It seems the door *does* swing both ways when it comes to Pennsylvania municipalities and the Act 13 lawsuit decision that allows municipalities to have a say in zoning in, or zoning out, shale drilling. In 2013 seven selfish PA towns won the right, from the PA Supreme Court, to impose their own zoning rules on oil and gas drilling (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against State/Drillers in Act 13 Case). Since that time, Big Green groups have asked the court to rule the door only swings one way–that zoning can keep shale drilling out, but never allow *more* of it. That notion has now been put to rest. The door swings both ways.
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Category: PennEnergy Resources
PennEnergy Resources Gets Ready to Drill in Economy, PA
PennEnergy Resources, a Pittsburgh based independent oil and gas company focused on the Marcellus/Utica Shale, is getting ready to drill new wells on a pad in Economy (Beaver County), PA. The plan is facing stiff opposition from local residents because it’s located near a housing development in a residential (albeit rural) area, and will use a local road for access.
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Pipeline Outage Causing Headache for PennEnergy in W PA
We caught a helpful update on PennEnergy Resources from a report on last week’s Hart Energy DUG East Conference in Pittsburgh. PennEnergy CEO Richard Weber told the DUG audience that his company is currently producing an average half a billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, with plans to increase that by 10% this year. One thing holding the company back is the ongoing outage of Energy Transfer’s Revolution Pipeline gathering system.
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Franklin Park Turns Down $1M+ to Drill Under Linbrook Park
The political “leaders” in Franklin Park (Allegheny County, near Pittsburgh) have decided to reject a proposal to drill a shale well under (not on) the 80-acre Linbrook Park. With a signing bonus of $283,500 plus 18% royalties, the Franklin Park Borough would have seen revenue of *at least* $1 million. Talk about stupid.
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Big Crowd Turns Out to Support/Oppose Drilling Under SWPA Park
The mystery is now solved. Last week we incorrectly (based on a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article) reported that FirstEnergy wants to drill a well under (not on) Linbrook Park, located in the Borough of Franklin Park in Allegheny County (see original story here). It’s not FirstEnergy but PennEnergy that wants to do the drilling.
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PennEnergy Offers $3.5K/Ac to Drill Under SWPA Town Park
NOTE: This story and the headline have been updated to correct an earlier error from the source we used. It is not FirstEnergy but PennEnergy that is proposing to drill under the park.
We spotted a second story today about a new lease, in this case proposed lease terms, for land in southwestern Pennsylvania. This time the driller, PennEnergy, wants to drill under (not on) a town park that sits on the border of Allegheny and Beaver counties.
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Rex Energy Sells Itself to PennEnergy Resources for $600M
Rex Energy, one of our favorite small drillers, has finally found a buyer for its Marcellus/Utica assets. And it’s a good home. After scheduling and rescheduling a bankruptcy auction four times in a single week, Rex canceled the auction and said it has cut a deal with PennEnergy Resources to buy the company–for $600.5 million. You may recall that Rex, heading into bankruptcy in May, owed nearly $1 billion to several creditors (see Rex Energy Owes Nearly $1B – Who They Owe & How Much). If the deal is for $600.5 million, somebody’s not going to get paid everything they’re owed. But then, that’s the nature of bankruptcy court–to decide who gets what and how much. The deal Rex/PennEnergy is subject to approval by the bankruptcy court, but we expect it will get approved. Part of the deal calls for PennEnergy to pay $1 million to Rex landowners who had sued the company claiming Rex didn’t pay them royalties. We think PennEnergy will be a good home for the Rex assets. PennEnergy launched in 2011, founded by two former Atlas Energy executives–Rich Weber and Greg Muse. The company is backed by EnCap Investments and now has 70 employees. No word on how many of Rex’s employees will come along with the deal. Rex’s acreage sits close to PennEnergy’s, hence the interest. Below the details as we have them, including Rex’s SEC filing outlining the deal…
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Rumor: EnCap Working on Plan to Merge Eclipse & Penn Energy
Eclipse Resources, a Marcellus/Utica pure play driller headquartered in State College, PA, announced in March the company is looking for another company to buy, or (more likely) for another company to buy them (see Eclipse Resources Board Considering Either Merger or Acquisition). We have some new news to report, about a potential sale of Eclipse. Or more properly, a potential merger. EnCap Investments is a private equity/investment firm headquartered in Houston. EnCap owns a majority of Eclipse’s common stock. Put another way, Eclipse is considered a “portfolio company” of EnCap–because he who owns the most stock controls the company. EnCap has a number of portfolio companies–other energy companies in which they invest. One of them is PennEnergy Resources, an active driller in the southwest PA Marcellus (see Top 10 Drillers in SWPA, by Number of Permits Issued). According to sources who have spoken to the Pittsburgh Business Times, EnCap is actively pursuing a combination/merger between Eclipse and Penn Energy…
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Top 10 Drillers in SWPA, by Number of Permits Issued
Every now and again it’s fun to take a look at a “Top 10” list. Here’s one for you. How about a Top 10 List for drillers in southwestern PA, in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Clarion, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland counties. This Top 10 list ranks drillers by how many shale well permits they’ve been granted. The list is extracted from a Top 40 list prepared by the (must read) Pittsburgh Business Times. Can you guess which 10 drillers are in the Top 10? How about the Top 1? It may come as no surprise that Range Resources, the very first company to drill a Marcellus Shale well (in 2004), has received the most permits to drill in SWPA. Here’s the full Top 10 list, with some interesting extra details…
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PennEnergy: Core of Marcellus Extends Under & North of Pittsburgh
Green and Washington counties, south of Pittsburgh (Allegheny County), have long been considered the “core” of Marcellus Shale play in southwestern PA. The wells there get GREAT results–a mix of dry and wet gas (wet gas being natural gas liquids, like ethane, propane and butane). But one company, PennEnergy Resources, says the data shows that the same great Marcellus deposits are located underneath the great City of Pittsburgh itself, and in the towns north of the city (Allegheny County). And PennEnergy can prove it, with their own well results. Does that mean Pittsburgh itself may one day get drilled under?! Don’t hold your breath on drilling under Pittsburgh any time soon. However, according to Greg Muse, chief operating officer for PennEnergy, there’s plenty of gas to be drilled just north of the city–and the deposits are just as good as those south of the city. Muse also said PennEnergy is looking to either take the company public, merge with another company, or sell…
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Top 20 Marcellus Drillers in Southwest Pennsylvania
The sharp folks over at the Pittsburgh Business Times have been looking through data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and have compiled a list of 20 drillers who have at least a dozen shale wells in the southwest PA region. And they ranked them from lowest to highest. We’ve grabbed the list below. The interesting thing for MDN is that there is one name in the list not familiar to us, and we’ve been watching this space since 2009. Always fun to learn something new. Here’s the list of southwest PA’s “Top 20” Marcellus drillers…
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PennEnergy Resources Building Frack Water Pipeline from Ohio River
PennEnergy Resources, a small but active driller in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale, is working on a plan to pipe water from the Ohio River to its drill sites in Beaver County, PA. PennEnergy is, according to the latest edition of the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook (Vol. 2) one of two active drillers in Beaver County–and the most active at that. The company was founded by energy executives Rich Weber and Greg Muse in 2011. Here’s the low down on piping Ohio River water to be used for fracking…
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NiSource Big Pine Gathering Pipeline Goes Online in SW PA
NiSource and Columbia Pipeline Group announced yesterday their new Big Pine Gathering System is now online and running in PA’s Marcellus Shale. Big Pine is a 57-mile pipeline gathering system serving southwestern PA: Allegheny, Butler, Armstrong, Indiana and Westmoreland counties. NiSource has a long-term contract with XTO Energy to deliver XTO’s natural gas to three different pipeline transmission systems. In addition to XTO, NiSource recently signed PennEnergy Resources as another customer for the new pipeline.
Details from the NiSource press release:
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