Energy Services

Energy Services | Smart Sand

Smart Sand Lands Big Name for Board of Directors
June 13, 2012June 13, 2012

Smart Sand Inc., headquartered in Fairless Hills, PA, is a supplier of industrial sand, primarily serving customers in the oil and gas industry including drillers in the Marcellus and Utica Shale region. Sand—the right kind of sand which is crystalline—is a critical part of the hydraulic fracturing process. Most of the frack sand mined in the U.S. comes from the Midwestern states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. Smart Sand owns and operates a facility in Oakdale, WI.

What’s the big deal about Smart Sand? They’ve just landed former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty as a new board member, raising their visibility in the industry considerably. You may recall that Pawlenty ran for the Republican nomination for president not all that long ago.

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AES Drilling Fluids | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Marshall County | West Virginia

New Drilling Mud Facility Opens in Marshall County, WV
June 8, 2012June 8, 2012

AES Drilling Fluids along with officials from the city of Benwood (Marshall County, WV) and state officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday on a new $2 million drilling fluids facility just opened in the North Benwood Industrial Park. The new facility provides drilling mud to drillers in the Marcellus and Utica Shale.

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Global Infrastructure Partners

Chesapeake in Advanced Talks to Sell Midstream Unit for $4B
June 7, 2012June 7, 2012

Bloomberg news service reported yesterday that Chesapeake Energy is in advanced talks to sell its midstream subsidiary, Chesapeake Midstream, to Global Infrastructure Partners for $4 billion. Chesapeake Midstream operates not only in Texas and Louisiana, but also in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale.

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C&J Energy Services | Energy Services

C&J Energy Services Buys Casedhole Holdings for $272.5M
June 7, 2012June 7, 2012

C&J Energy Services, an oil field services company providing hydraulic fracturing, coiled tubing and pressure pumping services to drillers, announced yesterday they have bought out another oil field services company—Casedhole Holdings—for $272.5 million in cash. Casedhole provides cased-hole wireline services including logging, perforating and pipe recovery.

C&J gets two things from the deal: A complimentary new set of services it can offer to its existing customers, and expansion into new territories where it currently does not operate, including the Marcellus and Utica Shale region.

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Belmont County | EMG | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Guernsey County | Gulfport Energy | Harrison County | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | Ohio | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Utica Shale

MarkWest/EMG Finalize Deal with Gulfport Energy in OH Utica
June 4, 2012June 4, 2012

MarkWest’s joint venture with EMG, called MarkWest Utica, has finalized their deal with Gulfport Energy to provide midstream infrastructure services (pipelines and gas processing) in Harrison, Guernsey and Belmont counties in Ohio. The deal was initially announced in early March (see this MDN story). No word on the price tag for the deal.

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Carroll County | Energy Services | Ohio | Select Energy Services

Select Energy Reneges on Deal with Carroll County, OH
June 1, 2012June 1, 2012

Select Energy Services provides water solutions and wellsite services in every major shale play in the U.S. With $1 billion in revenues and some 5,000 employees, Select Energy is a major player in both the Marcellus and Utica Shale. They also just jilted Carroll County, Ohio.

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Carroll County | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Lawrence County | MarkWest Energy | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Rex Energy | Utica Shale

Rex Energy Drills First Utica Well, Sells Keystone Midstream
May 30, 2012May 30, 2012

Rex Energy announced yesterday that it has closed on a previously announced deal to sell its subsidiary Keystone Midstream to MarkWest Energy for $512 million (see this MDN story for the original announcement). Rex also announced that their Bluestone cryogenic processing plant, part of the sale, has just gone online and will begin selling gas by June 1st.

But perhaps the biggest news yesterday from Rex, at least for landowners, is that Rex has completed drilling its first Ohio Utica well, in Carroll County. Fracking of the well begins in June, and Rex is now moving the rig back to PA where they will drill their second Utica well—in Lawrence County.

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Luzerne County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | UGI Energy Services

Proposed Compressor Plant Near Wilkes-Barre Criticized
May 24, 2012May 24, 2012

Residents gathered in West Wyoming (Luzerne County), PA to hear about plans from UGI Energy Services, subsidiary of UGI Utilities, to build a natural gas compressor plant in the township. The compressor plant will help bring Marcellus Shale gas through a new 28-mile pipeline UGI is building from Wyoming County to Luzerne County. Getting shale gas to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area will lead to a 40 percent reduction in natural gas bills for customers over the next four years, according to UGI.

But the compressor plant is not without its critics…

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Spectra Energy | Statewide NY

FERC Approves Spectra Energy’s $1.2B NYC Natural Gas Pipeline
May 23, 2012May 23, 2012

Spectra Energy’s proposed $1.2 billion natural gas pipeline for New York City finally won approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday. The 20-mile new pipeline to be built will connect New York to New Jersey and deliver 800 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to homes and businesses in New York. Most of the gas will come from the Marcellus Shale. It will ease the energy needs of New York because starting in 2015 the City will no longer allow No. 6 fuel oil to be burned.

The new pipeline and the energy it will deliver by saving all that oil burning will be the equivalent of taking 1 million cars off the road. That’s a good thing, right? So how have some New Yorkers responded? Thankful that they too will be able to access cleaner burning, lower cost natural gas? Thankful that this new pipeline will result in cleaner air? You guessed it—they don’t want it!

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Processing Plants | PVR Midstream | PVR Partners

PVR Announces $380 Million Investment in NE PA Marcellus
May 22, 2012May 22, 2012

Penn Virginia Resource Partners (PVR) is kicking up its commitment to the Marcellus Shale in northeastern PA a notch. Yesterday they announced they would invest $380 million on Marcellus Shale pipeline projects including a new extension to its natural gas pipeline in Lycoming County, PA. The announcement also reveals that they have commitments from Shell, Southwestern, Range and Inflection for the extra capacity and services. Yesterday PVR completed a previously announced deal to acquire Chief Gathering.

From the PVR press release:

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Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Marshall County | Processing Plants | West Virginia

High Paying Jobs Come to Marshall County, WV Processing Plant
May 21, 2012May 21, 2012

Some high paying jobs are on the way to Marshall County, WV courtesy of a new natural gas processing plant being built by Dominion and opening in December. What’s good paying? How does $30 per hour sound?

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Chief Gathering | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | PVR Midstream | PVR Partners

PVR Deal to Buy Chief Gathering for $1B Closes
May 21, 2012May 21, 2012

First announced back in early April, Penn Virginia Resource Partners (PVR) deal to buy Chief Gathering for $1 billion has officially closed on Friday. The deal creates a very large presence in the Marcellus Shale midstream space for PVR.

From the PVR press release:

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Energy Services | GASFRAC | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH

GASFRAC Waterless Fracking Technology Debuts in Utica Shale
May 18, 2012May 18, 2012

An unnamed driller in Ohio has asked Canadian company GASFRAC to use its waterless fracking technology to drill two trial wells in the Utica Shale. You may recall that a group of Tioga County, NY landowners with a collective 135,000 Marcellus Shale acres were set to use GASFRAC’s LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) technology to jump start drilling in New York, but the lease and royalty deal with the driller, eCORP, fell through (no fault of GASFRAC, see this MDN story).

Will GASFRAC’s innovative technology do the trick in Ohio’s Utica Shale? There’s some disagreement on that point.

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Bradford County | Energy Services | Eureka Resources | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Wastewater

Bradford County, PA Gets New Shale Wastewater Treatment Plant
May 18, 2012March 7, 2019

Eureka Resources announced yesterday it will build a brand new “world-class” shale wastewater treatment facility in Bradford County, PA (near Towanda, PA). The first phase of the construction will be complete by the end of this year, and the second phase by the end of next year. According to Eureka, the facility will reduce the need to dispose of concentrated brine, or salty wastewater, that normally is disposed of via injection wells. When completed, the facility will operate 24/7 and employ 16 full-time employees.

From the Eureka press release:

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Energy Services | Enterprise Products Partners | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide OH

Advice to Landowners About Interstate Pipelines
May 15, 2012May 15, 2012

Let’s be honest. Using eminent domain to force landowners to allow interstate pipelines to be run across their property is a bad idea. At least it is in MDN’s opinion. Some pipeline companies have sought and have been awarded public utility status, and that status allows them to use eminent domain to grab property to run pipelines. It’s disgusting. They are not public utilities in the way a power company is a utility that needs to put up electric polls.

Two lawyers from Columbus, Ohio caution landowners to get a second opinion when it comes to negotiating to have pipelines runs across their property, like the ATEX Express ethane pipeline that’s currently being built across Ohio. They also counsel that although eminent domain can force landowners to allow a pipeline, landowners still have at least some rights under eminent domain.

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Chesapeake Energy | Columbiana County | Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | M3 Midstream | Ohio | Processing Plants

Location for OH NGL Processing Plant Identified
May 14, 2012May 14, 2012

We now know the specific location of a previously announced $400 million shale gas collection and processing plant being built in Columbiana County, Ohio by a joint venture between Chesapeake Energy, M3 Midstream and EV Energy Partners.

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