Energy Companies

Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Statewide PA

Range Completes 56 New PA Marcellus Wells in Q311
October 26, 2011October 26, 2011

Range Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus Shale, reports in its third quarter operations update that the company is on track to produce 400 million cubic feet of shale gas per day from its Marcellus Shale gas wells. During the third quarter, Range drilled 56 new wells in the Marcellus region of PA with a total of 229 producing wells across the state, most of them in the southwest part of the state.

From the Range quarterly operations update:

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Air Quality | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Monongalia County | Northeast Natural Energy | West Virginia

Morgantown Gas Wells Fracked, No Air Pollution
October 25, 2011October 25, 2011

MDN has chronicled the attempt by Morgantown, WV to ban drilling up to one mile outside of the city line—a saga that spanned many months. In the end, a judge struck down the ban and two wells were drilled and fracked. The main concern was that fracking might somehow contaminate the city’s water supply, which comes from the nearby Monongahela River (something that did not happen). But another concern was that the fracking process might cause air pollution that would affect a nearby elementary school. It seems that fear was also unfounded:

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CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies | Hess | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

CONSOL Completes Joint Venture with Hess for Ohio Utica Shale
October 25, 2011October 25, 2011

A second joint venture that CONSOL has announced in recent months has just been completed. Yesterday, CONSOL received an initial $60 million of a total $594 million from Hess to develop 200,000 Utica Shale acres in Ohio. Previously, CONSOL entered another joint venture with Noble Energy for $3.4 billion to develop 663,350 acres in western Pennsylvania and West Virginia (see this MDN story). Why all the joint ventures? Money! CONSOL needs cash to develop its Marcellus and Utica Shale acreage, and in order to get the cash, they have cut (so far) two deals, granting their partners a 50 percent interest in each case.

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Monongalia County | West Virginia

Drilling Heats Up in Monongalia County, WV
October 25, 2011October 25, 2011

Shale gas drilling in Monongalia County, WV is heating up with two new well permits requested and more on the way:

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Energy Companies | New York | Norse Energy | Statewide NY

Norse Energy Fire Sale of 130K Acres in NY
October 24, 2011October 24, 2011

Norse Energy’s big gamble that New York would allow shale gas drilling sooner than now has not paid off and they are throwing in the towel, attempting to find a buyer for their 130,000-acre leasehold in the state.

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Accidents | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Final Resolution to Dimock, PA Water Problem?
October 21, 2011October 21, 2011

Dimock, PA has been a rallying cry for many who oppose shale gas drilling. For those with only a peripheral knowledge of the struggle, the word Dimock conjures up an image of nasty hydraulic fracturing fluids seeping into ground water supplies and contaminating them so they are now undrinkable by humans or animals. But such an image would be wrong.

What happened in Dimock, according to the PA State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), is that the drilling company Cabot Oil & Gas did not properly case (enclose the bore hole), which led to methane (natural gas) escaping through cracks into the local water supply for area homes. Methane gas in water does not kill when consumed, but it can become an explosion hazard as happened with one local water well in the area.

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Anadarko | Carroll County | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Ohio Utica Shale Permits Double in Last 3 Months
October 13, 2011October 13, 2011

Interest in Ohio’s Utica Shale gas is booming as evidenced by the ramp up in the number of drilling permits issued. More than half of all permits issued have come in the last three months.

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Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Regulation | Washington County

Range Resources Sues Cecil Township Over New Ordinance
October 13, 2011March 24, 2012

Cecil Township in Washington County, PA—a suburb of Pittsburgh—recently passed an ordinance changing shale gas drilling from a permitted use to a conditional use, meaning each well drilled would have to be approved by the township on a case by case basis. It requires drillers to do twice the work—once in filing a permit application with the state, and a second time with the local municipality. Range Resources, one of the nation’s largest Marcellus Shale drillers (and with operations in Cecil), has just filed a lawsuit requesting the new ordinance be overturned.

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Who’s the Biggest Fracker in the World?
October 3, 2011October 3, 2011

If you’ve been around the shale gas drilling debate for long, you know that most of the opposition to drilling focuses on a little-understood, decades-old technology called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” for short. If you’re a science fiction fan, you may also recognize the word fracking from the Battlestar Galactica television series. The word is used as a curse word substitute for another “f” word to avoid being censored.

Fracking’s closeness in spelling, and sound, to the other “f” word has not gone unnoticed by those who oppose drilling. They’ve used the word fracking in all sorts of double entendres with signs like like “Don’t Frack Me” and hundreds of other variations. Just attend a protest meeting and you’ll see what we mean.

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Chesapeake Energy | Chevron | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Statewide PA | SWEPI | Talisman Energy

Top 7 Marcellus Shale Gas Producers in PA
October 3, 2011October 3, 2011

Who are the biggest producers of Marcellus shale gas in Pennsylvania so far this year? Below is the list of the top seven as compiled from production numbers by the Pittsburgh Business Times.

The following are production numbers for January to June 2011 in Pennsylvania.

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Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Washington County

Canon-McMillan School Signs Gas Lease with Range Resources
October 3, 2011October 3, 2011

A school district in Washington County, PA (in western PA) just signed a five-year lease for school district property with Range Resources:

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Carrizo Oil & Gas | Energy Companies | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Utica Shale

Carrizo Gets Big Cash Infusion to Develop Utica Shale
October 3, 2011October 3, 2011

The joint venture situation continues to heat up as energy companies look to develop the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. This time, it’s Carrizo Oil and Avista Capital Partners. Avista is an investment firm with deep pockets, deep enough to float Carrizo up to $200 million.

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Chesapeake’s New Utica Shale Wells Producing “Very Strong”
September 29, 2011September 29, 2011

Yesterday, Chesapeake Energy reported initial horizontal well drilling results in the wet gas and dry gas phases of the Utica Shale play in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania and CEO Aubrey McClendon said the early results are “very strong.”

Chesapeake says they currently have five drilling rigs in the Utica Shale play and will double that to ten by the end of this year. Further, they plan to have 20 rigs running by the end of 2012, and up to 40 drilling rigs running in the Utica Shale by the end of 2014—truly a massive buildup.

From the Chesapeake press release:

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Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Statewide PA

Marcellus, Utica, and now…Upper Devonian?!
September 29, 2011September 29, 2011

You’ve heard of the Marcellus Shale. You’ve also heard of the Utica Shale. Now get ready to hear about another geologic formation that may “rock” the energy world: the Upper Devonian, a group of shale and sandstone layers that sit above the Marcellus and the Utica. Range Resources said on Tuesday there’s a lot of natural gas trapped in the Upper Devonian layers—so much so that in Pennsylvania, the Upper Devonian may contain as much gas as the Marcellus.

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Energy Companies | Norse Energy

Norse Energy in Trouble, Wants Bondholders to Become Stockholders
September 29, 2011September 29, 2011

Not long ago, MDN wrote about Norse Energy’s layoff of half of its employees since the beginning of 2011 (see MDN story here). One of MDN’s readers (“BinFranklin”) left a comment stating that “Norse Energy is a company on life support.” It seems it was a perceptive comment. He also said Norse has been selling off assets to keep going—again, accurate.

A new press release issued from the company today talks about Norse’s ongoing efforts to convert some of it’s debt into equity (convert bonds into stocks, handing over bits and pieces of ownership) because they will soon not be able to pay bond holders the payments due on the money they’ve borrowed. The press release, reprinted below in its entirety, basically says, “We’re still working on it but we haven’t done a deal yet.”

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Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Range Resources Corp

Range CEO Says Everyone Should Disclose Fracking Chemicals
September 27, 2011September 27, 2011

John Pinkerton will step down as CEO of Range Resources by the end of this year. Having been in the industry for two decades, and with nothing to lose, he minces no words and spoke bluntly at a recent conference about the need for energy companies to fully disclose all of the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing. He said there are no secrets and everyone uses pretty much the same fracking recipes:

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