There are plenty of jobs in the shale industry in northeastern Pennsylvania–IF you have certain skills. What kind of skills? The kind that are taught at programs like at the Lackawanna College School of Petroleum and Natural Gas (PNG) in their two-year program. Or skills you can pick up at the Susquehanna County Career and Technology Center.
Read More “Lots of Marcellus Jobs in Northeast PA – More Workers Needed”
Washington County, PA (southwestern part of the state) brought in $560 million in new investment, along with 725 new jobs, in 2018. The vast majority of that new investment is tied directly or indirectly to the Marcellus Shale industry.
Read More “Washington County, PA Got $560M of Shale Investment in ’18”
Yesterday IHS Markit released a study commissioned by Shale Crescent USA and JobsOhio that finds natural gas produced in the tri-state region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia will be 45% of the nation’s production by 2040, up from 31% this year. This is truly big news with lots of ramifications.
Read More “New Study: 45% of U.S. Natural Gas Will Come from M-U by 2040”
The “great crew change” is taking place in the oil and gas industry in general, and in the Marcellus/Utica in particular. Older workers are nearing retirement and exiting the industry in increasing numbers, and the industry isn’t attracting enough newer workers to fill the ranks. According to the Ohio Oil & Gas Association, the need for new workers in Ohio’s O&G industry is pressing. Everything from welders and truckers to people working with technology.
Read More “Ohio O&G Industry Puts Out Call for More Workers”
Last November Encino Acquisition Partners (i.e. Encino Energy) completed its purchase of all of Chesapeake Energy’s Ohio Utica Shale assets for $2 billion (see Stop Press: Chesapeake Sells ALL of its Ohio Utica Assets for $2B). Since that time, we’ve had a number of inquiries from readers asking, will Encino pick up where Chessy left off and maybe expand Ohio drilling?
Read More “Encino Establishes Utica HQ in Stark County – Now Hiring”
Last November MDN brought you the exciting news that New Fortress Energy is planning to build an LNG (liquefied natural gas) liquefaction EXPORT plant in landlocked Wyalusing (Bradford County), PA (see Big News! Marcellus LNG Export Plant Coming to Landlocked NEPA). What’s happening with the $800 million project? Anything?
Read More “Wyalusing, PA LNG Export Plant Making Progress”
There’s just no getting around the obvious–that the shale industry is once again heading into something of a dip. We’re not just talking about shale oil drillers scaling back drilling new wells in places like Texas and North Dakota. We’re talking about big gas drillers in the Marcellus/Utica who are signaling that 2019 will see less spending and less drilling, although production won’t decline.
Read More “Trend: Marcellus/Utica Drillers Will Drill Less in 2019”
The Independent Oil & Gas Association of West Virginia (IOGAWV) held its annual winter meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. There was a LOT of talk of WV nabbing the much-talked-about multi-billion dollar NGL storage hub project.
Read More “WV Gov. Justice Meets with Prospective NGL Storage Hub Investor”
This is one of those offbeat kinds of stories that catches our interest and makes us smile. It seems that because the Marcellus/Utica Shale industry pays so darned well in the northwestern part of WV (where drilling happens), prisons and local jails in that region just can’t compete for qualified candidates–they can’t find new prison guards to work at a MUCH lower pay rate.
Read More “NatGas Boom in WV Leads to Prison Guard Shortage – Who Knew?”
Braskem USA, headquartered in Philadelphia had a decision to make in 2016: Locate a new polypropylene plant in their own backyard, at the Marcus Hook refinery site on the outskirts of Philly–or locate it in Texas. They picked Texas because not enough NGLs (propane) were flowing to Marcus Hook due to delays (caused by Big Green lawsuits) in the Mariner East 2 pipeline.
Read More “Delayed ME2 Pipeline Cost PA a $675M Plastics Plant + 1K Lost Jobs”
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 Big News! Marcellus LNG Export Plant Coming to Landlocked NEPA). In order to build the $800 million facility, a LOT of workers, and housing, will be needed.
Read More “Bradford County Conducts Housing Survey to Prepare for LNG Plant”
West Virginia is in desperate need of jobs following decades of job losses in the coal industry (from 70,000 jobs in the 1970s to 13,000 today). WV has another great natural resource: natural gas. As coal was to WV, natgas now is.
Read More “Leveraging the Marcellus/Utica to Make WV Great Again”
A new report (full copy below) by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Energy Institute (GEI) found that the anti-energy “Keep it in the Ground” (KIITG) movement has prevented at least $91.9 billion in domestic economic activity and eliminated nearly 730,000 job opportunities. In addition, federal, state, and local governments have missed out on more than $20 billion in tax revenue.
Read More “Big Green has Cost America $110B by Blocking Energy Projects”
On Monday EQT Corporation, the largest natural gas producing company in the U.S., laid off “more than 100” (possibly as many as 132) employees, and issued a letter to shareholders trying to gin up support for the company’s “new” course of action.
Read More “EQT Lays Off ~15% of Workforce – Fires Back at Rice Brothers”
This is the kind of news we love to share! Keystone Clearwater Solutions, which was once majority owned by Rex Energy until they sold it to American Water Works in 2015 (see Rex Energy Sells Keystone Water Subsidiary to American Water Works), is hiring. And boy are they hiring! Keystone needs to hire 125 people, from truck drivers (most of the positions) to mechanics to technicians to supervisors. Keystone offers “complete water management solutions” to the shale industry, from the development and operation of surface water intakes to the operation and maintenance of water pipeline systems, pipeline construction projects, and water transfer services. Keystone is holding interviews across PA, OH and WV in December to fill the open positions. Christmas came early!
Read More “PA Shale Water Company Hiring 125 New Employees”
Both Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were in the running to become Headquarters 2 (HQ2) for online shopping behemoth Amazon. But neither got it. They both bent over backward, forward, and sideways, wined and dined Amazon people, and in general did everything they could short of bribery to attract Amazon to their respective cities. In the end, Amazon decided to split HQ2 between New York City and a suburb of Washington, D.C. Now that the distraction of pursuing Amazon is gone, a couple of energy industry players in Pittsburgh say it’s time to focus again on reality. Amazon offered 50,000 jobs to the winner(s) of HQ2. The PA Marcellus industry offers 100,000 jobs that pay way more, IF we hurry to capitalize on it. So says Morgan O’Brien, president and CEO of Peoples Natural Gas, and Stacey Olson, president of Chevron Appalachia.
Read More “PA Says Forget Amazon’s 50K Jobs, We’ve Got Shale & 100K Jobs!”