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Shale Insight Day 1: Antis in Bed Sheets; Jim Meets Rudy Giuliani

Shale Insight Protesters - Philly Magazine
Shale Insight Protesters (credit: Philly Magazine)

Hopefully you won’t have noticed that MDN editor Jim Willis has been on the road since Tuesday, producing MDN without interrpution, even though he’s doing so remotely from Philadelphia as he attends the Shale Insight conference and trade show. Yesterday (Wednesday) was the first of two days of the show. Jim wants to share a few of his personal experiences from Day One, including a run-in with a group of anti-fossil fuel nutters, and a chance to meet Rudy Giuliani…
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Potential Buyer for Chesapeake’s Dry Gas Utica Acreage?

puzzle pieces falling into placeFollowing on our rumor from yesterday that Chesapeake Energy is looking to sell their dry gas Utica acreage (see Credible Rumor: Chesapeake Shopping Utica Dry Gas Assets for $2B), we spotted an article that identifies one (or more) of the potential buyers–unnamed companies (or governments) in Asia. We should point out this article pre-dates the one we used from Seeking Alpha yesterday. However, when you fit the pieces of the puzzle together, a picture begins to emerge…
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Statoil Fined $223K for 2014 Monroe County, OH Well Pad Fire

pay fines here signOn June 28, 2014 a fire at Statoil’s Eisenbarth eight-well pad in Monroe County, OH quickly spread and engulfed some 20 trucks on the pad site, along with other equipment, chemicals and supplies stored at the site. It was a devastating fire (see Statoil Frack Trucks Catch Fire in Monroe County, OH). Local, state and even federal agencies quickly responded to the incident and fortunately no one was injured. However, fluids from the well pad escaped containment and made their way to a local creek and killed some fish. Turns out the entire incident was pretty pricey for Statoil. More than a year later the numbers are in and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency along with the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources have assessed a $223,000 fine for the incident. Statoil can resume fracking after it pays the fine…
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Ohio Supreme Court Keeps Frack Bans Off Ballot in 3 Counties

OH Supreme CourtWe previously told you about anti-fossil fuel groups in three Ohio counties–Athens, Fulton and Medina–who are being used by Big Green groups to attempt an illegal “community bill of rights” routine after the Ohio Supreme Court had already found local communities can’t ban fracking. They tried again and Ohio’s Secretary of State John Husted tossed the ballot measures (see OH Anti-Drilling November Ballot Measures Tossed in 3 Counties). That didn’t sit well with the crazies, who (beyond all common sense) filed an appeal with the (yes) Ohio Supreme Court (see OH Anti Groups File Lawsuit in Supreme Court re Home Rule Ballots). The Ohio Supreme Court handed down a decision yesterday, and it’s no surprise they ruled against the home rule ballot measures and in favor of Sec. Husted’s decision to toss them out. However, it wasn’t a clear-cut victory by any means…
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New Owner “Mothballs” GASFRAC’s Waterless LPG Technology

moth ballsIn March MDN told you the sad story that Canadian waterless fracking company GASFRAC had been sold to an unnamed third party after going bankrupt (see Bankrupt Waterless Fracking Co GASFRAC Sold to “Third Party”). GASFRAC’s technology had been used to frack a Utica Shale well (for $22 million), and the results were, shall we say, less than stellar (see EVEP Reports Waterless Fracked OH Well is a Bust). We now know two new things about GASFRAC: (1) the company that purchased it out of bankruptcy is another Canadian company–STEP Energy; (2) STEP has mothballed GASFRAC’s waterless LPG fracking technology…
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PA DEP Holds its First CPP “Listening Session”

Frazier Crane I'm ListeningOn Tuesday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection held it’s first “listening session” to consider which creative ways they will cut the economic throat of the state by attempting to comply with nonsensical carbon standards set by our Dear Leader, Barack H. Obama, via his so-called Clean Power Plan (see PA Anti-Fossil Fuel Groups Praise Wolf/Quigley for Supporting CPP). The master of ceremonies for the three-hour event was none other than the PennFuture Secretary of the DEP himself, John Quigley, who said Obama’s nutty standards are “ambitious, but achievable.” Most of the 27 speakers were a stacked deck–there to support the CPP standards. There were, however, a few voices of common sense and reason among the blithering idiots…
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R Street Institute Report: Benefits of Fracking Far Outweigh its Risks

benefits checkmarkThe R Street Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, public policy research organization (i.e. “think tank”) headquartered in Washington, DC with satellite offices in Florida, Texas, California, Alabama, and Ohio. After conducting an extensive review of existing published studies, R Street has found that while every form of energy has its negatives, including fracking, on the whole fracking for shale energy’s benefits far outweigh its negatives. Their findings are published in a new report titled “The Green Side of Fracking” (full copy below)…
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Enterprise Products Gets Line of Credit Hike, Can Borrow $5.5B!

eyes popping outFrom time to time we highlight companies that get their line of credit/borrowing power reevaluated by their bankers. Usually we spot announcements from exploration and production (E&P) companies, otherwise known as drillers on MDN. Sometimes we spot such announcements for midstream (or pipeline) companies. The one we spotted from yesterday about made our eyes pop out–by far the biggest such line of credit we’ve seen for a company with major operations in the northeast shale area. Enterprise Products Partners, which built and operates the 1,230-mile Appalachia-to-Texas Express (ATEX) ethane pipeline from Ohio to the Gulf Coast, announced they got a bump up in their credit line of $500 million. They now have the power to borrow up to $5.5 BILLION (yes, with a “b”). They could buy a small country with that kind of money…
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Rover Pipeline Awards OH Company $34M to build 39 Compressor Stns

Ariel Corporation logoET Rover is a 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will serve mostly U.S. customers and will cost $3.7 billion to build and run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada (see ET Rover Pipeline Launches New Website, Updated Route Maps). If you’re going to build a pipeline that long, you’ll need a lot of compressor stations along the pipeline’s route. Rover has just awarded a $34 million contract to Ohio-based Ariel Corporation to build 39 compressor stations for the Rover pipeline…
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Hess CEO John Hess Buys 144K Shares of Co. Stock for $7.5M

born richWhat’s going on at Hess? On Monday MDN told you that one of Hess’ board members, John H. Mullin III, had purchased 7,000 shares of Hess stock for $381,430 (called “insider buying”), bringing his total holdings of Hess stock to $3.2 million (see Hess Board Member Buys 7K Shares, Now Owns $3.2M in Hess Stock). That pales in comparison to the purchase just made by Hess CEO John B. Hess. Mr. Hess just purchased another 143,900 shares of company stock in an insider trading deal for $7.5 million. Hess’ new grand total for the stock he owns in the company that bears his name is $92 million! Rockefeller…Hunt…Getty…Hess. Sure must be nice to be born into a rich oil family…
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Sep 17, 2015

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: Gas going from East to West; title attorneys face layoffs from low gas prices; WNY residents oppose compressor station; Ohio passes 1K producing Utica wells; PA town beats back challenge to Sunoco pipeline; antis threaten lawsuit against WV EPA; and more!
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