EnerStar Solutions Expands Outside M-U, Buys Civeo Corp’s Well Biz
EnerStar Solutions is a Canadian-based, privately-owned company providing goods and services to remote sites (i.e. drilling sites). The kinds of things EnerStar provides include accommodations, communications, power, lighting, and more. The company’s key areas of operation include the Marcellus/Utica, Permian, Delaware, and Bakken shale regions. EnerStar is growing. Yesterday the company announced it is buying Civeo Corporation’s U.S. wellsite service business for an undisclosed amount. Civeo is a global provider of hospitality services and workforce accommodations.
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We’ve been tracking a story since November about a new, smallish (but very important) LNG export plant coming to Bradford County, PA, to Wyalusing (see 
When shale drilling activity ramps up, the people who are needed to do all those jobs show up. In droves. Some come from out-of-state. Some are local, and some from in-state but not local. Regardless, they all need a place to sleep. A home away from home (if they aren’t local). Increasingly those places are campgrounds. Problem is, there aren’t enough campgrounds for workers to park their RVs. So enterprising farmers in West Virginia are turning some of their acreage into campgrounds, to profit by hosting shale workers. Some establish small campgrounds, with just a handful of (2-4) sites. But beware–there’s a pile of permits required to operate a campground of any size. Some farmers are skipping the permit process, which is NOT recommended.
There’s a real eyesore in downtown Washington, PA–a building that brings down the neighborhood. Even though the building is a blight for the entire area, it remains standing due to prejudice on the part of local residents, including a local Catholic church. There was a plan to renovate a former, run-down convent and turn it into a boarding house for Marcellus Shale workers in Washington, PA. We previously chronicled City Council’s opposition to the project (see 
We have to confess this story is purely for amusement purposes–ours and yours. In our daily trawl of the news related to “Marcellus Shale” we spotted this headline: “Group hopes to add tiny houses to Wheeling Island.” We thought, What in the world do tiny houses on Wheeling Island (Wheeling, WV) have to do with the Marcellus? So we read the article to find out. Anyone watching HGTV has, at one point or another, watched a program about “tiny houses.” There’s even an HGTV show called Tiny House Hunters. “Tiny houses” are actual stick-built homes that are under 500 square feet of living space. Think really-small efficiency apartment. Except it’s a real house–sort of. The average American home is 1,780 square feet of living space. (If you’re not familiar with the tiny house movement, 
Positive economic signs continue to pop up with respect to Shell’s multi-billion dollar ethane cracker project in Beaver County, PA. Here’s the latest major economic impact from the project. A local developer has filed for a state grant to build a massive new housing project 2.5 miles from the cracker site. The new project calls for 450 housing units, retail space, a golf course, swimming pool and parking garage. What’s that? What happens after the cracker is built and the “temporary” workers, who would be living in this new complex for the next 5-10 years, leave? Great question! Answer: Turn it into a retirement community…
You don’t often hear about a company that owns trailer parks as being a publicly-held company (trading shares of stock on the New York Stock Exchange). But such is the case with New Jersey-based real estate investment company, UMH Properties, Inc. We’ve written about UMH a number of times before (
Lisa Badia, executive director of the Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless “can’t be certain how many homeless people dwell in Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall and Wetzel counties,” but she is certain that part (much?) of the homeless problem is caused by Marcellus/Utica Shale drilling. Yep, sinking a hole in the ground causes homelessness. How? According to Badia, when drilling came to town 4-5 years ago, a bunch of out-of-staters showed up to work on drilling rigs (and for pipeline companies, etc.). Those out-of-staters began paying sky-high rental rates for apartments and trailers, driving up the price of rental housing throughout the region. And when that happened, folks on welfare could no longer afford to pay the rent (with our taxpayer money). If it’s a decision between booze and cigs or rent, you know what goes! So those po’ folk ended up sleeping on heating grates–because of that nasty, awful fossil fuel drilling…
When drilling comes to town, it brings a lot of people with it. Some of them are roughnecks that do the dirty work on the rigs. Others are in associated jobs–like landmen, surveyors, welders, truckers. The list goes on. If those people are not from the local area and if they are staying for a while, they need a place to sleep. It tends to fill up hotels and B&Bs quickly. When they know they will be in an area for a while (months, even years) some of them rent apartments or houses. All of that renting activity tends to drive up the price of local apartment and house rentals, making renting hard for locals. It’s happened in a number of drilling areas in Pennsylvania. That’s why when the Act 13 law was passed, it contained funding from severance tax revenue to help. The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency recently announced they have approved another $6.2 million for 40 housing projects in Marcellus areas…
The benefits of shale energy are almost too numerous to list. Contrary to the ninny nannies who spit and spout and preen about yelling the sky is falling if we frack one more well–the OPPOSITE is the truth. Shale is GREAT for America, in so many ways. Channeling our inner Donald Trump, “It’s very very great. So great you won’t believe how great it is. You’re gonna love it!” Here’s just one more way shale is great. A researcher from Clemson University (in South Carolina) poured over mortgage data for the state of Pennsylvania. As you know, not all of PA is blessed with being located in the Marcellus Shale–but much of it is. The intrepid Clemson researcher found in reviewing records from 2004 to 2011 that those with mortgages who live in areas where there is Marcellus Shale defaulted on those mortgages 58% LESS than the statewide average. That is, shale means there’s more money to pay bills, a mortgage being one of them. Might we say that the Marcellus can literally save the family farm? Yes, we can say it, and back it up with data! The Clemson researcher also found living in a shale region boosts your FICO credit score…
Listen up Pennsylvania communities with shale drilling: The PA Housing Finance Agency (PHFA) wants to hear from you with proposals for improving the “availability and affordability of housing in the Marcellus Shale region of the state.” The PHFA is back for a second year in a row with $5 million from impact fee revenue to spread around in communities affected by shale drilling (see last year’s story: 
Since 2012 MDN has had our eye on a “feel good” story–about a physician who immigrated from India to Bentleyville, PA and his son. The Gosais (doctor father and son) took to investing in hotels in western PA (they began building them in 2000). With the fracking boom, the Gosais began to cater to the Marcellus industry (see