Energy Companies

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    Corp Raider Continues to Trash Talk EQT/Rice Merger, Vote Set Nov 9

    The disgusting corporate raiders at Jana Partners are fighting to the bitter end in their attempt to stop the merger/takeover of Rice Energy by EQT. In June EQT and Rice Energy announced that EQT will buy out and merge in Rice Energy, to create (in EQT) the largest natural gas-producing company in the United States (see EQT Buys Rice Energy in $8.2B Deal, Becomes #1 Gas Producer in US). A few weeks later, so-called “activist investor” (i.e. corporate raider) Jana Partners, in league with the Cohen family (Atlas Energy) started a proxy fight to block EQT’s takover/merger with Rice (see Proxy Fight: Jana Partners, Atlas Tries to Stop EQT/Rice Deal). Jana is the same company that recently helped Amazon in its hostile takeover of grocery company Whole Foods. Unfortunately (for Jana), their strategy isn’t working this time around. Over the past few weeks Jana has sent a couple of nasty letters to EQT’s board, making some rather wild claims. The tone of Jana’s communication is becoming more shrill as time goes on, as desperation sets in and a vote by EQT shareholders on the deal draws near (Nov. 9). The problem is the financial press picks up on these wild claims and repeats them, so yesterday EQT felt it necessary to (once again) respond and set the record straight–to debunk the lies Jana is spreading about the deal and about EQT’s past performance…
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    Marcellus Driller Cabot Oil & Gas: Wall Street’s NatGas “Unicorn”

    Cabot Oil & Gas has long been one of our favorite Marcellus drillers. We are friends with several members of the Cabot team. We are impressed with their many acts of philanthropy in northeastern Pennsylvania–donating millions of dollars to worthy causes in the local community where they drill. As we’ve pointed out many times, Cabot somehow spins gold out of hay in Susquehanna County–producing something like 2.5% of all the natural gas that’s produced in the U.S. from a single county. They have some of the best rocks in the shale business. Cabot’s assets have not gone unnoticed on Wall Street, where investors and analysts call the company “a unicorn.” While the term unicorn as applied to a company can have several meanings, as applied to Cabot the meaning is clear: the company is rare, and desirable. In an Investor’s Business Daily article, several analysts gush about Cabot in light of the beginning of construction of the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. Cabot will be the main shipper on the new pipeline. Analysts are predicting next year, in 2018, Cabot’s production will increase 23% from this year. And in 2019, one analyst says Cabot production will be up a whopping 47%! You begin to see why Cabot has a reputation as a unicorn on Wall Street…
    Read More “Marcellus Driller Cabot Oil & Gas: Wall Street’s NatGas “Unicorn””

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    Williams Launches Major WV Expansion to Serve Southwestern Energy

    Yesterday Williams announced a new, major deal with Southwestern Energy to expand its network of gathering pipelines and processing facilities in West Virginia, to serve Southwestern’s increasingly aggressive drilling program in the state. Williams will expand its its Oak Grove processing plant to handle extra wet gas that will flow into it from Southwestern’s 135,000-acre wet gas (i.e. NGL) drilling program in Marshall and Wetzel counties. Southwestern targets wet gas in the Marcellus and Upper Devonian in those two counties. The expansion will give the Oak Grove plant the capability to process an additional 1.8 billion cubic feet per day of wet gas. But wet gas isn’t the only focus. Williams is also expanding its pipeline network to an additional 71,500 dry gas acres, again in Marshall and Wetzel counties, targeting Southwestern’s dry gas Utica program. In the same announcement, almost as an afterthought (but for us is a really big deal), Williams announced it will connect its system to Columbia Pipeline’s (now TransCanada) Leach XPress and Mountaineer XPress pipelines, “to boost market access and diversify gas pricing opportunities.” Leach XPress, which is part of a project including Rayne XPress, will send gas all the way to the Gulf Coast (see Columbia Gas: $1.75B for 2 Projects to Send Marcellus Gas to Gulf). Leach XPress began construction earlier this year. Mountaineer XPress will send gas to Leach, Kentucky (as will Leach Xpress), and from there on to a variety of other markets in the Midwest and South–as well as the Gulf Coast (see Details on Columbia Pipeline Mountaineer XPress Pipeline Project). Mountaineer Xpress received a favorable final environmental impact state from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in July of this year, but is still waiting on other permits before it begins construction. Here’s the news about Williams expanding in the Mountain State…
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    Antero Taps Veolia to Handle TENORM Waste at WV Water Facility

    In 2015 Antero Resources hired Veolia Water Technologies Inc. (subsidiary of France-based Veolia) to build a new shale wastewater recycling facility in Doddridge County, West Virginia (see Antero Building New 60K Bbl Wastewater Recycling Facility in WV). The new facility, which is slated to take two years to build and cost Antero $275 million, will process 60,000 barrels of wastewater per day. The facility is still under construction. The plant will separate water, salt and radioactive particles. The salt can be sold to municipalities for use as road salt–but frankly there’s not enough of a market to sell it all. And not all of it will be of sufficient quality to be sold that way. So Antero is also spending $20 million to build a landfill next to the plant (see Update on Antero’s $275M Wastewater Facility in WV). This week we also learned that Antero will spend another $70 million with Veolia–in addition to the $275M they’re paying Veolia to build the plant–paying Veolia $70M over 10 years to handle the “loading, packaging, transporting and proper disposal of water treatment sludge” the plant will produce. The sludge contains TENORM–technologically enhanced, naturally occurring radioactive materials. Veolia will ensure the TENORM sludge is carefully handled and properly disposed…
    Read More “Antero Taps Veolia to Handle TENORM Waste at WV Water Facility”

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    Monroeville, PA Hostile to Shale, Bans Drilling in Most Places

    Monroeville, PA

    For whatever reason, Monroeville, PA (Allegheny County, suburb of Pittsburgh) is hostile toward the shale industry. In September Monroeville Council voted to enact a super-restrictive seismic testing ordinance (see Monroeville, PA Passes Restrictive Seismic Testing Ordinance). The ordinance was meant to hassle Huntley & Huntley, which had wanted to conduct seismic testing in two rural areas of the municipality. But that wasn’t enough for the anti-drilling zealots of Monroeville. On Tuesday, Monroeville Council voted to ban oil and gas well drilling everywhere except for those areas marked M-2 industrial zoning. This is a big change. Previously drilling permits were “conditional use,” meaning each permit was evaluated on its own merits, regardless of which zoning district it was located in. By limiting drilling to M-2, the Council has effectively banned drilling in the municipality. Which is a shame, as Huntley & Huntley’s headquarters is located in Monroeville. We think they should seriously consider moving out of the municipality, taking their considerable economic impact (jobs, tax revenue) with them…
    Read More “Monroeville, PA Hostile to Shale, Bans Drilling in Most Places”

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    Plum, PA Gives Huntley & Huntley Green Light for Shale Drilling

    Plum, PA

    Unlike the anti-drilling Luddites in Monroeville, PA who seek to stifle shale drilling in their municipality (see today’s story: Monroeville, PA Hostile to Shale, Bans Drilling in Most Places), the leaders in Plum, PA (shares a border with Monroeville, in Alleghany County) has approved a plan by Huntley & Huntley to drill a series of Marcellus wells in their municipality. Last week MDN told you that H&H plans to begin constructing a well pad in Plum next month (see Huntley & Huntley Starts Shale Drilling in Plum, PA Next Month). Plum officials gave H&H their blessing on the plan at a meeting on Wednesday. About 150 people showed up for the meeting, many against H&H’s plan to drill. Among the antis was a representative from FracTracker Alliance–a non-profit that pretends to be an impartial “watchdog” of the drilling industry. At the meeting the FracTracker rep revealed his out-of-the-mainstream, anti-drilling bias. He outted his organization as an anti-fossil fuel, Big Green group. Although there was plenty of the typical anti moaning and groaning at the meeting, to their credit, the Plum Council voted 6-1 to approve H&H’s plan to construct a well pad, and to drill several fracked Marcellus wells at the site…
    Read More “Plum, PA Gives Huntley & Huntley Green Light for Shale Drilling”

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    Rex Energy Improves Production for New Wells in Butler, PA

    Ahead of providing its third quarter 2017 update, yesterday Rex Energy, a driller focused mainly on the Marcellus/Utica (headquartered in State College, PA) has issued an update on two wells recently connected to sales. The two wells are located in Rex’s Butler County, PA “Moraine East” area. What’s unique is that both wells were completed with a newly revamped/tweaked completion design. Completions is that part of drilling a well when you frack it and hook it up to production. Rex doesn’t comment on how they tweaked their completion design. Typically, changing up completions may involve how long each frack stage is, the type (and quantity) of sand or other proppant used, the kind of slick water used, etc. Rex worked with an engineering firm to review their completions process and made some changes–and they are happy with the results. Initial daily production for the two wells averaged 9.4 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d). Rex reports the methane (natural gas) portion was 4 MMcf/d, NGLs of 820 barrels per day, and condensate averaged 70 barrels per day. Looks like Rex has a couple of winners, with more on the way using the new completion design…
    Read More “Rex Energy Improves Production for New Wells in Butler, PA”

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    American Energy Partners Subsidiary Buys 30% Share of Plugging Co.

    Earlier this week MDN told you of the curious case of American Energy Partners, Inc.–a company headquartered in Allentown, PA that appears to have nothing to do with Aubrey McClendon’s now-closed American Energy Partners (see American Energy Partners Invests in “Tier I” Marcellus Assets). We highlighted a press release from the enigmatic AEP announcing investments in “Tier I” Marcellus assets (although no specifics were revealed). We received a note from AEP following that story to say another press release would follow, yesterday. And indeed it did. AEP announced yesterday that its drilling subsidiary, called Gilbert Oil & Gas Company, has just invested in a plugging & abandonment company focused on the Marcellus/Utica. Once again there were no specifics, other than Gilbert now owns 30% of the unnamed plugging company. Here’s the press release…
    Read More “American Energy Partners Subsidiary Buys 30% Share of Plugging Co.”

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    Shale Boom Saves U.S. Petchem Industry – Shell Cracker “2nd Wave”

    A decade ago the petrochemical industry in the U.S. was in the toilet–in the midst of a downturn. Plants were leaving our shores, heading to other countries. And then the shale revolution hit full force–and changed everything. Petrochemical plants and investment is now skyrocketing here at home, because of shale. Petrochemicals are chemical products derived from petroleum (i.e. oil) and natural gas. The entire plastics industry comes from oil and gas–you knew that, right? Ethylene (which comes from ethane) and propylene (which comes from propane) are used to make polyethylene and polypropylene respectively–that is, plastics. And plastics are used in just about everything you touch, live in, ride in, etc. Plastics make modern life possible. Without plastics, we’d be back in the Stone Ages–living short, brutish lives. Ten years ago our petrochemical industry was flailing, but today it’s thriving. According to an expert speaking last week at Pittsburgh Chemical Day (an annual event), the Shell ethane cracker now under construction is in the “the second wave” of ethane crackers. According to the same expert, we are witnessing the “biggest buildup in the U.S. petrochemical industry we have ever seen.” And it’s all because of shale…
    Read More “Shale Boom Saves U.S. Petchem Industry – Shell Cracker “2nd Wave””

  • American Energy Partners Invests in “Tier I” Marcellus Assets

    This story is a tangled web we’re having trouble unraveling. We’re hoping some astute MDN readers can shed some light for us. A few days ago we noticed a press release from American Energy Partners, Inc., with a subsidiary company called Gilbert Oil & Gas, claiming to have invested in some “Tier I” Marcellus and Utica Shale gas and oil wells, as well as undeveloped acreage in the region. Wait right there. Isn’t American Energy Partners (AEP) the company founded by Aubrey McClendon after he was tossed out of Chesapeake Energy? AEP announced last year, following the death of McClendon, they were closing the doors (see McClendon’s American Energy Partners Shutting Down This Summer). Did someone buy the name or the remains of the company and reopen it? We started teasing on those threads and here’s what we’ve been able to find…
    Read More “American Energy Partners Invests in “Tier I” Marcellus Assets”

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    Shell Files PA Application for Ethane Pipe to Feed Cracker Plant

    Click to view a larger version of the map

    Shell’s long-talked about ethane pipeline, called Falcon Pipeline, is finally official. That is, official in the sense that Shell filed an application with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection last week, looking for permission to build it. Brief history: In February 2016, MDN brought you exclusive news that Shell had begun approaching landowners in Beaver County to get them to sign easements for two ethane pipelines to feed the mighty cracker plant they plan to build in the county (see Exclusive: Shell Leasing Land for 2 Pipelines to PA Cracker Plant). At that time Shell had still not fully committed to building the cracker–something they finally did in June 2016 (see Breaking: Shell Pulls the Trigger, PA Ethane Cracker is a Go!). NGI’s Shale Daily broke a story in August 2016 that shed new light on the project–news that Shell is working on a 94-mile ethane “pipeline system” with two “legs” to feed the cracker, confirming the tip we received in February (see Shell Working on 94-Mile Ethane Pipeline to Feed PA Cracker). As NGI reported at that time, the new ethane pipeline system has a name: the Falcon Ethane Pipeline System. In October 2016 Shell launched a binding open season for the Falcon pipeline (see Shell Launches Open Season for PA-WV-OH Falcon Ethane Pipeline). You might justifiably think that with open seasons and a scad of easements signed between landowners and Shell, that the project had already filed for permission to build. Not so. Last week Shell made it official by filing that paperwork–for the portion of the pipeline running through PA…
    Read More “Shell Files PA Application for Ethane Pipe to Feed Cracker Plant”

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    We Now Know New Name for CONSOL’s Gas Unit Post-Split

    CONSOL Energy, headquartered in Pittsburgh, began life as a coal company some 150 years ago. For the past half dozen years MDN has reported on CONSOL’s transformation from coal company to natural gas company. That transformation is now nearly complete. In July, CONSOL filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission that lays out a plan to split the company in two, into a coal company and a natural gas exploration and production company (see CONSOL Energy’s Split into 2 Companies Nearly Complete, New Name?). CONSOL the coal company will retain the CONSOL Energy name and get various coal mines and other coal-related assets. The CEO of the coal company will be Jimmy Brock. Meanwhile, CONSOL the natural gas driller will get a new name and retain the other assets. Nick DeIuliis will remain president and CEO of the natgas company. Current CONSOL shareholders will get shares in the separated coal company, as well as retain their shares in the gas company. While no specific date is given for the final split, the company remains committed to getting it done sometime by the end of this year. Oh, what’s the new name for the gas company? CNX Resources Corp.…
    Read More “We Now Know New Name for CONSOL’s Gas Unit Post-Split”

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    Pin Oak Energy’s Unique Strategy and PA Focus

    MDN has run two stories about a new Marcellus/Utica drilling company called Pin Oak Energy Partners, one in August (see New Marcellus/Utica Driller Snaps Up Assets in OH, PA) and the other just last week (see Pin Oak Energy Snaps Up 4,300 Acres, 16 Wells from Seneca in NWPA). While Pin Oak is a “new” company, the people running it have been around. CEO Chris Halvorson says Pin Oak is comprised of folks who were formerly with AB Resources. You may recall that AB Resources built a position in the southwestern “core” of the Marcellus and sold out to Chevron several years ago. Pin Oak is “what’s next” for for the former AB folks. Their target: the Appalachian basin. However, they’re doing things differently than most others–zigging while everyone else zags. They like to pick up already-producing oil and gas wells instead of raw acreage. And they don’t take private equity money to fund their operations. They’re using cash from producing wells to help finance new drilling. How about that? Someone that wants to “pay as you go.” That is unique! Here’s a closer look at Pin Oak’s aggressive strategy to expand quickly in north central and northwestern PA…
    Read More “Pin Oak Energy’s Unique Strategy and PA Focus”

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    Shell Holding Career Expo in SWPA Oct 12 to Discuss Cracker Jobs

    While the Teamsters are holding a job fair today and tomorrow in Harrisburg to recruit for pipeline workers (see today’s lead story), next week Shell and the Community College of Beaver County (CCBC) will hold two back-to-back career expos on the other side of the state, in the Pittsburgh region, to “inform residents about all the current and emerging job opportunities” at Shell’s ethane cracker plant. On Thursday, Oct. 12, Shell will host the Pennsylvania Chemicals Military Petrochemical Day from 8am to 2pm–for former military service members. The event will be held in room 9103 of CCBC’s Learning Resources Center. Then at 6pm on the 12th, a free career expo will be held at the CCBC Dome–open to the public. Preregistration is not required, but is encouraged. This is your chance to meet with folks face-to-face who can help you land a job working on (or in) the mighty Shell ethane cracker. Don’t miss it!…
    Read More “Shell Holding Career Expo in SWPA Oct 12 to Discuss Cracker Jobs”

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    India’s RIL, Carrizo Sell NEPA Marcellus Assets for $210M

    Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is the single largest company in India, and one of the largest energy companies in the world. RIL invested $3.5 billion in a Marcellus joint venture with Atlas Energy in 2010, and later battled Chevron to buy Atlas–but Chevron won, so RIL became a jv partner with Chevron. RIL currently has 3 U.S. shale joint ventures: the Chevron jv in the Marcellus (owns 40% of that acreage), a jv with Carrizo Oil & Gas in the northeast PA Marcellus (owns 60% of that acreage), and a jv with Pioneer Natural Resources in the Texas Eagle Ford (owns 45% of that acreage). Back in 2015, RIL signaled they are looking to dump all of their U.S. shale assets (see Indian Giant RIL Looking to Dump its Marcellus Joint Ventures). It took a few years, but earlier today Banpu, Thailand’s largest coal producer, announced that is has purchased all of the RIL/Carrizo jv (from both RIL and Carrizo) in northeastern PA–for $210 million. Does Banpu sound familiar? It should. This is the fifth investment Banpu, via its American subsidiary Kalnin Ventures, has made in the northeast Marcellus…
    Read More “India’s RIL, Carrizo Sell NEPA Marcellus Assets for $210M”

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    Carbon Natural Gas Buys 780K Acres, 3,100 Mi. of WV Pipe for $41M

    Carbon Natural Gas Company, through its affiliate Carbon Appalachian Company, announced earlier this week that the company has purchased another 780,000 acres of conventional (non-shale) leases, along with 3,100 miles of gathering pipelines located “predominantly” in West Virginia–for $41.3 million. You may recall Carbon Natural Gas picked up all of Cabot Oil & Gas’ conventional assets in WV for $21.5 million back in August (see Carbon Natural Gas Buys Cabot’s Conventional Wells in WV-OH-VA). Once again Carbon does not name the seller for this latest round (they also did not with the Cabot deal, MDN pieced that information together). This time we don’t have any evidence or clues to tell you who did the selling. One thing is clear: Now with a total of 1.7 million acres of leases, 7,900 operating conventional wells and 4,700 miles of pipelines, Carbon Natural Gas is locking down much (most?) of the conventional gas business in the Mountain State…

    Oct 7, 2017 Update: An MDN source tells us the seller was EXCO Resources. We have not been able to independently verify the tip, but our source is reliable and we wanted to pass along the tip.
    Read More “Carbon Natural Gas Buys 780K Acres, 3,100 Mi. of WV Pipe for $41M”