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PA Releases 2015 Oil & Gas Annual Report (Very Cool)

cool stuffYesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued what we believe is the first-ever Oil and Gas Annual Report, covering last year (2015). We’ve never seen one of these reports before (full copy below). [UPDATE: MDN subscriber Michele W. wrote to tell us the DEP has been producing annual o&g reports since 2013. Thanks Michele!] Our hat is off to the DEP. This is an EXCELLENT report! It’s chock full of very cool graphs and tables and useful information–in particular about the unconventional (shale) drilling industry in the state, but also about the conventional oil and gas industry in PA. At a very high level, we learn that total production of natural gas in PA for 2015 was 4.6 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), versus 4.05 Tcf in 2014–and that’s with less drilling! Most of the production came from the Marcellus Shale layer, but the Utica and Point Pleasant formations are showing a noticeable uptick in production. Among the many charts and graphs is a table showing the Top 25 producers of natgas in the state (see our separate post today on that); the number of shale and conventional well permits issued, by year; number of permits issued by county in 2015 (and a table with the Top 5 counties); number of wells drilled by year for both shale and conventional; number of wells drilled by county in 2015; the list goes on! Take time to read through this fascinating report about the most productive natural gas shale play in the second highest-producing natgas state in the country…
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PA’s Top 25 Natural Gas Producers in 2015

Top 25Below is a chart from the just-released 2015 Oil and Gas Annual Report for Pennsylvania, from the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The report is full of great charts and graphs and useful details about both the shale and conventional drilling industry in the state (see today’s lead story, PA Releases 2015 Oil & Gas Annual Report (Very Cool)). It’s hard for us to select a favorite chart/graph from the report, there’s so many of them! However, the table below is on the short list. It is a table showing the Top 25 natural gas producers, along with the amount of natgas produced, for 2015. It may or may not surprise you to learn that the #1 natgas producer in PA for 2015 was….Chesapeake Energy! It certainly didn’t surprise us to see the company in the #2 slot–Cabot Oil & Gas. Here’s the full table…
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Video: DEP Acting Sec McDonnell Wants to Recycle Article 78 Regs

Comin Around Again - EditedStateImpact Pennsylvania is populated with partisan hacks who pretend to be reporters. One of them is Marie Cusick (who has a degree in political science, not journalism). We’ve often pointed out the extreme left-tilting political bias in StateImpact’s “articles” (i.e. propaganda). What really galls is that taxpayers help fund it, since StateImpact is a project of the Public Broadcasting Service. We hate having our tax money fund such skewed reporting. But we digress. Yesterday Marie Cusick did an interview with the Acting Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Pat McDonnell. You may recall that Pat’s predecessor, John Quigley, was fired for colluding with Big Green groups and using a private email address to do it (see Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired). Quigley, formerly from the anti-drilling PennFuture organization, was a rigid ideologue with a thin skin–someone who didn’t like his extreme views being challenged. Pat McDonnell, on the other hand, has been with the DEP on-and-off for the past 20 years. He’s a lifer. And it appears he’s not nearly as rigid as Quigley was. Cusick sat McDonnell down for a brief interview (watch it below). Among her questions: What about conventional Article 78 drilling regs? Is it back to the drawing board? According to McDonnell, the answer to that is “no.” He plans to dust off the rebuffed Article 78 drilling regs developed over the past five years and try to get a form of them palatable enough for the drilling industry to swallow…
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Statoil Sells Another 11.5K WV Marcellus Acres to Antero for $96M

StatoilNorwegian oil giant Statoil, which is 67% owned by the country of Norway, was an early and big mover in leasing Marcellus and Utica Shale acreage, amassing a huge 665,000 acres. Over the past few years Statoil has been equally aggressive in divesting itself of its non-operated acreage (Statoil doesn’t do the drilling) in the northeast–in particular in West Virginia. This is about to get complicated, but we’ll try to make it understandable. A lot of Statoil’s acreage is in joint venture deals. In December 2014, Statoil sold some of its “working interest” in the Marcellus acreage it owns in WV and PA to Southwestern Energy for $394 million (see Statoil Reduces Marcellus Holdings in $394M Deal with Southwestern). The deal reduced Statoil’s ownership in its WV acreage from 32.5% down to 23%. In June of this year, Antero Resources purchased some of that WV acreage from Southwestern (see Antero Takes Southwestern to Cleaners in Deal for 55K Marc. Acres). Antero snapped up even more in the same geography in July (see Antero Resources Picks Up Another 13K Marcellus Acres for $108M). Yesterday Statoil announced it is selling more (the rest of?) its ownership in non-operated WV Marcellus acreage to Antero–some 11,500 net acres–for $96 million in cash. That is, Antero continues to consolidate and take full ownership over Marcellus acreage in WV–primarily in Wetzel, Tyler and Doddridge counties…
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Comprehensive List of Laws Coming at Marcellus/Utica in PA-OH-WV

nortonrosefulbrightThe legal beagles at global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright have done us all a huge favor. Researchers have just issued a quarterly legislative action update for the second quarter of 2016 looking at previously laws acted upon, and new laws introduced, affecting the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The “Quarterly legislative action update: Marcellus and Utica shale region” (full copy below) begins with a quick listing by state for existing or new laws introduced, with descriptions for each bill/law. This is, in one place, pretty much everything you need to know about what new laws (i.e. regulations) are coming down the pike that will affect the Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling industry…
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REV LNG Building Small-Scale LNG Facility Near Towanda, PA

Yellow, green and red semi-trailer trucks stand side-by-side at a rest area in North America.

We’ve unearthed what we think is a neat story about a company we’ve written about before: REV LNG. Through his work with Shale Daily, MDN editor Jim Willis has had the pleasure of working with, and learning about, the unique technology REV LNG has developed. The company is one of the very few in the United States that buys, transports and sets up “mobile filling stations” (at drill pad sites) so drillers can use liquefied natural gas (LNG) to power their equipment. REV LNG’s uniqueness is that it’s a turn-key service. Customers just pay a “per gallon” fee to fill it up, and REV LNG takes care of the rest. REV LNG was one of the winners of the Shale Gas Innovation Contest in 2013, taking home $25,000 to help spread their technology (see Envelope Please: Winners of Shale Gas Innovation Contest are…). REV LNG is putting the money to good use. REV LNG is using that money plus an $800,000 technology innovation award from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Alternative Fuels Incentive Grant Program to build a small-scale LNG facility near Towanda (Bradford County), PA, with possible plans to build another such facility in Potter County. The LNG produced by REV LNG will be used not only in the drilling industry, but also to power LNG truck fleets…
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NGL Exports Driving Pipeline Projects in OH & PA

Mariner East 2
Mariner East 2 – click for larger version

NGLs (natural gas liquids, including ethane, propane and butane) are changing the midstream game in Ohio. We spotted a story in the Youngstown Business Journal that talks about shipping NGLs out of the Marcellus/Utica region–exporting them to other markets both domestic and international. A fascinating part of the article is an interview with Sunoco Logistics Partners about their Mariner East 1 and 2 projects and what Sunoco LP has planned…
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Cold Feet? Japan Wants to Swap Cove Point LNG for Asian LNG

Let's Make a DealIn April 2013, Dominion signed Japan and India to a deal to accept 100% of the LNG output that will come from their Cove Point, Maryland LNG export facility (see Dominion’s Cove Point LNG Facility Achieves Important Milestones). Cove Point is by now close to half built, since it was 24% complete in March and 38% complete in June (see Dominion Cove Point LNG Now 38% Built, Rapid Progress Continues). The closer it gets to completion, the more the Japanese are getting cold feet. Don’t worry, they can’t wiggle out of the contract. But they’re concerned that it will take 20 days to ship a cargo of LNG from Cove Point to Japan, when they could get gas in half that time from other sources. So the Japanese are playing “Let’s Make a Deal,” looking for partners willing to swap Cove Point cargos for Asian cargos of LNG. Here’s what the Japanese are proposing…
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Signs of Life in Canadian Goldboro LNG Export Project

Goldboro LNGWe’ve kept an eye on several LNG export projects along the Eastern shore of Canada (most of them in Nova Scotia) for some time. Why? Because they’re a huge potential market for Marcellus and Utica Shale gas. One of those projects, in Nova Scotia, is the Goldboro LNG project from Pieridae Energy. The most recent news we had was when the U.S. Dept. of Energy approved the plant for exporting to non-free trade agreement counties, back in February (see Goldboro LNG Project Gets Final DOE Approval – Good for Marcellus). That is, until today. Honeywell has announced it was selected to provide the Goldboro project with automation and safety systems and serve as the integrated main automation contractor. That is, we see signs of life in this project!…
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Seventy Seven Energy Pops Out of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in 2 Mos.

SSE logoGetting a pre-packaged bankruptcy to go is about as fast as getting a Happy Meal at the McDonald’s drive-thru. Relatively speaking, of course. Bankruptcies usually take many months, often years, before a company emerges to fight another day. Not so with the pre-packaged variety. Seventy Seven Energy (SSE), the former Chesapeake Oilfield Operating company, filed a bankruptcy plan just two months ago (see Seventy Seven Energy Officially Files for Prepackaged Bankruptcy). Last month we reported SSE would soon exit bankruptcy, borrowing another $100 million (see Seventy Seven Energy Cleared to Exit Bankruptcy, Borrowing $100M!). Yesterday SSE reported they have emerged, waving the magic wand and turning $1.1 billion of debt into equity. SSE’s previous stockholders are now completely hosed, and the new stockholders (former debtholders) are holding their breath…
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Aug 2, 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: New York policies result in high natgas prices; natgas volatility continues in WV; US natgas production down in May, consumption up; Chesapeake looks to sell more assets; natgas storage feels the burn; China boosts LNG imports; and more!
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