Industrywide Issues

Energy Services | Enterprise Products Partners | Industrywide Issues | Jefferson County (OH) | Litigation | Ohio | Pipelines

Ethane Pipeline Company Sues Farmer to Gain Access to Land
May 7, 2012May 7, 2012

Enterprise Products Partners 1,230 mile ethane pipeline from Pennsylvania to the Gulf Coast, called the ATEX Express (Appalachia to Texas), has hit a snag in Ohio and is suing a farmer who refuses to let them on the property for survey work.

The proposed ATEX Express pipeline includes building 353 miles of new pipeline through Ohio. They’re on a schedule, and they don’t want delays. So when Nancy and David Hyde asked Enterprise to find a different route other than go through David’s best hay field, Enterprise said “no” and is suing them to allow them on the property. As with most lawsuits, this one is complicated.

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Belmont County | Economic Impact | Housing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio

RV Park for Shale Workers in OH Sees Strong Demand
May 7, 2012May 7, 2012

In an indication of things to come, pipeline construction firm Price Gregory has requested 50 RV spaces for its workers in a new RV/camper park located in Morristown, OH (Belmont County)—by June 1st!

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Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Statewide OH

OH Bill Requires 3rd Party Verification of O&G Production
May 7, 2012May 7, 2012

Two Ohio state Democrat representatives have introduced a new bill that would require an “audit clause” to be recorded in every oil and gas drilling lease in the state. The bill is an effort, according to its authors, to insert third party verification of production numbers reported by companies so landowners don’t have to rely on the driller’s “honesty” in reporting those numbers.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY | Wastewater

Anti-Drillers Target Conventional NatGas Drilling in NY
May 4, 2012May 4, 2012

The anti-drillers in New York are not content to block horizontal drilling. They increasingly have turned their attention to conventional, vertical natural gas drilling as their target, trying to shut down or otherwise harass an industry that has been safely operating in the state for decades.

The latest attempt is a sham “report” by the anti-drilling group Environmental Advocates of New York. This new “report” says wastewater disposal from conventional, vertical wells is too lax in the state. They want conventional drilling wastewater to be classified as a hazardous substance with cradle-to-grave tracking of all water used in any oil and gas drilling in the state—which is just another way of strangling an industry that has been an important part of the state’s economy for the past 100+ years.

From the AP:

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Broome County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

Cornell Veterinarians Say Fracking Poisons Animals & People
May 4, 2012May 4, 2012

Another day, another attempt by the anti-drilling left to scare people. Honestly, when will the general public wake up to these pathetic attempts to stop drilling?

The latest attempt is from two Cornell professors—from the veterinary department—who came to Endicott, NY to warn people that fracking will poison their cows and horses and chickens and dogs and cats, oh my! (Perhaps the good profs should make a trip to PA, just across the border, where fracking is everywhere and the animals are just fine.)

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Public Opinion | Statewide PA

Western PA School Board Member Speaks Out on Anti-Drillers
May 4, 2012May 4, 2012

A school board member from a district in western Pennsylvania that recently voted to allow Marcellus Shale drilling under, but not on top, of school property wrote a must-read article that appears on the American Thinker website today. He shares with readers the process the board went through, the agonizing, researching, questioning, and public hearings on gas drilling. And the board member came to a key conclusion about anti-drillers: at their core, they are unreasonable people. To wit:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Public Opinion | Statewide NY

Folk Legend Peter Yarrow Joins Anti-Fracking Protest in NY
May 4, 2012May 4, 2012

Guess who’s now on board the anti-drilling bus? Peter Yarrow, of the sixties folk singing group Peter, Paul and Mary. Or as MDN editor Jim Willis used to call them back in the 1980s, “Peter, Paul and Commie.” Yeah, the singers of Puff the Magic Dragon have always been politically active—on the far left. In the 1980s they flew to Nicaragua to show their support for the brutal Socialist/Communist dictator Daniel Ortega. Why is it liberals love the commie dictators like Ortega and Castro? But we digress.

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Antero Resources | Brooke County | Chesapeake Energy | Doddridge County | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Harrison County | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | Marshall County | Ohio County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Washington County | West Virginia

MarkWest Inks Major New Deals with Chesapeake & Antero
May 4, 2012May 4, 2012

MarkWest announced today two major new agreements to provide expanded natural gas processing and pipeline capacity for Chesapeake Energy and Antero Resouces in the Marcellus Shale. The deal with Chesapeake covers Brooke, Ohio and Marshall counties in WV, and Washington County, PA. The deal with Antero covers Doddridge and Harrison counties in WV. The new agreements, which include processing natural gas liquids, mean MarkWest will build new gathering pipelines and add compressor stations to their existing operations.

From the MarkWest press release:

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

Marcellus Shale Gas Coming to Scranton/W-B Customers
May 4, 2012May 4, 2012

UGI Utilities, a regional gas and electric utility provider with offices in Reading and Wilkes-Barre, wants to be the first utility in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area to offer their customers natural gas exclusively from the Marcellus Shale. How? UGI’s subsidiary, UGI Energy Services, announced last fall they would spend $150 million to extend the Auburn Gathering Line into Luzerne County. The Auburn pipeline will bring natural gas from wells in Wyoming and Susquehanna counties to Luzerne where UGI has operations and offices.

As part of the extension project, on April 7 UGI made application with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to build a compressor station in West Wyoming, a small borough in Luzerne County:

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Aither Chemicals | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kanawha County | Processing Plants | West Virginia

New Movement on the Aither Chemicals Cracker Plant in WV?
May 3, 2012May 3, 2012

A month and a half ago it seemed imminent that Aither Chemicals would announce they would build a new ethane cracker plant at the Bayer CropScience plant site at Institute Industrial Park, located in Kanawha County, near Charleston, WV (see this MDN story). Bayer CropScience, owner of the site, and MarkWest Energy, a huge pipeline company, were named as potential partners in the deal. But the expected announcement never came, and all has been silent since.

An article in the Charleston Daily Mail caught MDN’s eye, an article that says the local city of Nitro, WV have filed a petition with Kanawha County to annex 44 properties surrounding the Bayer CropScience plant. The properties in that area of the county are unincorporated—no official town or city municipal government control—and if Nitro annexes the property surrounding the plant, it prevents any other communities from trying to annex the plant itself at some future date.

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Broome County | Chenango County | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Delaware County | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Schoharie County | Susquehanna County | Williams

Williams & Cabot Partner on New 120-Mile PA to NY Pipeline
May 3, 2012May 3, 2012

Williams Partners and Cabot Oil & Gas are working on a new 120-mile natural gas pipeline, dubbed the Constitution Pipeline, that will stretch from Susquehanna County, PA through Broome County, NY, and on through Chenango County, Delaware County, and terminate in Schoharie County, connecting to the Iroquois Gas Transmission pipeline and the Tennessee Gas pipeline (see the map embedded below).

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

New “Research” Says Fracking will Contaminate Aquifers
May 2, 2012May 2, 2012

A new research paper titled “Potential Contaminant Pathways from Hydraulically Fractured Shale to Aquifers,” bought and paid for by anti-drilling organizations Catskill Mountainkeeper and the Park Foundation, christened “peer-reviewed” and published in an obscure journal called Ground Water, concludes that fracking fluids won’t stay put a mile below solid rock and will instead travel uphill, through that mile of solid rock, and contaminate water aquifers—within a few years.

What scientific method was used to conduct this all-important research that foretells the end of safe drinking water as we know it? Computer models. Yeah, the author of this “important new study” sat and played with computer models, got a few of his buddies to sign off on his “research,” got paid a boatload of money from anti-drilling organizations and published it. And now, shazam, everyone is supposed to run for the hills and end all fracking everywhere. Nice try.

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Chesapeake Energy | Commodity Price | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues

Chesapeake’s NatGas Production Cuts Never Materialized
May 2, 2012May 2, 2012

In January 2012, Chesapeake Energy announced they would curtail (reduce) their natural gas production by 1/2 billion cubic feet (bcf) per day. In February, they announced they would double it to 1 bcf per day (see this MDN story). Other energy companies also announced they would cut production, all in an attempt to reduce supply and boost the price of natural gas. But commodities traders were wary of those announcements, saying in essence, “We’ve heard this before,” and that real cuts in production were never forthcoming (see this MDN story). Looks like the wary traders were right.

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Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Range Resources Corp | Regulation

EPA Administrator Al Armendariz Resigns over Crucify Comment
May 1, 2012May 1, 2012

Al Amrendariz, EPA Region 6 administrator (Texas and surrounding states) has been hoist by his own petard. Yesterday he resigned—in disgrace. It seems nearly everyone (but anti-drillers) were calling for his resignation after a video of Armendariz came to light where he outlined his philosophy of enforcement against energy company “violators” to that of the Romans who used to enter a village, find the first five men, and crucify them—which had the effect of, shall we say, making everyone else behave themselves (see MDN’s previous story on Armendariz to watch the infamous video).

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Commodity Price | Industrywide Issues

Graph Showing NatGas Rig Count vs NatGas Price
May 1, 2012May 1, 2012

In a Reuters news story about the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest report showing natural gas production fell slightly in February, we get the following graphic which MDN found interesting. It shows the Baker Hughes rig count (number of natural gas drilling rigs) plotted as one line, with the second plotted line representing natural gas futures prices. The natural gas rig count—drilling rigs dedicated to drilling for natural gas in the lower 48 states—is now at a 10-year low. The count as of last Friday was 613, the lowest it’s been since April 2002. Gas prices are also at 10-year lows.

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Bradford County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Luzerne County | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County | Tioga County (PA)

SRBC Lifts PA Water Withdrawal Restrictions, Drilling Resumes
May 1, 2012May 1, 2012

There is no official notice posted on the Susquehanna River Basin Commission’s (SRBC) website, but according to a Reuters news story, the SRBC has lifted its temporary ban on water withdrawals implemented two weeks ago on April 18. Hydraulic fracturing uses a lot of water. Drillers get the water from various sources, most often rivers and streams. If that river or stream happens to be located in the Susquehanna River Basin, withdrawals are overseen by the SRBC, which ensures water levels do not get too low.

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