An in-depth article that takes a look at fines for Marcellus Shale drillers in PA finds the following:
Read More “Most-Fined Marcellus Shale Drillers in PA”
The Avonworth Municipal Authority in Allegheny County, PA recently signed a five-year drilling lease for the ACORD Municipal Park property controlled by the Authority (see the MDN story here). However, the deal was contingent on four of the five municipalities that oversee the 119-acre park in Kilbuck and Ohio Townships. Last night Emsworth council was the second municipality to vote against the measure and so the deal will not go forward.
Chesapeake Appalachia’s trucks have been banned from four Pennsylvania state routes in Bradford and Sullivan Counties until they fix the roads they’ve damaged.
Read More “Chesapeake Trucks Temporarily Banned on Four State Roads in Northeast PA”
Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest gas drilling companies in the world, is leasing a lot of property in Beaver County, PA. Beaver County is located along Pennsylvania’s western border with Ohio and West Virginia.
Read More “Chesapeake Energy Leases More Than 1,000 Parcels in Beaver County, PA Since Jan 1”
An article on the Forbes website covers a recent energy conference held by Yale alumni. The focus of the article is on how America’s shale gas has turned around chemical companies. But MDN found this interesting paragraph talking about the Utica Shale:
Read More “Chesapeake Energy Paying $2,500 per Acre to Lease Utica Shale”
One of the main arguments in favor of Marcellus shale gas drilling is that America can become more energy independent—less dependent on the energy (oil and gas) from other countries. It is an argument that strikes a chord with many Americans. The argument also goes that much of the gas produced in the region will stay “local” and cause natural gas prices to remain low for consumers. But what if foreign companies and foreign-backed government entities start buying leaseholds and come here and drill? Will the gas remain here, or will it be exported?
Read More “Foreign Investment in America’s Shale Gas: Is it Good or Bad?”
The Avonworth Municipal Authority in Allegheny County, PA (near Pittsburgh) has just signed a five-year drilling lease for park property controlled by the Authority.
Read More “Municipal Authority in Western PA Signs Drilling Lease for 119 Acre Park”
Marcellus drilling company Talisman Energy held an open house yesterday in LeRaysville (Bradford County), PA from 3 to 8 pm at the community hall, and it quickly became a packed house with more than 200 people attending to ask questions about Talisman’s plans for their area.
Read More “Talisman Energy to Drill 40-50 New Wells in Bradford County, PA”
A lawsuit has just been filed in Western PA seeking to invalidate a Township’s new drilling ordinance:
Read More “Rice Drilling Sues North Bethlehem Township Over New Drilling Ordinance”
The decision is in, and Winfield Township (Butler County), PA supervisors have voted to not accept an offer from BLX-Redmill to lease 60 acres of the 69-acre township park located behind the municipal building.
Read More “Winfield Township, PA Turns Down Lease Offer from BLX-Redmill; Lessons for Landowners”
Range Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale, is threatening to stop drilling in Mt. Pleasant Township (Washington County), PA. A letter to landowners in the Township says, in part, “We may be forced to shift activity to other, more cooperative townships.”
Why the threat? The dispute seems to center on the type of permits that will be issued in the Township if a new ordinance is passed later this month.
Last year some 40 landowners separated from the Windsor & Colesville Oil and Gas Lease Coalition to sign a deal to lease their land to Inflection Energy. Collectively the breakaway group holds about 3,000 acres. The rest of the coalition decided against signing in hopes of a better deal once drilling is allowed to begin in New York. The deal signed with Inflection was supposed to yield a signing bonus of $2,750 per acre, due to landowners by March 3rd. But that payment did not happen.
Read More “Infection Energy Delays Signing Bonus Payments for Landowners in Windsor, NY Area”
Norwegian driller Norse Energy Corp. recently meet with New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens, and they were encouraged by the meeting, saying that Martens asserted his confidence in the DEC to complete plans to release its Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale this summer.
Norse Energy has good reason to care what happens in New York—they have a significant land position of 180,000 net acres in the state. Norse Energy also owns a natural gas marketing business and operates pipeline systems in New York and Pennsylvania for gathering and transmission of natural gas.
Not every property that’s leased gets drilled on. But “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey used to say, is that not every Marcellus Shale well that is drilled actually produces. If a company decides to drill, landowners are excited, with good reason. But best to temper that excitement with the statistic that a certain percentage (MDN has heard as high as 10%) of the wells drilled never end up producing. That was the case recently in Luzerne County, PA where Encana has abandoned two wells—the “Salansky” and “Buda” wells.
Read More “Encana Abandons Two Non-Producing Marcellus Gas Wells in Luzerne County, PA”
Winfield Township supervisors are mulling over an offer from BLX-Redmill Gas to lease a park in Butler County, PA for Marcellus drilling. But it’s a complicated offer involving re-selling the drilling rights by packaging them with other properties in the area, and also selling the rights to install pipelines to a third party.
Read More “Township in Western PA Offered $4500 per Acre for Marcellus Drilling Lease”
Chesapeake Energy has been ordered to stop work on preparing a drilling site in north central PA because the work they’re doing at the site is causing dirt to runoff into a local stream which in turn is the water source for a local township.
Read More “Chesapeake Ordered to Stop Work on Drilling Pad in Potter County, PA Because of Erosion”