expand pipelines in NE PA (see PVR Announces $380 Million Investment in NE PA Marcellus), and very recently PVR announced a deal with Hess to build a pipeline system in eastern OH (see PVR Partners to Build $150M Utica Shale Pipeline System for Hess).

Yesterday Texas-based Regency Energy Partners and PVR announced that Regency will buy out PVR for $5.6 billion. Regency, also a midstream company, owns some assets in the Marcellus/Utica, but most of their operations are in the Southwest and West, so this purchase gives them a major presence in the rapidly-expanding midstream sector of the Marcellus/Utica. After the buyout is completed, the PVR name will be no more…
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Cuomo Says NY Doing a Good Job on Frack Health Review (LOL)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh, sorry, but we just could not stop laughing when we saw a quote made by Gov. Andy “he without a spine” Cuomo yesterday. With respect to the now year-long health review of proposed fracking regulations in New York–a review that was supposed to be done “within the next few weeks” back in February–Cuomo actually, incredulously said (please, try not to roll on the ground laughing like we just did): “I think we’re doing a good job on it.”

Andy must have a REALLY low opinion about the intelligence of the average NY voter…

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Harrison County, OH Leases 357 Acres to CBM Ohio for $5K/19%

CBM Ohio, a company that until now has concentrated on producing coalbed methane (hence the name), is venturing into producing natural gas from the Utica Shale.

CBM’s first Utica foray comes in leasing 357 acres of county-owned land in Harrison County, OH. On Wednesday, Harrison County officials signed a lease with CBM for $5,000 per acre signing bonus and 19% royalties…
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MSC to PA Dem Gubernatorial Candidates: Nix the Big Tax Idea

Most (all?) of the candidates who have announced they are running for the Democrat nomination for governor in Pennsylvania have said they will (a) increase regulation on the Marcellus Shale industry, and (b) dramatically increase taxes on the industry. Democrats either don’t know or don’t care that such taxes suffocate businesses and cause those businesses to go elsewhere. It’s a fact, not a threat.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC)–a group of some of the biggest drillers and midstream companies in the Marcellus–have weighed in and are giving PA’s Democrat gubernatorial candidates a verbal slap about their plans to tax and regulate…
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PA DEP Files Required Report on So-Called Climate Change Affects

Let’s assume, just for the sake of argument, that there really is a Santa Claus. Let’s further assume brilliant politicians in Pennsylvania want a state government agency to do a “scientific study” of the physics of how Santa can visit all of the homes in PA in a single night–Dec. 24–and still make it home to the North Pole in time to eat cookies by sunrise. The purpose of the report is to reassure the little kiddies that Santie is real and yes, he can and does get it all done in a single night.

Now assume that those same PA politicians believe in another fairy story–something called man-made global warming (now renamed to “climate change” because the earth’s so-called average temperature hasn’t risen in the last 15 years)–and that said politicians directed a state agency–the Dept. of Environmental Protection–to draft up a document detailing how the big, bad bogeyman of global warming will affect all the little boys and girls in PA, and oh, by the way, don’t forget to sprinkle the report with lots of talk about “renewables” because we hate nasty fossil fuels, ya know. And snap snap, get that report written PDQ!

Unfortunately, the second scenario above is true. And when the DEP was late in filing this exercise in fantasyland, PA eco-nuts and anti-drillers got their knickers in a twist. They can untwist them now–the fairy story report is finally here…
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PA Anti-Fracking Gatecrashers Outside, Real Work Gets Done Inside

We know everyone likes a good story, so… Once upon a time there were four anti-drillers: Craig Stevens (from Dimock, PA, he of the little brown jug that supposedly contains contaminated drinking water from his well but he won’t let anyone test it); Ray Kemble (also from Dimock, PA); Robert Lee McCaslin (from Bath, NY); and Randy Moyer (from Portage, PA). None of these anti-drillers apparently have day jobs because they travel around the northeast like groupies following their favorite rock band–except in reverse. This band of merry anti-frackers travel about the countryside trying to gatecrash pro-drilling meetings. (Every now and again they do attend a meeting of the anti-drilling faithful–just to get some good juju to keep going.)

Anywho…our merry band of four anti-frackers descended on a peaceful meeting of elected PA officials in far western PA yesterday, and the Washington Observer-Reporter was there to report on the four anti-frackers outside instead of the 100 elected officials inside…
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PA Natural Gas Advisory Committee Holds First Meeting

Hats off to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources for convening the first-ever meeting of the Natural Gas Advisory Committee (NGAC) on Wednesday, Oct. 9 in State College, PA. NGAC membership is composed of people from the drilling industry, academe and even anti-drilling environmental groups (like Trout Unlimited). It’s quite a feat to get them all in the same room and talking to each other.

NGAC was a recommendation that came out of Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission, chaired by Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley. Here’s who attended, and what was on the agenda:
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