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Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Shell

Shell Nears Decision on Where to Build $2B Cracker Plant
September 7, 2011September 7, 2011

Shell Oil is “nearing a decision” on where to build a multi-billion dollar ethylene cracker plant in the Marcellus region, and states in that region—specifically Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio—are aggressively competing to have the plant built in their state. (See MDN’s petrochemical primer for details on how shale gas drilling relates to the chemical industry).

The stakes are high indeed. The cost to build the plant will exceed $2 billion, and it’s estimated the plant will attract some $16 billion in associated industry expenditures and provide more than 17,000 jobs in those associated industries.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

New Penn State Study on Economic Impacts of Marcellus Drilling
September 7, 2011September 7, 2011

A new 62-page study (embedded below) conducted by Penn State and the Pennsylvania College of Technology looks at the economic impact of natural gas drilling in PA. The study, titled “Economic Impacts of Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania: Employment and Income in 2009,” uses a new (and according to the authors more accurate) methodology to calculate gas drilling’s economic impacts on local communities. The authors suggest the economic impacts of Marcellus drilling for local communities are not as big as previously reported.

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA

New Interstate Pipelines Mean Thousands of Jobs in PA
August 15, 2011August 15, 2011

Hundreds of miles of new interstate gas pipelines are on the way in Pennsylvania, and new pipeline construction is providing thousands of jobs in the state. The volume of Marcellus gas flowing from the Marcellus is projected to rise from a current 3 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day to 7 or 8 bcf per day in the next five years, which means more large interstate pipelines are required to get the gas to market.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Invests $250K in Marcellus Ethane Processing Plant
August 12, 2011August 12, 2011

The state of West Virginia is investing $250K in a company that turns ethane from Marcellus gas wells into ethylene. Think of it as a “mini-cracker plant”. Shell and other large energy companies are looking to establish large cracker plants in the Marcellus region—a chemical plant that will take over $1 billion to build (see this MDN story). In the meantime, smaller and leaner companies are providing some of the same kinds of service a cracker plant provides—at much less of an investment. Aither Chemicals is one of those companies.

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs

Shale Gas Industry Continues to Add Jobs at Rapid Pace
August 10, 2011August 10, 2011

Even though the economy is in the dumper, the price for oil and gas is dropping and unemployment is at record highs, the natural gas industry—shale gas in particular—is adding jobs at a rapid pace. The entire energy sector including oil and gas is on track to add 200,000 jobs in 2011—an astonishing number given economic conditions.

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs

ACC Says Shale Gas will Produce 400K New Jobs in Chemical Industry
August 8, 2011August 8, 2011

In a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council commented on the critically important (and huge) contribution shale gas drilling is having on the chemical industry in the United States. He said:

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Chesapeake Energy | Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon Talks to Jim Cramer About the Utica Shale in Eastern Ohio
August 2, 2011August 2, 2011

Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon on Monday appeared on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money show on CNBC to talk about the company’s new, oil-rich discovery in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio. He had some fascinating things to say, including that he expects there to be some 25,000 wells drilled in the Ohio Utica Shale, and that there will be $10 billion per year for at least 20 years (or $200 billion) of investments in the Ohio Utica Shale alone. Yikes! No wonder Gov. John Kasich is “gushing” about Chesapeake’s discovery. An investment of 1/5 of a trillion dollars is a major big deal for Ohio—not only for landowners but also for businesses and for those who will be employed by drilling and associated industries. You cannot overstate how important this discovery is.

McClendon also says in the segment he believes the Utica Shale will be even bigger (production-wise, economic-wise) than the Eagle Ford Shale, with an estimated 25 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the form of oil, natural gas liquids and natural gas in eastern Ohio. McLendon says the Utica is possibly “one of our biggest discoveries in U.S. history.”

Read More “Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon Talks to Jim Cramer About the Utica Shale in Eastern Ohio”
Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Ohio Gov. John Kasich Jazzed About Chesapeake Striking Oil in the Utica Shale – Refers to Potential Out-of-State Workers as “Foreigners”
August 1, 2011August 1, 2011

Ohio’s Gov. John Kasich is jazzed about Chesapeake Energy’s announcement of striking oil in the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio. But he also has issued a warning to Chesapeake and other drillers about the makeup of the work crews who will be populating well pads:

Read More “Ohio Gov. John Kasich Jazzed About Chesapeake Striking Oil in the Utica Shale – Refers to Potential Out-of-State Workers as “Foreigners””
Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

New Penn State Study: Marcellus Shale Drilling Created $11.2 Billion in Economic Activity & Supported 140K Jobs in PA in 2010
July 21, 2011July 21, 2011

A new report titled “The Pennsylvania Marcellus Natural Gas Industry: Status, Economic Impact, and Future Potential” was released yesterday by three Penn State University researchers. The report is the third in a series of economic forecasts from the same researchers and outlines the astonishing impact Marcellus Shale drilling has had and continues to have in Pennsylvania—generating $11.2 billion in economic activity in the state in 2010 and supporting nearly 140,000 jobs. The 68-page report was funded by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group based in PA (a full copy of the report is embedded below).

The report’s authors predict the Marcellus Shale play will become the nation’s leading supplier of natural gas by 2020, providing one quarter of all natural gas used in the U.S. A summary of the key findings in the report includes:

Read More “New Penn State Study: Marcellus Shale Drilling Created $11.2 Billion in Economic Activity & Supported 140K Jobs in PA in 2010”
Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | New York | Statewide NY

Public Policy Institute Predicts 62K New Jobs in NY State when Marcellus Drilling Moratorium is Lifted
July 19, 2011July 19, 2011

Public Policy Institute, Inc. (PPI), the research arm of The Business Council of New York State, has just released a new report titled “Drilling for Jobs: What the Marcellus Shale could mean for New York.” The 24-page report (see a full copy embedded below) takes a look at the huge opportunity in job growth that will be realized in New York State once the hydraulic fracturing moratorium is lifted.

Read More “Public Policy Institute Predicts 62K New Jobs in NY State when Marcellus Drilling Moratorium is Lifted”
Bradford County | Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania

Two New Gas Powered Electrical Plants on the Way in PA – $1.6 Billion Investment
July 14, 2011July 14, 2011

Marcellus Shale gas in Pennsylvania is having an effect on electricity generation. Instead of building coal-fired plants to generate electricity, natural gas powered plants are now in the works. Specifically, two new plants will be built in the next few years—one in Lycoming County and another in Bradford County. Not only does it mean a $1.6 billion investment, it also means hundreds of construction jobs, a cleaner way of producing electricity, and ultimately lower electricity costs for 1.4 million PA residents.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs

Everyone Wins – Not Just Landowners – When Marcellus Drilling Happens in a Community
July 4, 2011July 4, 2011

One of the favorite arguments used as a smokescreen by those opposed to Marcellus drilling is the classic class warfare argument. But it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to make it work in this case as the people who are supposedly the “fat cats” and the “lucky few winners of life’s lottery” are typically family farmers who have been scraping by for generations, just trying to hold on to the land they love. The fact that some of them “get rich” from gas drilling just doesn’t sit right with the elite city-dwellers. Kind of invokes images of the Beverly Hillbillies.

MDN has heard this “haves and have nots” class warfare argument in presentations from people like Cornell Professor Tony Ingraffea. It’s a disgusting, offensive and frankly bigoted argument, but there you go. It’s one of the favorites from anti-drillers.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes a new run at dressing up this pig of an argument with yet more lipstick:

Read More “Everyone Wins – Not Just Landowners – When Marcellus Drilling Happens in a Community”
Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Pittsburgh Set to Surpass Pre-Recession Employment Levels Due to Marcellus Shale Drilling Jobs
June 21, 2011June 21, 2011

Pittsburgh and other energy-related regions of the U.S. are bouncing back from the recession faster than other parts of the country. For Pittsburgh, it’s due in no small part to Marcellus Shale drilling. According to a new report just released, Pittsburgh’s employment numbers will pull even and surpass pre-recession levels by early 2012.

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Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Shell

Shell Commits to Building a Billion Dollar Chemical Plant in the Marcellus Region of U.S.
June 7, 2011June 7, 2011

Royal Dutch Shell, one of the largest energy companies in the world, announced on Monday that it will build a “world-scale” chemical plant in the Marcellus region of the United States. The chemical plant is called a “cracker” and typically costs more than a billion dollars to construct. Its construction would provide thousands of both short-term construction and long-term operations jobs. Both West Virginia and Pennsylvania have been actively courting chemical companies to build one or more cracker plants in their states (see this MDN story).

The cracker plant would take advantage of one of the byproducts of Marcellus Shale drilling—ethane—which is converted to the hydrocarbon ethylene. Ethylene is a “feedstock” (or raw material) used to make plastics, including polyethylene, the most manufactured and widely-used plastic in the world (see MDN’s brief petrochemical primer here).

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Hires 48,000 People in Past 12 Months to Work in Marcellus Shale Drilling Industry
May 30, 2011May 30, 2011

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry has just released new employment data and with it, the number of people hired in the past 12 months to work in the Marcellus Shale drilling industry. And the numbers are startling:

Read More “PA Hires 48,000 People in Past 12 Months to Work in Marcellus Shale Drilling Industry”
Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Natural Gas Industry Already Employs 35K People with Average Salaries of $60K
May 26, 2011May 26, 2011

The Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia has just kicked off a new advertising campaign to educate the public to the benefits of natural gas drilling in the state.

Read More “WV Natural Gas Industry Already Employs 35K People with Average Salaries of $60K”