Beaver County | Electrical Generation | Energy Companies | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Shell
Another 200 Workers Returning to Work at Shell Cracker Site
As cases of COVID-19 coronavirus began to climb in relatively rural Beaver County, PA, local politicians pressured Shell to stop work on the mighty ethane cracker plant facility they are building in Monaca. Shell quickly complied, sending nearly 8,000 workers home in mid-March for what was thought to be “a few days to a few weeks” (see Shell Shuts Down SWPA Cracker Plant Construction re COVID-19). The company kept about 300 workers active at the site “to disinfect common areas and perform emergency repairs.”
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Back in December MDN told you that Thailand’s Banpu, which has invested $500 million so far in the Pennsylvania Marcellus, had developed a wandering eye and cut a deal to buy Devon Energy’s Barnett Shale assets in Texas for $770 million (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has reached an agreement with Range Resources that forces Range to pay $198,920 in fines for violations of state regulations and the Air Pollution Control Act–violations that happened in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Our reading is that most of the violations revolve around Range not filing the right paperwork.
Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) owns close to 8 million acres of leases with some 60,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Their focus has been to acquire quality production and cash flow–regardless of the well or commodity type (gas or oil)–in the Appalachian Basin. They currently have over 400 Marcellus/Utica shale wells in their portfolio too. DGO announced it has a conditional deal to buy another 6,500 conventional wells spread across West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, along with a 4,700-mile gathering pipeline system located in WV. The deal, “subject to ongoing due diligence,” is for $110 million.
The deed is done as of 5 pm today. Chesapeake Energy, with a stock price bumping around close to $0 (15 cents per share when we checked this morning), is doing a reverse stock split where the company will combine 200 shares of outstanding stock into a single share. The move is aimed at boosting the per-share price and preventing the company’s stock from being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. Chesapeake recently hired “restructuring advisers” to help it navigate a looming debt default (see 
In mid-March, MDN brought you the news that Chesapeake Energy had hired “restructuring advisers” to help the company navigate a $9 billion debt millstone hanging around its neck (see 
EQT and U.S. Well Services (USWS) have signed a deal for USWS to provide electric fracking for one-third of EQT’s completions operations over the next three years. Does USWS (and e-fracking) sound familiar? It should! Range Resources signed with USWS in January (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) says CNX Resources failed to prevent soil erosion at seven of the company’s well pad sites in Washington and Greene counties in 2017/2018. The failure, says DEP, resulted in the release of soil and sediment, including a few cases of sediment-laden water being released into nearby streams. CNX corrected the violations and has struck a deal with DEP regarding compensation. Instead of paying a fine to the DEP, CNX will pay $180,000 to restore a trout stream in a Washington County park.
Companies in the Marcellus/Utica shale industry have stepped up and given money, and in some cases retooled manufacturing operations, in order to help communities, first responders and medical professionals respond to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Companies like ExxonMobil, Range Resources, Cabot Oil & Gas, EQT, Alta Resources, Chevron, Greylock Energy, Olympus Energy, Penn E&R, Southwestern Energy and others. We are gratified and proud of the industry where we hang our hat.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, like governors in neighboring states hit hard by the COVID-19 coronavirus, has elected to shut down all non-essential (called non-life-sustaining) businesses in the state until further notice to prevent the spread of the virus. The state issued a comprehensive list of which kinds of businesses could, and could not, continue working during the shutdown. Some 35,000 businesses on the non-life-sustaining list have requested a waiver from the state Dept. of Community and Economic Development (DCED). The DCED has so far granted 5,693 waivers, denied 8,952 requests, and ruled another 8,365 do not require a waiver because they fit the life-sustaining definition outlined in the shutdown order.
Yesterday Range Resources announced it is hacking off another $90 million from its 2020 budget. In January the company announced it would reduce its 2020 budget by 29%, from spending $728 million last year to $520 million this year (see 
In 2015 a group of Ohio landowners did what landowners had previously done in Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere–they filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy claiming Chessy had screwed them and about 1,000 other Ohio landowners out of a collective $30 million in royalty payments (see