Rex Energy Selling Illinois Basin Assets, Focus 100% on Marcellus
Rex Energy has always been one of our favorite smaller drillers in the Marcellus/Utica region. Yes, we know you’re not supposed to love some of your drilling children more than others–but we do! We’ve often called Rex “the little energy company that could, and does.” Like most E&Ps (exploration and production companies), Rex has had a tough time coming through the recent crash in the price of gas and oil (see Rex Energy Converts IOUs into Common Stock, Avoids Bankruptcy?; Rex Energy 1Q16: Lost $62M, but Still Drilling in the Marc/Utica; and Rex Energy Swapping $631M in Private IOUs for Public IOUs). Rex has always concentrated on two regions: the Marcellus/Utica, and the Illinois Basin. No more. Rex is now a “pure play” driller after announcing it will sell all of its Illinois Basin assets–for $40 million to Campbell Development Group…
Read More “Rex Energy Selling Illinois Basin Assets, Focus 100% on Marcellus”
The silent pipeline-supporting majority became more vocal last night at a second hearing in as many days for the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline. Monday night’s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) public hearing was a circus-like freak show, complete with one crazy wearing a cape like he’s Superman (see 
We have to confess this story completely escaped us–until now. But we think we know why. We spotted a story (below) in a Wheeling, WV newspaper about an Ohio driller who was caught–back in 2011–dumping about 50 gallons per week of brine from some of his oil wells into an open ditch in Monroe County, OH. The story implies the brine (i.e. wastewater) is from fracked wells. The story is wrong. The brine is from conventional oil wells, not fracked shale wells. The driller/operator of the wells is one Donald Hercher and he’s just been sentenced to four days in jail, two years of probation, and a $70,000 fine. Aside from setting the record straight, the reason the story interests us is because of several other aspects of Hercher’s punishment–he’s being forced to write and publish an article in three trade journals “to educate readers on the ‘Waterways of the U.S.'” and to donate $5,000 to a private organization…
Anti-fossil fuel crazies have found a new cause: force investors to dump their investments in the oil and gas industry. The crazies hope by doing so that public companies like Exxon Mobil will crash and burn–and remove fossil fuels from the energy mix. It’s an LSD hallucination–but there you go. (Note: Many in the fossil fuel divestment movement are burned out hippies.) The crazies have tried this with a number of liberal colleges. The dolts who run Syracuse University fell for it (although they didn’t have much in the way of fossil fuel investments anyway), while New York University rejected calls to divest, calling such a strategy irresponsible (see 
In 2013, Dominion announced a 20-year deal to export 100% of the output from their planned Cove Point, MD LNG plant. All of the Marcellus gas from Cove Point will get exported to both India and Japan (see 
As a counter to onerous new regulations being pedaled by the out-of-control Obama Environmental Protection Agency, the American Petroleum Institute recently issued a statement pointing out the government itself–the Dept. of Energy and the EPA–have authored research reports that extol the virtues of hydraulic fracturing–i.e. “fracking.” The API’s statement says that the environment *benefits* from fracking, rather than suffering. After all, Uncle Sam says so in its own research…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Marcellus production steady; Utica production up y/y; Hawaii’s move to LNG is slow; the Clinton/Sanders frack ban; this year’s election a referendum on energy; o&g reserves plunge 40 Tcf in a year; natgas predicted to hit $3.50/Mcf in 2017; PIPES Act sent to Obama; the rhyming cycles of oil and capital; and more!