Accidents | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jay-Bee Oil & Gas | Tyler County | West Virginia
Jay-Bee Active Well Pad Fire in Tyler County, WV – No Injuries
Local media reports a fire at a Jay-Bee Oil & Gas well pad near Big Run in Tyler County, WV, which began last night around 5 p.m. and is still ongoing this morning. There were no injuries. Two different news agencies report that every fire department in the county, plus some from other countries, is involved in the response. While the media has very few details, an MDN source has provided extra details not found anywhere else.
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We spotted a press release about a “wealthy Haitian-American businessman” buying “a vast 10,000-acre oil reserve in Bowling Green Kentucky.” What caught our eye was the location and the extra detail that the assets purchased included “150 oil and natural gas wells.” A few bells began to go off for us. Kentucky is not known as a hotbed of shale drilling activity. The Marcellus/Utica does not extend under the Bluegrass State. However, as we wrote back in 2017, Kentucky has the Berea Sandstone, which contains oil deposits (see 
The Fairmont Brine Processing plant, located at 168 AFR Drive in Fairmont (Marion County), West Virginia, was constructed between 2009 and 2010 by AOP Clearwater LLC. The plant was acquired by Fairmont Brine Processing (FBP) in 2012. FBP began pre-treatment operations at the site in 2013 and fully operated the plant beginning fall of 2014. In May 2017, MDN reported that FBP was not paying some of its vendors (see 
A Ph.D. writing an article for the Forbes website touts efforts by the radicalized Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in sniffing out methane by using both planes and (now) satellites. The Ph.D. opens his article with a factually incorrect statement: “MethaneSAT is a satellite designed to measure emissions of methane, the second most common greenhouse gas (GHG).” Water vapor is Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas. It’s responsible for about half of Earth’s greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide comes in at number two. Methane is a distant third in the list. Given the incorrect opening statement by our Ph.D., it makes you wonder what other mistakes there are in the article.
A lawsuit being heard this summer is designed to hold Big Green groups responsible for their actions. Energy Transfer (ET), the owner and operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP), is suing Greenpeace and other alleged instigators for $300 million for the damages sustained by the company as a result of violent protests incited by the groups in North Dakota in 2016. Big Green is scared.
We continue to be range-bound with respect to the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count. The count has gone up and down every few weeks. But since the third week of June, the range has been as low as 581 and as high as 589. And that’s it. We seem to have found the bottom (we hope we have). Last week, the national rig count lost another rig and now stands at 585. The Marcellus/Utica remained even at 35 active rigs after losing one rig two weeks ago. Pennsylvania operates 21 active rigs; Ohio operates nine active rigs; and West Virginia operates five active rigs.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Utica Shale Academy opens new learning spaces; NATIONAL: Harris is strategically silent on climate; We’ll need equivalent of 300 new Hoover dams to keep up with power demand; INTERNATIONAL: US sanctions seven ‘dark fleet’ ships linked to Russia LNG; Tanker carrying sanctioned Russian LNG attempting ship transfer.