There’s a new “alpha dog” of Utica Shale wells in Ohio that’s upstaging Chesapeake Energy’s Buell well. The Gulfport Energy Wagner 1-28H well in Harrison County is producing an enormous amount of natural gas—record-breaking in fact.
Gulfport reports the Wagner well is “by far the strongest well” ever produced by Gulfport.
Read More “Gulfport’s “Alpha Dog” Utica Shale Well Upstages Chesapeake Well”
The one question MDN editor Jim Willis gets asked most often is, “When will New York release rules to allow fracking?” We’ve addressed this question before and no doubt will again. But this time, we thought we would let someone else address it for a change. Here’s a roundup of who’s said what on the topic of “when NY” as offered by Steve Israel in the Middletown Times Herald-Record:
Read More “One More Time: When Will NY Release New Fracking Regs?”
Hopewell Township in Washington County, Pennsylvania is the state’s single most densely drilled township. Leases in Hopewell go back to the 2005, the dawn of the modern shale gas drilling age in PA, and the driller who holds almost all of the leases in Hopewell is Range Resources, the company that sank the very first Marcellus Shale well which happened to be in Mt. Pleasant Township, which borders Hopewell (drilled in 2004).
Most of the residents of Hopewell have a tie to the shale drilling industry—either as landowners with leases or with jobs working directly or indirectly with the drilling industry. But that doesn’t mean landowners in Hopewell are getting top dollar for leasing their property. Quite the contrary. This is a cautionary tale about waiting too long to lease in hopes of getting a better price…
Read More “Some Landowners Find Waiting Too Long to Lease Doesn’t Pay”
In July, Hilcorp Energy and NiSource announced a joint venture to combine their Utica shale acreage with Hilcorp doing the drilling. The jv also will build wet gas gathering pipelines in Ohio and Pennsylvania (see this MDN story). It looks like the pipeline part has begun. A Youngstown television station reported over the weekend that reps from Hilcorp and NiSource were going door to door in parts of Mahoning County asking landowners to sign waivers to allow the pipeline.
Read More “Hilcorp & NiSource Approach OH Landowners About Pipeline”
MDN reported in early June that the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) board had caved to pressure from enviro-bullies and pulled back from selling water from its vast supply to Utica Shale drillers (see this MDN story).
The MWCD said at the time they would wait for the results of a study they commissioned with the U.S. Geological Survey to look at water sales from three of their reservoirs: Clendening, Atwood and Leesville (see this MDN story). The MWCD has not decided to sell more water (yet), but they did decide on Friday to lease some of their land for drilling. They also approved a right-of-way to extend a drilling pipeline. Both decisions have anti-drillers ticked off.
Read More “OH Muskingum Watershed Votes to Lease Land, Allow Pipeline”
Leasing activity in Columbiana County, Ohio is slowing down. Is that a bad thing? Or a good thing?
Read More “Columbiana County, OH Sees Slowdown in Leasing – Good or Bad?”
Rex Energy continues to test the Utica and Marcellus Shale. A quick update on their progress:
Read More “Rex Energy Begins 2nd Utica Well, Keeps Testing in OH & PA”
For those living in eastern Ohio and along the border in West Virginia, be on the lookout for a new free publication called Shale Play, published by the Warren (OH) Tribune Chronicle and its sister publications.
The Consumer Energy Alliance says if legal and regulatory roadblocks were removed, the United States could be producing and meeting 95% of it’s own energy needs in the next eight years—by 2020. The Marcellus and Utica Shale play a role in such a plan.
Read More “Energy Group Says U.S. Can be Off Foreign Oil by 2020”
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Aug 27, 2012”
Below are upcoming events for this week and next.
Read More “Calendar of Events for Aug 27 – Sep 9, 2012 [Free]”