Industrywide Issues

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    Time to Congratulate Devon & Crosstex on the Birth of EnLink

    As we previously told you, Devon Energy, a drilling company with some midstream assets, and Crosstex Energy, a midstream company, were due to merge (see Crosstex Energy Gets a Name Change, Merger with Devon Proceeds). It was quite a while in coming–lots of lawyers reviewing every syllable of every paper.

    Last Friday the two companies announced they have finally, fully, irrevocably tied the merger knot and together they have delivered a bouncing baby…midstream company. They named the new baby EnLink. Time for a cigar…
    Read More “Time to Congratulate Devon & Crosstex on the Birth of EnLink”

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    The Link Between Ukraine and Marcellus Shale Gas

    Is there a link between Russia’s nakes aggression and invasion of Ukraine, and American shale gas, like that found in the Marcellus and Utica? You bet there is! When Russian bully Vlad Putin wants to throw his weight around, he turns off the natural gas pipeline to places like Poland and Ukraine. Keeps the peasants in line, especially during long, cold winters like this one. Just the threat of turning it off has a profound effect.

    Four eastern European nations–Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic sent an official letter on Friday to U.S. House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner begging him to step up U.S. efforts at exporting natural gas to Europe–so they can tell Vlad where to stick his gas. American exports would make for a much more secure Europe and would serve to marginalize Putin and his bullies. If we could just get the Obama administration to start crawling toward more export facility approvals (instead of being at a virtual standstill), it would certainly help. Exporting to Europe would help sop up some of the oversupply we have in the Marcellus Shale…
    Read More “The Link Between Ukraine and Marcellus Shale Gas”

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    Where Does YOUR Business Fit in the Marcellus/Utica Supply Chain? [FREE]

    puzzle piecesA little more than a year ago MDN editor Jim Willis developed a Supply Chain tutorial that was included in Vol. 3 of the 2012 Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook. The tutorial is Jim’s attempt at graphically charting how the upstream and midstream shale drilling business works, and more importantly, where various vendors/businesses plug in during that process. That is, where can your business sell its services to the industry. The shale drilling process is like an orchestra. The energy company (whom we call “the driller”) is the conductor, and all of the instruments in the orchestra that must play together at the right time, hitting the right notes, are typically businesses not owned by the driller. There is a lot of opportunity for local businesses to sell their products and services to the Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling industry. But many don’t know where to begin. That’s what the tutorial aims to address.

    Jim is today releasing the MDN Supply Chain tutorial as a stand alone report. See it and download it below, for free. It’s Jim’s way of giving the industry, and faithful MDN readers, a boost.

    NOTE: Jim is seriously considering a new series of workshops, either in person or online, to assist businesses with learning how to locate opportunities and sell to the Marcellus and Utica Shale industry. If such a concept sounds interesting you to, drop Jim an email at: jim@marcellusdrilling.com and let him know “I’m interested” and he’ll add you to an announcement list when/if he releases such a service. In the meantime, please download and enjoy Jim’s Supply Chain tutorial…
    Read More “Where Does YOUR Business Fit in the Marcellus/Utica Supply Chain? [FREE]”

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    NY Attorney General Files to Dismiss Norse Lawsuit, More Delays

    The government of the State of New York–or rather certain government officials–continue to deny justice to residents in the state. The state’s supposed chief defender of the law, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, unbelievably has filed a motion to dismiss the Article 78 case filed by Norse Energy that would compel Gov. Andrew Cuomo, DEC Commissioner Joe Martens and State Health Commissioner Nirav Shah to stop their intentional obstruction and finalize shale drilling rules. Norse, and the residents of New York, have been denied justice for 5 1/2 long years, and now Schneiderman doesn’t even want to allow those people their day in court. The attempt, if successful, would be an unimaginable miscarriage of justice by the highest officials in the state. It is, in fact, government tyranny of its residents.

    Norse’s legal beagle, Tom West, has filed a counter motion to the AG’s motion that points out the arrogance and huge legal holes in the AG’s arguments. In addition to delaying a hearing that was first set in January, then moved by the court to March, and now moved again to “sometime in April,” the court that will hear the case (Albany County Supreme Court) has decided to join a similar case brought by the 70,000-member Joint Landowners Coalition of New York to the Norse Energy case. West believes the AG will try to dismiss the JLCNY case as well (Schneiderman has no shame and actively works against his own constituents). Below is an update from The West Firm along with an announcement from the JLCNY about the further delay in their case…
    Read More “NY Attorney General Files to Dismiss Norse Lawsuit, More Delays”

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    Research Recommends Different Radioactivity Test for Wastewater

    A new study has just been accepted for publication in the peer reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters titled, “Matrix Complications in the Determination of Radium Levels in Hydraulic Fracturing Flowback Water from Marcellus Shale” (full copy embedded below). It is important to understand what this highly technical article does, and does not, say–and what it does, and does not mean. The article reports research by a professor of radiology (and his colleagues) at the University of Iowa into the different ways Marcellus Shale flowback wastewater can be tested to determine the level of radioactivity in the water. There is a concern that Pennsylvania and New York have specified a method of testing put forward by the federal EPA that is fine for drinking water, but not accurate when testing Marcellus Shale wastewater. The professor and his team have determined the EPA method of testing only shows 1% of the true amount of radioactivity in some water samples, whereas there are other, more reliable tests, that catch nearly all of the radioactivity.

    The purpose of the research–the “import” or “bottom line”–is that environmental regulatory agencies are using the wrong test when it comes to analyzing frack wastewater. What this research shows is that a different test is needed. However, what the research does NOT show is that the level of radioactivity found is dangerous to handle or dangerous to dispose of, either by recycling or by injection well. The only way some (not all) wastewater would be dangerous is by releasing it back into rivers and streams without proper treatment–something PA banned nearly three years ago under then-DEP Sec. Michael Krancer (see PA DEP, Marcellus Shale Coalition Admit Drilling Wastewater Likely Contaminating Drinking Water)…
    Read More “Research Recommends Different Radioactivity Test for Wastewater”

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    Bentek Estimates Feb Natgas Production Up 1% from 2013

    Platts’ Bentek Energy service released their estimates of U.S. national natural gas production for February 2014 yesterday. They estimate production was up 0.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), or about 1% from the same level a year ago. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) doesn’t release their February estimates until the end of April. Bentek uses pipeline receipts to calculate their numbers, which are generally pretty reliable.

    Here’s more about Bentek’s prediction and insights into natgas production in February:
    Read More “Bentek Estimates Feb Natgas Production Up 1% from 2013”

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    Anti-Drillers Turn Out to Oppose TGP Pipeline Expansion Across MA

    As you may recall, a few weeks ago MDN was a bit dumbfounded that residents of Massachusetts were being so reasonable about the prospect of Kinder Morgan expanding the Tennessee Gas Pipeline across the state to deliver critically needed new supplies of natural gas to New England (see Reaction to TGP’s Planned Pipeline Across Massachusetts). It’s Massachusetts for heaven’s sake! Home of some of the looniest of the loons, lefties of the left. And here they were, being all reasonable. The stars were out of alignment.

    It took a little time, but true to expectations, here come the MA nutters out of the woodwork to oppose the pipeline. They’re spitting and sputtering and mouthily proclaiming Kinder Morgan has “no idea who they’re dealing with.” Now THAT’S more like the wacky MA residents we know and love. The stars are now realigned in the eco-nut firmament…
    Read More “Anti-Drillers Turn Out to Oppose TGP Pipeline Expansion Across MA”

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    Peak Oil Theorist Art Berman Says Shale Gas is Peaking Too

    What do you call it when your theories are completely, utterly discredited, and yet you continue to put them forward in an attempt to reclaim your notoriety? Determined? Valiant? Desperate? Pig-headed? Pathetic? Perhaps all of the above. Art Berman is famous for peddling the “peak oil” theory that says, dang, the world is almost out of that black gold and ya’ll better think about what’s next cause them fossil fuels are dryin’ up. Then the shale revolution happened. Whoops. That theory went out the door. But not for Art. He’s still a peak oil true believer–a peak oil evangelist. And now he’s back, peddling (don’t laugh)…peak shale gas. Yessiree, if it weren’t for that darned Marcellus, shale gas production would already be headin’ into the crapper, according to Art.

    Here’s a sample of Art’s wild yarns, part of an interview with Art posted on the appropriately named Motley Fool website:
    Read More “Peak Oil Theorist Art Berman Says Shale Gas is Peaking Too”

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    Reuters Smiles: MI Criminal Court to Charge Chesapeake & Encana

    smiley faceIn June 2012 MDN brought you the story that of possible collusion between Chesapeake Energy and Encana over lease offers in the state of Michigan. At the time we pointed out that the Reuters news service had “obtained” confidential emails that supposedly show such collusion, and we asked the question, how did Reuters come by those emails (see Did Reuters Break the Law with Latest Chesapeake Story?). It was obvious Retuers was trying to take down Aubrey McClendon and by extension Chesapeake Energy. Aubrey is now gone from Chesapeake and Reuters’ favorite corporate raider, Carl Icahn, now pulls the strings of the new CEO, Doug Lawler.

    Not long after the whole story burst onto the scene, Encana did their own internal investigation and cleared themselves (see Encana Says Investigation Shows No Collusion with Chesapeake). That was Sept. 2012. Reuters is now back and announcing that the attorney general in Michigan will now file, two years later, criminal charges against both Chesapeake and Encana on March 19 in Michigan state court. We’re sure Reuters is smiling…
    Read More “Reuters Smiles: MI Criminal Court to Charge Chesapeake & Encana”

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    Drillers Petition PA Court (Again) to Participate in Act 13 Case

    Try this on for size. Pennsylvania lawmakers passed sweeping new regulations, called Act 13, that control how and where drillers can drill, and stipulate how much money drillers will pay as part of a new “fee” (really a tax, but called an impact fee). A portion of the Act 13 law–statewide uniform zoning regulations–was challenged by seven townships that eventually won in the PA Supreme Court (see Happy Story Ends Badly Because of 7 PA Towns). Early on the drilling industry wanted to join the case to argue in favor of the Act 13 law but the wizards on the bench said nyet. The judges said the industry had no “standing” to be party to the suit, while an anti-drilling environmental organization was allowed to participate. “Standing for me but not for thee” was the attitude. It was and is the height of hypocrisy because the Act 13 law directly affects those very industry groups and their members. Anyone can see there’s “standing” for the industry to participate in a lawsuit that directly affects them.

    The PA Supreme Court made a poor decision on Act 13, based on poor theories of law, and then took the easy way out and sent the non-zoning portions of the case back to a lower court to decide if the entire law should be scrapped. There’s a very possibility that will now happen (see Ongoing Fallout from PA Supreme Court’s Wrong Act 13 Decision). The three top drilling industry groups in PA yesterday petitioned the court, once again, to join the lawsuit as it’s now considered in the lower court, arguing they are DIRECTLY affected by the outcome and indeed it is evident to ALL that they do have standing. The groups are trying to salvage something out of the miscarriage of justice that has occurred at the Supreme Court. Question is: Will anti-drilling judges once again deny their petition to join the case?…
    Read More “Drillers Petition PA Court (Again) to Participate in Act 13 Case”

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    KKR Launches New $2B Fund – Now in Hunt for NA Shale Investments

    Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) is a bigtime global investment firm. KKR was founded by Henry Kravis and George Roberts in 1976 and is still led by them. They have gobs of money that they invest, and according to a press release they issued yesterday, they have a nice pile of money they want to invest in shale plays–$2 billion of cash. KKR has just launched their Energy Income and Growth Fund I, or EIGF for short. The I seems to indicate there may at some point be a II and so on. The aim of the new fund is to invest the money in North American unconventional oil and gas resources. (Calling Aubrey McClendon…We’ve spotted another pile of cash that’s yours for the takein’!)

    Here’s the announcement from KKR about the fund and the types of shale investments they’re looking to make…
    Read More “KKR Launches New $2B Fund – Now in Hunt for NA Shale Investments”

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    Industry Supports Bill Forcing FERC to Approve Pipelines <1 Year

    Apparently a year is not long enough for employees at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to approve new pipeline applications. FERC is the agency charged with approving new interstate natural gas (and other types of) pipelines. It’s a long, arduous, and complex process to approve and build a new pipeline. You might think if an agency had 100% completed paperwork before them it wouldn’t take an entire year to evaluate and approve it–but indeed, it often takes longer. Much longer. Years, in fact.

    Enter Congressman Mike Pompeo, Republican from Kansas. Last year he introduced H.R. 1900 which would bring some “discipline” to the process by making FERC approve or deny newly proposed pipeline projects within a year of receiving all necessary paperwork. Jeff Wright, director of FERC’s Office of Energy Projects, promptly threatened lawmakers, telling them if FERC is backed into a corner, the agency will simply start denying projects left and right (see FERC Warning to Lawmakers: Back Us in a Corner, You’ll be Sorry). We hadn’t heard anything further on H.R. 1900 since Wright’s threat, until we spotted this…
    Read More “Industry Supports Bill Forcing FERC to Approve Pipelines <1 Year”

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    Another New Gas-to-Liquids Plant Coming in PA – Near Philly

    Not frequently, but every now and again MDN has highlighted stories about the intriguing technology that converts natural gas into other hydrocarbons–like diesel fuel and petrochemicals. The technology is called gas-to-liquids (or GTL). We’ve told you about several such facilities on the board or being built in PA and in OH (see Gas-to-Liquids Trend Picks Up Steam in Northeast).

    You can add one more such facility to the list, coming in Berks County, PA (near Philadelphia). Canadian EmberClear Corp. NGI’s Shale Daily is reporting that EmberClear is seeking approval on a new $1 billion GTL plant that will employ 100 people in Berks County, and (amazingly) it seems the township where they want to build it, wants it…
    Read More “Another New Gas-to-Liquids Plant Coming in PA – Near Philly”

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    Tiny SE OH Town Sees Hotel Construction Boom Thx to Utica Shale

    As we’ve previously written, one way you know shale drilling is on the horizon is when there the county clerk or county recorder’s office gets busy with title abstractors researching. We told you way back in 2012 that Belmont County, OH was about to see a drilling boom (see Belmont County, OH Drilling to Take Off Soon). How do you know when an area’s drilling is about to expand even more? When companies are willing to build not one but four new hotels–in a town with only 10,555 residents!

    Here’s the story of drilling about to reach a fevered pitch in Belmont’s neighboring county, Guernsey and the little town of Cambridge which is having a boom in hotel construction…
    Read More “Tiny SE OH Town Sees Hotel Construction Boom Thx to Utica Shale”

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    NatGas in PA Water Wells w/Marcellus Fingerprint NOT Shale Gas

    peer reviewA newly published peer reviewed study in the February Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) offers new research that we believe comes close to, if not fully, exonerating Cabot Oil & Gas over the now infamous case of methane migration into water wells in a small area of Dimock, PA. The new study has no connection to Cabot. It is written by three experts and uses (gasp) actual science–you know, in the field data? The data comes from “more than 2,300 gas and water samples collected from 234 gas wells and 67 private groundwater-supply wells” in northeastern PA and is the largest such data set ever analyzed. What did the authors find? Shallow (near the surface) methane with the same identical chemical “fingerprint” as deeper Marcellus Shale gas is naturally occurring in large quantities in northeastern PA. That is, the shallow methane under the microscope looks exactly like the methane found more than a mile below the ground, but it isn’t gas from the Marcellus because the methane near the surface that looks just like Marcellus gas, with the same chemical “fingerprint,” was lurking in water wells long before there was any shale drilling in the area.

    This is truly huge news, but don’t expect mainstream media outlets to cover the story because a) they like Josh Fox and prefer to prop up his fictional movie called Gasland, b) the issue requires readers to actually think and use the left brain to grapple with issues of science, c) this new, real research utterly refutes the pathetic “research” published by Duke University in two different papers that took the lazy way out and tried to hang Dimock’s stray gas methane on Cabot, and d) it doesn’t fit the “drilling is evil” narrative the mainstream media prefers to push…
    Read More “NatGas in PA Water Wells w/Marcellus Fingerprint NOT Shale Gas”

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    Chesapeake Fire Sale Continues: Marcellus/Utica Compressor Plants

    Chesapeake Energy continues to sell off bits and pieces of the company, making corporate raider (and the company’s second largest investor) Carl Icahn happy. The latest ballast to go over the side are 103 “compression units” in the Marcellus/Utica region, purchased by Access Midstream (which used to be Chesapeake Midstream before it was tossed over the side too), and 334 “compression units” scattered throughout the south, southwest and west, sold to Exterran Partners. Total proceeds for Carl Icahn, er Chesapeake? $520 million.

    Here’s the announcement from Chesapeake, followed by the announcement from Access Midstream about their “bolt-on” acquisition…
    Read More “Chesapeake Fire Sale Continues: Marcellus/Utica Compressor Plants”