Accidents | Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Tyler County | West Virginia
Marcellus Worker Killed in Tyler County, WV at Antero Well Pad
We have sad news to report. A young man, just 19 years old, was killed when he was “struck by a truck, then pinned between the truck and a stationary object” at an Antero Resources well pad site in Tyler County, WV last Thursday. Hunter Osborn, of Lewis County, WV, worked for U.S. Well Services, the fracking company hired by Antero. The well pad is called the Hartley East Pad in Middlebourne. Mr. Osborn was pinned between a tractor trailer backing up to unload sand and a sand silo. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of this young man. Below are the details we could find about the accident…
Continue reading
The anti-fossil fuel nutters in New York have finally lost a major battle they’ve waged against the shale industry for the past 5+ years. In June 2014, MDN told you about the Dominion New Market Project–a project that will build two new compressor plants and upgrade one other compressor station in upstate New York–to help flow more abundant, cheap and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from Pennsylvania (and beyond) into the northeast (see 
Tired of having their application to expand a pipeline compressor station blocked, Rice Energy has sued West Pike Run Township in Washington County, PA. In the lawsuit, Rice says that the town had 90 days (under law) to render a decision on the request and did not do so. Eventually the town told Rice “no” to expanding an existing compressor station. The lawsuit asks the court to force the town to approve the application forthwith…
This news is a bit dated, from last December, but important nonetheless. Under threat of a $300 million lawsuit, Penn Township (Westmoreland County, PA) voted to allow Apex Energy to build two Marcellus well pads, and arranged for more hearings on four more well pads. In April 2016 Penn Township blocked permits for Apex well pads (see 
One of the antis’ favorite tactics in opposing the Mariner East 2 pipeline is to claim it’s unsafe. It’s a bomb waiting to go off. Mariner East 2, as a reminder, is a $2.5 billion, 350-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. It will flow mostly ethane, but also propane and butane. One town near Philadelphia where the pipeline is slated to run is West Goshen Township (Chester County). The leaders of the town wanted an honest, independent assessment of the pipeline and its potential danger to residents–so they hired the independent consulting firm Accufacts to study the safety of the project. The report is in (full copy below) and shows not only does Mariner East 2 meet, but in fact exceeds federal minimum safety requirements. There goes another anti argument, disappearing into the atmosphere like burned carbon dioxide…
How low can you go? Natural gas spot prices in 2016 averaged $2.49 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf), or more commonly per million British thermal units (MMBtu) at the national benchmark Henry Hub. That is the lowest annual average price for natgas since 1999. The monthly average price fell below $2.00/Mcf from February through May, but later increased, ending the year at an average of $3.58/Mcf in December. Marcellus/Utica drillers would LOVE to see prices like $2.49 or $3.58. Prices in the northeast, because of lack of takeaway pipelines, sometimes sank below $1/Mcf at certain trading points…
We have some progress and movement to report about PTT Global’s proposed $6 billion ethane cracker project coming to Belmont County, OH. The rumor is that PTT will announce a final investment decision (FID) in March–just two short months away. We wait with eager anticipation! However, in the meantime, the project appears to be proceeding full speed ahead. The latest evidence of that comes from a recent permit issued for the project by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The permit allows the cracker plant to discharge wastewater (which is far different from drilling wastewater) into the Ohio River. The EPA notes, in granting the permit, that although the discharge may “result in changes from current water quality conditions” the discharge “cannot violate Ohio’s water quality standards that protect human health and the environment.” Next up is an air permit from the Ohio EPA, which the agency is currently working on. Here’s the deets on the wastewater permit just issued…
As we have pointed out in past articles, the electricity industry is a complicated industry, with some some power producers operating as “regulated” and some operating as “unregulated.” Regulated power producers have their rates, and rate of profit, set by government regulators–which limits profits but also guarantees profits. Unregulated power producers, on the other hand, do not have the safety net of the government forcing ratepayers to pony up–they operate in the free market, taking all of the risks–and reaping the rewards if those risks prove worthwhile. Many (most?) of the new natural gas-fired electric plants getting built, like those we have focused on in Ohio over the past several days (see 
Inspired by the criminal actions of eco-terrorists in North Dakota (see 
Rabidly anti-drilling organizations like the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council (CAC) have been using the deep pockets of their contributors to stir up dissent against Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline, particularly in towns in the Philly orbit (see 
We have to chuckle. It was just two months ago, in November 2016, that Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe approved changes to environmental regulations that requires “mandatory disclosure of fracking chemicals, baseline water testing and monitoring, and spill prevention and response planning” (see 
Regardless of what you think about so-called man-made global warming, you would think that scientists should be allowed to express their views on the topic without being hunted down and burned at the stake like a witch, reputationally speaking. Yet if a climate scientist dares to express misgivings about the actual data behind global warming, that is exactly what happens. Dr. Judith Curry, a highly respected climate scientist, recently resigned her tenured position at Georgia Tech–because of climate witch hunters. Dr. Curry started out as a man-made global warming true believer, but was shocked at the “Climategate” emails that show researchers with the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia were intentionally making up the numbers in an effort to prove their theories. False data. Lies. Distortions. Dr. Curry investigated and questioned climate orthodoxy, and for that, she has been hounded out of Georgia Tech. What is wrong with this picture? When did science become politics? When did simply asking tough questions become the basis for destroying someone’s reputation?…
In December the Potter Township Board of Supervisors convened a public hearing on the proposed Shell ethane cracker plant–to be built in Potter Twp–that ended up going on for 10 hours (see