A new association has been formed in the Philadelphia area to connect local businesses with business opportunities in the Marcellus Shale. So far the new association, called the Delaware Valley Marcellus Association (DVMA), consists of four founding member companies, but has plans to expand rapidly.
From the press release announcing the DVMA:
Read More “New Philly Association Formed to Help Businesses Crack the Marcellus”
Penn Virginia Resource Partners (PVR) is kicking up its commitment to the Marcellus Shale in northeastern PA a notch. Yesterday they announced they would invest $380 million on Marcellus Shale pipeline projects including a new extension to its natural gas pipeline in Lycoming County, PA. The announcement also reveals that they have commitments from Shell, Southwestern, Range and Inflection for the extra capacity and services. Yesterday PVR completed a previously announced deal to acquire Chief Gathering.
From the PVR press release:
Read More “PVR Announces $380 Million Investment in NE PA Marcellus”
The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a Pennsylvania-based industry group headed by Kathryn Klaber, held a rally at the Capitol in Harrisburg on Monday. Their aim was to dispel two popular myths about drilling in the Marcellus Shale: that the jobs are temporary, non-union jobs, and that the jobs all go to out-of-state workers from Texas and Oklahoma.
At the rally to support the Coalition were union members from the Laborers’ International Union of North America, who presented evidence that it’s local, union membership that often fills positions in the Marcellus workforce.
Read More “Union Support for Marcellus Drilling at PA Rally”
Looks like the G8 members—countries that belong to “the group of eight” of the largest economies in the world (the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Germany, the United States, Japan, Italy and Canada)—think fracking is a good idea. So says the official communiqué issued by the ministers that met last weekend at Camp David.
The Louisville City Council (Stark County, OH) passed an agreement yesterday to sell both potable and treated sewage water to Chesapeake Energy for their use in fracking Utica Shale wells. The water purchase agreement runs through 2017.
Read More “Louisville, OH to Sell Chesapeake Water for Fracking”
Writing in the Financial Post, Vaclav Smil, a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and until 2011 a Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Manitoba gives some sage advice on the wild claims on both sides of the shale gas drilling isle:
Tired of New York municipalities passing ill-advised bans on fracking, and hoping to increase the chances that landowners will be “first in line” for permits when they are finally issued, a group of landowners in New York have launched a campaign to get municipalities to pass a non-binding resolution that they will not enact a ban on fracking—and it’s working.
Read More “NY Towns Pass Resolution They WON’T Ban Fracking”
Some high paying jobs are on the way to Marshall County, WV courtesy of a new natural gas processing plant being built by Dominion and opening in December. What’s good paying? How does $30 per hour sound?
Read More “High Paying Jobs Come to Marshall County, WV Processing Plant”
First announced back in early April, Penn Virginia Resource Partners (PVR) deal to buy Chief Gathering for $1 billion has officially closed on Friday. The deal creates a very large presence in the Marcellus Shale midstream space for PVR.
From the PVR press release:
An unnamed driller in Ohio has asked Canadian company GASFRAC to use its waterless fracking technology to drill two trial wells in the Utica Shale. You may recall that a group of Tioga County, NY landowners with a collective 135,000 Marcellus Shale acres were set to use GASFRAC’s LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) technology to jump start drilling in New York, but the lease and royalty deal with the driller, eCORP, fell through (no fault of GASFRAC, see this MDN story).
Will GASFRAC’s innovative technology do the trick in Ohio’s Utica Shale? There’s some disagreement on that point.
Read More “GASFRAC Waterless Fracking Technology Debuts in Utica Shale”
One of the more interesting stories (to MDN anyway) over the past several years has been that of how short line railroads are seeing a comeback because of shale gas drilling. Perhaps it’s the romanticism of a bygone era that appeals. Some of the uses for old short line railroad beds have been innovative—things like “dual use” corridors where rail trails and pipelines have been run together.
But there’s a very new and interesting twist on this story MDN has just noticed. In at least one Ohio location, an energy company wants to lease an abandoned rail line, but not for pipelines and not to run trains on it…
Read More “Ohio Driller Eyes Abandoned Railroad for Innovative Use”
Yesterday MDN wrote a story about a newly released study by Ernest & Young that purports to show that Ohio’s oil and gas taxes are the lowest in the country, and would remain the lowest even if Gov. John Kasich’s plan to boost those taxes were to be adopted (see this MDN story). MDN stated that we could not find a copy of that study to review the data. Thanks to two intrepid MDN readers, we now have a copy (embedded below).
Read More “Ernst & Young’s Analysis of Ohio Proposed Severance Tax”
Eureka Resources announced yesterday it will build a brand new “world-class” shale wastewater treatment facility in Bradford County, PA (near Towanda, PA). The first phase of the construction will be complete by the end of this year, and the second phase by the end of next year. According to Eureka, the facility will reduce the need to dispose of concentrated brine, or salty wastewater, that normally is disposed of via injection wells. When completed, the facility will operate 24/7 and employ 16 full-time employees.
From the Eureka press release:
Read More “Bradford County, PA Gets New Shale Wastewater Treatment Plant”
On March 1, a little over two months ago, UGI Penn Natural Gas, a utility which serves approximately 158,000 customers in 13 counties in northeastern and central Pennsylvania, announced it was immediately reducing natural gas rates for its customers by 4.5 percent (see this MDN story). UGI announced yesterday it would file its annual rate on June 1 and it will request yet another 4.5 percent rate reduction on its annual rate which would take effect December 1. That’s a total of 9 percent in one year—thanks to the abundance of PA’s Marcellus Shale gas.
Read More “PA Utility Announces Second NatGas Rate Cut This Year”
It seems a lot of today’s news is about fracking, so here’s one more story about fracking—not Marcellus or Utica related—but important all the same. Our ultra-environmentally conscious friends from across the pond have decided that fracking is a safe technology. Take note Vermont!
From a press release issued by British Gas:
In contrast to closed-minded Vermont (see this MDN story), North Carolina and its Democrat governor are also considering adopting new legislation with regard to hydraulic fracturing—but North Carolina’s legislation would make fracking legal, not ban it.
Read More “NC Law to Legalize (and Encourage) Fracking Advances”