Energy Companies

Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Cabot Susquehanna County Picnic 2013: A Great Time for All!
July 22, 2013July 23, 2013

Saturday in New York’s Southern Tier and Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier (the border between Broome County, NY and Susquehanna County, PA) was OK weather-wise. It was a bit overcast and threatened rain, ~~which is likely what kept the crowds a bit lower~~ at this year’s Cabot Oil & Gas annual picnic in Susquehanna County, PA. (UPDATE: They actually broke the record! See update below.) Still, from what MDN editor Jim Willis saw, it was a packed house with long lines for free hamburgers and hot dogs, free games with prizes, and lots of equipment to see and touch (see pictures below).

Equal parts county fair, picnic, carnival and trade show, each year Cabot sponsors a “community picnic” in Susquehanna County–the only county in Pennsylvania where Cabot drills for Marcellus Shale gas…
Read More “Cabot Susquehanna County Picnic 2013: A Great Time for All!”
Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Statewide PA

Range Says Marcellus Wells 3X Better than Best Barnett Wells
July 22, 2013July 22, 2013

Range Resources was the first driller to tap the Marcellus Shale–back in 2004. Although Range is headquartered in Texas and although they have actively drilled there for years, Range is so in love with the Marcellus they’ve sold off all remaining Barnett Shale acreage they owned and they are now almost totally focused on drilling in the Marcellus Shale. It’s been a smart move for Range’s bottom line…
Read More “Range Says Marcellus Wells 3X Better than Best Barnett Wells”
Energy Companies | Halcon Resources | Ohio | Trumbull County | Utica Shale

Halcon Resources Plans $70M Oil Terminal in Lordstown, OH
July 22, 2013July 22, 2013

Last November, MDN told you about a new landowner group in Lordstown, OH that had formed to negotiate with Halcon Resources who had recently purchased 20-50 year-old leases in the area, hoping to drill Utica wells on those properties (see Halcon Resources Responds to Lordstown, OH Landowners Group). The landowners, of course, want to renegotiate the leases to allow Utica drilling with updated safeguards and protections–horizontal drilling was not envisioned when the original leases were signed all those years ago. Halcon is willing to grant them an increase in royalty payments, but essentially told the landowners to sign the revised lease they were circulating or risk not getting a dime. The tone was very much take it or leave it.

MDN has no word on the status of those talks, but we do notice two things: Halcon has, since last November, applied for and received four Utica Shale drilling permits in Trumbull County; and, Halcon is planning to build a $70 million oil storage and rail-loading terminal in Lordstown…
Read More “Halcon Resources Plans $70M Oil Terminal in Lordstown, OH”
Carrizo Oil & Gas | Chevron | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pioneer Resources | Reliance Industries | Statewide PA

India’s RIL Doubles US Shale Investment to $10.8B! Mostly Marcellus
July 22, 2013July 22, 2013

The single largest company in India is Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). A few years ago, RIL invested in three U.S. shale joint ventures (see India’s RIL: Shale Gas a Major Contributor to Revenue by 2015 for background). RIL has invested $5.7 billion in the jv’s to date–a massive investment. Word has just come out that they plan to double that investment in the next three years–to a whopping $10.8 billion.

Two of the three jv’s, and most of the investment, will be in the Marcellus Shale. RIL says by the time the project is done, they will have drilled 3,846 shale wells in the US…
Read More “India’s RIL Doubles US Shale Investment to $10.8B! Mostly Marcellus”
Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Guernsey County | Noble County | Ohio | Utica Shale

MWCD to Sell 138M Gallons of Seneca Lake Water for Utica Drilling
July 22, 2013July 22, 2013

Last February, the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) signed a lease with Antero Resources to lease 6,700 acres under and around Seneca Lake. The MWCD got a $40.3 million signing bonus, plus 20% royalties (see Muskingum Watershed District Signs with Antero for $40.3M Bonus). Last week, the MWCD voted to sell up to 138 million gallons of water from Seneca Lake to Antero so they can use it in their drilling and fracking operations, making another potential $828,000.

We’ll lease you the land and sell you the water to drill it too. Cool…
Read More “MWCD to Sell 138M Gallons of Seneca Lake Water for Utica Drilling”
Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Greene County (PA) | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Research

Breaking: Obama DOE Says Study Shows Fracking Fluids Don’t Migrate
July 19, 2013July 19, 2013

Those who hate fossil fuels and want to stop all shale drilling because of their irrational beliefs are logic-challenged. Witness their claim/belief that fracking fluid (99.5% water and sand, 0.5% chemicals) pumped a mile or more below the surface will magically travel up to the surface and contaminate groundwater supplies. Never mind that 80% of the fluid disappears into small cracks a mile down. Never mind there’s a mile of solid rock between the fluid and the surface. Never mind there have been more than 50,000 horizontally fracked wells since the early 2000s with not a single case of water contamination from migrating frack fluid. And never mind there have been more than 2 million vertically fracked wells worldwide over the past 60+ years with not a single case of water contamination from migrating frack fluid. Anti-drillers cling to their irrational faith that fluid migration has and continues to happen and hucksters like Josh Fox of Gasland and Gasland 2 fame are all too willing to feed their delusion.

Enter the federal government–specifically the Dept. of Energy (DOE) under Barack H. Obama, no friend of the oil and gas industry. Exactly one year ago the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Pittsburgh began an experiment of injecting tracer chemicals in fracking fluid at an undisclosed drill site with eight wells in Greene County, PA. (The driller cooperating with NETL to conduct the experiment is unidentified, although MDN has a pretty good guess as to who it is–see below.) The NETL monitored (and continues to monitor) the eight wells over the past year and although the data is still preliminary, what have they found? No migration of fracking fluid toward the surface. Zero. It’s called science–but don’t tell Josh Fox and the nuts who believe him…
Read More “Breaking: Obama DOE Says Study Shows Fracking Fluids Don’t Migrate”
Accidents | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | XTO

XTO Pays Dearly for 2010 Wastewater Spill in Lycoming County, PA
July 19, 2013July 19, 2013

Yesterday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Justice announced a deal with XTO Energy to resolve what they say was a violation of the Clean Water Act in 2010 when XTO experienced a spill of fracking wastewater from a storage tank in Lycoming County, PA.

That spill is going to cost XTO dearly: a $100,000 fine, and another $20 million to craft a “comprehensive plan to improve wastewater management”…
Read More “XTO Pays Dearly for 2010 Wastewater Spill in Lycoming County, PA”
Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Some PA Landowners Mull Decision to Sue Chesapeake over Royalties
July 19, 2013July 19, 2013

Are you a landowner in Pennsylvania leased with Chesapeake Energy? And if you are, do you feel cheated with your royalty payments? If so, you may want to join what’s shaping up to be a class action lawsuit in PA against Chessy over what some claim are underpaid royalties.

Landowners are being pursued by a couple of Scranton-area lawyers working with a couple of out-of-state lawyers–from New York City–to go after Chesapeake on the issue of what they say are shorted royalty payments. Are these lawyers champions of the downtrodden, defending the rights of shafted landowners? Or the real estate equivalent of ambulance chasers? You decide…
Read More “Some PA Landowners Mull Decision to Sue Chesapeake over Royalties”
Antero Resources | Energy Companies

Antero Resources Expands Credit Line by $250M for More Drilling
July 17, 2013July 17, 2013

Antero Resources is a major Marcellus and Utica Shale driller, headquartered in Denver, CO. Last Friday, Antero announced they’ve upped their credit line with a banking syndicate by an additional $250 million (their full credit line is now $1.45 billion). They hint that they may expand their line of credit to the “full $1.75 billion borrowing base” in the future.

Here’s the announcement that Antero now has more cash to help with drilling in the Marcellus/Utica:
Read More “Antero Resources Expands Credit Line by $250M for More Drilling”
Energy Companies | Energy Services | EQT Corp | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

EQT Sells Sunrise Pipeline Operation to Itself for $540M
July 17, 2013July 17, 2013

EQT, a major driller in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, as well as a midstream (pipeline) operator, just announced they will sell a major natural gas pipeline they own–the Sunrise Pipeline–for $540 million to…itself. Er, at least to the EQT Midstream Partners, a new/separate Master Limmited Partner (MLP) company started by EQT to focus on the midstream sector. The ownership of the pipeline will change on paper (for accounting and investor purposes), but practically speaking, nothing else will change.

The EQT announcement:
Read More “EQT Sells Sunrise Pipeline Operation to Itself for $540M”
Columbia Pipeline Group | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Hilcorp Energy | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | NiSource | Ohio | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide OH

OH Hickory Bend Pipeline/Plant Makes Excellent Progress
July 17, 2013July 17, 2013

An update on the Pennant Midstream “Hickory Bend” pipeline and cryogenic processing plant being built in eastern Ohio. The local labor union boss says excellent progress is being made as the project now enters its second phase, in spite of distractions from anti-drillers (see Slight Delay for Hickory Bend Processing Plant, Permit Appealed)…
Read More “OH Hickory Bend Pipeline/Plant Makes Excellent Progress”
Energy Companies | Hess | Lease & Royalty Payments | Newfield Exploration | Pennsylvania | Wayne County

DRBC Delay Costs Wayne County Landowners $187.5M, Hess Pulls Out
July 16, 2013July 16, 2013

Thank you Carol Collier (Executive Director) and the other members of Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC): You’ve just cost Wayne County, PA landowners a collective $187.5 million by your continued inaction to allow drilling in Wayne County. Newfield Appalachia PA and Hess Corp. started sending notices last week to Wayne County landowners that they’ve decided to terminate the leases they made with them in 2009–on more than 100,000 acres.

Not wanting to tick off the DRBC and the member states of NY, NJ, PA and DE, the drillers blamed the lease terminations on a change in strategy–they want to drill in oily shale plays. But we know the real reason…
Read More “DRBC Delay Costs Wayne County Landowners $187.5M, Hess Pulls Out”
Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Noble County | Ohio | Pipelines | Rockies Express Pipeline | Utica Shale

REX Reverses Pipeline Flow from OH for Mystery Utica Customer
July 16, 2013July 16, 2013

What a difference a year makes. Last August, RBN Energy President Rusty Braziel said the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX), which originates in Rio Blanco County, Colorado and sends gas to Monroe County, Ohio, was in danger of drying up because there’s so much shale gas coming from the Marcellus. His prescription? Turn it around and send gas the other way (see REX NatGas Pipeline Faces Stiff Competition from Marcellus). Looks like REX has taken Rusty’s advice.

In a press release issued yesterday, REX announced they have a binding agreement with an unnamed “large Utica Shale producer” who wants to use the pipeline to ship 200,000 decatherms of processed natural gas per day to the Midcontinent region of the country. That is, REX is reversing the flow for at least part of the pipeline. And who might the unnamed “mystery” producer be? We think we know…
Read More “REX Reverses Pipeline Flow from OH for Mystery Utica Customer”
Butler County | CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies | Greene County (PA) | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Upper Devonian Shale | Washington County

New Shale Layer Above the Marcellus Yields Positive Results
July 16, 2013July 16, 2013

What’s this? A new, third layer of shale a few hundred feet above the Marcellus is producing good quantities of shale gas? Yep. And CONSOL Energy reports they’ve successfully tapped it…
Read More “New Shale Layer Above the Marcellus Yields Positive Results”
CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies

CONSOL 2Q13: Drilled 17 Marcellus/Utica Wells, Completed 15
July 16, 2013July 16, 2013

Second quarter earnings and operational update season is upon us. Yesterday Pittsburgh-based CONSOL posted their 2Q13 update (below). CONSOL has traditionally been one of the country’s largest coal producing companies. In recent years, however, they’ve changed their focus to natural gas–specifically Marcellus and now Utica Shale natural gas. That ongoing changeover is quite evident by the amount of space in the update below devoted to gas vs that devoted to coal operations.

During 2Q13, CONSOL drilled 13 Marcellus Shale wells and 4 Utica Shale wells. They also completed 15 Marcellus Shale wells during that period. Overall, CONSOL produced 418 million cubic feet of natural gas per day on average during second quarter. However, perhaps the most exciting news in this update is CONSOL’s successful results for a new, third shale layer: the Upper Devonian layer. The full CONSOL update:
Read More “CONSOL 2Q13: Drilled 17 Marcellus/Utica Wells, Completed 15”
Energy Companies | Range Resources Corp

Range Resources 2Q13: Production Up 27% Due to Marcellus
July 16, 2013July 16, 2013

Last week Range Resources released its 2013 second quarter update. Range reports its production volumes hit record highs of 910 million cubic feet equivalent per day–of that, 79% was natural gas the rest liquids, oil and condensate. The company credits its continued success and the dramatic increase from last year (up 27%) to a single cause: the Marcellus Shale.

The report issued by Range last Thursday:
Read More “Range Resources 2Q13: Production Up 27% Due to Marcellus”