Marcellus Drilling News

Allegheny County | Butler County | Lease & Royalty Payments | Pennsylvania

East Allegheny, PA Leases School Property for Marcellus Drilling
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Earth to Mars (PA): To the anti-drilling parents in the Mars School District in Butler County, cast your eyes to the south in neighboring Allegheny County. The school district in East Allegheny, PA has just signed a lease with EQT to drill shale wells on district-owned property–in one case 500 feet away from the middle school! Now what was that about a well pad 3/4 of a mile from a Mars school–on non-school property–that has you so enraged? (see Rex Gets Permits to Drill Near Martian School, Antis Apoplectic) Back here on earth, the East Allegheny school board unanimously voted last night to lease 170.28 acres of district-owned land (in 14 parcels) to EQT. The terms are…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Butler County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Rex Energy

Rex Drilling Operation Near Mars School Put on Hold
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Nearly two months ago Rex Energy received permits to drill five wells on a single well pad in Middlesex Township (Butler County), PA. The site is something like 3/4 of a mile from a school and some of the dunderheaded anti-drilling parents at the school are opposing it (see Rex Gets Permits to Drill Near Martian School, Antis Apoplectic). Those parents should take a short trip south to Allegheny County where the East Allegheny School District has just leased school property for drilling (see today’s lead story). Anywho, even though the Delaware River Basin is clear across the state and hundreds of miles from Middlesex Township, THE Delaware Riverkeeper along with another virulent anti-drilling group, Clean Air Council (also from the Philly area), have launched a challenge against Rex Energy to prevent them from drilling on the opposite side of the state. Talk about sickos…
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Columbia Pipeline Group | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | NiSource | Northampton County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines

Columbia Hits Resistance to Compressor Upgrade in SE PA
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

A year and a half ago MDN told you that Columbia Gas, a subsidiary of NiSource, was planning to upgrade a compressor station in Forks Township (Northampton County), PA (see Columbia’s SE PA Pipeline Project Includes Compressor Upgrade). The upgrade is part of Columbia’s East Side Expansion project, a project that includes 16 miles of new pipelines to carry cheap Marcellus Shale gas to a natural gas-powered electric generating plant (and other customers) across the border in New Jersey. Last year we reported that the neighbors of the project were just fine with the upgrade. Today, that’s changed, although how much opposition is yet to be fully determined…
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CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies | EXCO Resources

CONSOL, EXCO and Low Natgas Prices in the Marcellus
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

An interesting article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by the only reporter they have left that still reports objectively on the Marcellus Shale: Anya Litvak, formerly from the Pittsburgh Business Times, tackles the topic of the Marcellus and other shale plays as being a “long game” for energy companies. In fact, some producers still don’t turn a profit in this “low price” environment. As part of her article, she shares two pieces of information that caught our eye: How much it costs CONSOL Energy per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) to get the gas, and when we can expect to see EXCO Resources return to active drilling in the Marcellus…
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Ashtabula County | Ohio | Utica Shale

Utica Shale Drilling in Ashtabula, OH “On Hold” for Now
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Ashtabula County, OH, tucked into the northeastern most corner of the state, will not see active Utica (or Marcellus) Shale drilling any time soon, according to political leaders in the county. The reason? Basic economics, and, according to those officials, the low price of oil. According to State Rep. John Patterson, the county will be on hold “for a while”…
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Industrywide Issues | Research

Latest EIA Report Shows Marcellus Production Passing 16 Bcf/d
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

The American shale revolution continues–at a brisk pace. Yesterday our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released our favorite report–the monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). Lots of acronyms! In viewing total production across the seven major commercially active shale plays in the U.S., which include both the Marcellus and the Utica, one thing stands out: Every single play saw an increase in both oil and natural gas production over the past 30 days. In the case of the Marcellus, natgas production is forecast to increase another whopping 214 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d) in the next 30 days. The Marcellus will officially pass the 16 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) mark–forecast for a 16.1 Bcf/d average in December. Utica natgas production is forecast to grow 86 Mmcf/d and hit a 1.67 Bcf/d average during December. Here’s the full November DPR from the EIA that gives you the 411 on the Bcf’s…
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Eclipse Resources | Energy Companies

Eclipse Resources 3Q14: 16 New Utica Wells Drilled, 13 in Prod
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Eclipse Resources, an exploration & production company totally focused on the Utica and Marcellus Shale region, issued their third quarter 2014 update yesterday. During 3Q14 Eclipse reports drilling 16 new Utica Shale wells, completing 17 Utica wells and bringing 13 Utica wells online for production. The company produced an average of 85.8 million cubic feet per day of natural gas, a 104% increase from the same period last year. Here’s the details…
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Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies

Magnum Hunter CEO Evans Says Natgas is the Future, Not Oil
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Magnum Hunter Resources is a Texas-based driller that concentrates mostly on the Marcellus and Utica Shale. Magnum’s CEO Gary Evans was on CNBC last week (watch it below) to say some interesting things. Among his comments, Evans said that natural gas, and not oil, is the key to U.S. energy production and the future of energy in this country. Evans also said he sold most of his company’s oil leases two years when the market was high, proving to be a prescient move now that the price of oil has collapsed and appears to be going lower since Saudi Arabia has committed to lowering their price for the foreseeable future. How low will the price of oil have to go before the rigs stop drilling here at home?…
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Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

How Will Wolf Appointment of McGinty Affect Marcellus Drilling?
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Get this: From 2003-2010 PA Democrat Gov. Ed Rendell ran Pennsylvania over an economic cliff during his administration by raising taxes and raising spending even more. The mess was so bad it took current Gov. Tom Corbett several years to fix it and put the state back on the road to economic sanity. It’s not hyperbole to say that Corbett saved Pennsylvania from bankruptcy. The thanks Corbett got for saving the state? He got fired. Democrat Tom Wolf came along promising the moon–and (using $10 million of his own money and another $10 million of Californian “environmentalist” Tom Steyer’s money) he won. Yesterday Wolf named a former head of the Dept. of Environment Protection (and Wolf’s former opponent in the Dem primary for governor) Katie McGinty to be his chief of staff. Oh, did we mention that both Wolf and McGinty were cabinet members in the Rendell administration? Nothing like getting the band back together so you can take the state right back over the same economic cliff again. Leaving aside the larger economic issues for PA, we wonder how McGinty’s appointment will affect Marcellus drilling in the state…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Washington County

NEPA Anti-Driller Gets Permanent Injunction Against Trespassing
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Vera Scroggins, outside of NEPA a little-known anti-driller from Susquehanna County, PA with a potty mouth (see this video of Vera harassing filmmaker Phelim McAleer), has been permanently barred from stepping foot on property leased (or owned) by Cabot Oil & Gas. This has been a long-running court case/issue in northeast PA. Scroggins refuses to stop her so-called tours of Cabot well sites where she brings along fellow anti-drillers to point out…what? A drilling rig? A little, tiny well head sitting on an acre of land so small you can’t see it from 100 feet away? A truck lumbering up a road? She continually endangers herself and those she carts along on her trespassing adventures. Cabot had to sue to keep her off their land. Scroggins was slapped with a temporary injection last year (see NE PA Anti-Driller Slapped with Trespassing Injunction). The temporary injunction has just been made permanent by a Susquehanna County judge…
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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Nov 11, 2014
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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