Marcellus Drilling News

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Public Opinion | Statewide NY

Siena Poll of Upstate NYers on Fracking Fatally Flawed
August 1, 2014August 1, 2014

Sure looks to MDN like the so-called unbiased, independent pollsters at Siena College have pulled a fast one. They’ve either unintentionally, or perhaps intentionally, cherry-picked polling results in order to report in their latest poll that “51 percent of voters int the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes oppose hydrofracking, compared to 39 percent in support.” Here’s why the poll, and therefore it’s results, are fatally flawed and meaningless…
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Belmont County | Energy Companies | Gulfport Energy | Industrywide Issues | Monroe County | Ohio | Pipelines | Rice Energy | Utica Shale

Gulfport Cuts Deal with Competitor Rice Energy to Build Pipeline
August 1, 2014August 1, 2014

An interesting announcement from Gulfport Energy earlier this week. The company issued a “midstream update” and a production numbers for 2Q14 going back one year. What’s interesting is that Gulfport has cut midstream (i.e. pipeline) deals to get its production out of the Utica Shale basin in eastern Ohio. One deal is with Rice Energy, a competitor who also drills in the Utica. Rice will construct and operate gathering pipelines for Gulfport in several townships in Belmont County, OH. (Interesting that Rice is becoming a midstream company as well as a driller.) The second deal is with midstreamer MarkWest Energy to construct pipelines to Gulfport wells in other parts of Belmont County, and in parts of Monroe County, OH…
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Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

New Electric Line Thru PA Anticipates Marcellus-Fired Plants
August 1, 2014August 1, 2014

PPL Electric Utilities Corporation announced yesterday that they plan to build a major new electric power line that will run 725 miles from western and north/central Pennsylvania to New York, New Jersey and Maryland. The exact route for the new 500-kilovolt line has not yet been determined, but if approved, PPL would begin construction in 2017 and complete construction by 2025. PPL says it will create a boatload of new jobs and cost between $4 and $6 billion to complete. Wait. What does this have to do with Marcellus drilling? Glad you asked…
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Doddridge County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | Processing Plants | West Virginia

FirstEnergy Builds Electric Substation for MarkWest WV Plant
August 1, 2014August 1, 2014

Seems to be “electric day” on MDN. We’re noticing several stories about the electric industry’s tie-in with the Marcellus drilling industry. FirstEnergy Corp. announced Wednesday they are building a new $36 million electric substation in Doddridge County, WV to support the Marcellus Shale industry–specifically the nearby electric needs of the MarkWest Sherwood natural gas processing facility. However, an additional 6,000 residents will also benefit from the substation and power line being built…
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Access Midstream Partners | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Williams

Williams 2Q14 Update: Selected Comments, Slides & Databook
August 1, 2014August 1, 2014

Williams, a major midstream company in the U.S. and one of two major midstream companies in the Marcellus/Utica region (MarkWest Energy being the other) released their second quarter 2014 update on Wednesday. Much of the update deals with the monster deal Williams is in the middle of with acquiring all of Access Midstream, the old Chesapeake Midstream (see Big News: Williams Partners Buying Access Midstream for $6B). We’ll link to the update below if you want to wade through it. However, we found the obligatory analyst call much more informative when it comes to Williams news about the Marcellus and Utica. We’ve scoured the transcript and pulled out those sections where Williams talks about their northeast operations. We’ve also embedded the slide presentation they used and a copy of their latest “databook” (now where did they get that name?!)…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Pipelines | Tennessee Gas Pipeline

Kinder Signs up New Customers for MA Pipeline, 63% of Capacity
August 1, 2014August 1, 2014

Early this year Kinder Morgan, the country’s largest midstream (pipeline and processing plant) company, announced they will expand their Tennessee Gas Pipeline across the state of Massachusetts to bring abundant, cheap Marcellus Shale gas to New England where the gas is desperately needed (see Reaction to TGP’s Planned Pipeline Across Massachusetts). The project, originally called the Northeast Expansion Project, was recently renamed to be the Northeast Energy Direct Project. Survey work has already begun (see Survey Work Already Begun on Kinder Morgan TGP Expansion Thru MA). Also already begun is the hunt for customers. Kinder Morgan held an open season and now has more than half of the initial capacity of the new pipeline spoken for…
Read More “Kinder Signs up New Customers for MA Pipeline, 63% of Capacity”
Anadarko | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Southwestern Energy | Statewide PA

Loyalsock Drilling Update: Public Will Have 15 Days to Comment
August 1, 2014August 1, 2014

Last Friday MDN told you about the latest spin job being run by the reliably anti-drilling PBS StateImpact Pennsylvania against the PA Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) over their constitutional requirement to allow drilling in the Loyalsock State Forest (see Save the Loyalsock Coalition Attempts a New Spin Job Against DCNR). PA does not own the mineral rights for 25,000 acres of the forest. Anadarko Petroleum and Southwestern Energy are the owners of those mineral rights and have, for years, been attempting to work out a plan to drill there. DCNR is working with both companies to get a plan in place, which has anti-drillers in a dither. Today we bring you the news that DCNR has issued an announcement about where they stand in the process–to let the public know that when a plan to drill has been worked out, the public (meaning anti-drillers) will have 15 days to gripe and moan before the microphones and via email and letters…
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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, Aug 1, 2014
August 1, 2014August 1, 2014

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: Fri, Aug 1, 2014”