WVU Program Converts Stranded Shale Gas into “Valuable Products”
West Virginia University (WVU) has joined a national effort to “turn natural gas into valuable products and do it at the well.” There are many locations in the Marcellus (and Utica) where pipelines don’t yet connect. Wells drilled but not hooked up to production. WVU has joined the newest branch of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Network of Manufacturing Institutes. Called Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment institute, or RAPID, the institute “will focus on using advanced manufacturing to develop breakthrough technologies to boost the productivity and efficiency of some of industrial processes by 20 percent in the next five years.” That is, they plan to design modular reactors–think of them as teeny tiny crackers–that can be carted around well site to well site, converting methane, ethane and other hydrocarbons into new chemical products. It’s a very exciting concept. WV in particular has a lot of hilly terrain that makes installing pipelines difficult. This is a potential solution to that problem…
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As we pointed out to you last December, evil corporate raider Carl Icahn (invests in companies so he can fire a bunch of people, boost the stock and pocket the profit) had fired Cheniere Energy CEO Charif Souki (see 
On Friday MDN ran a story of keen interest to both mineral rights owners and drillers in West Virginia–about an effort pushing new legislation this year in lieu of forced pooling, something called “co-tenancy” and “joint development” (see 
Paul Sidorek, an accountant representing some 60 northeastern Pennsylvania landowners who receive royalty income from drilling, is also a landowner himself. In 2009 Sidorek leased 145 acres, a lease that was eventually sold to Chesapeake Energy. Because of the troubles encountered by others, Sidorek wrote into his lease a 20% royalty and made sure the lease explicitly stated that no expenses could be deducted from the sale of the gas produced on his property. That is, NO post-production expenses could be deducted. And yet, Chesapeake disregarded the lease and deducted as much as 30 percent from his royalties, attributing it to “gathering” and “third party” expenses, an amount that adds up to some $40,000 a year (see 
The colorful new Governor of West Virginia, Jim Justice, is wasting no time in showing his support and appreciation to the natural gas industry. During Justice’s State of the State address last week, he ordered his new head of the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection, Austin Caperton, to stop saying “no” to businesses that show up with requests (including the drilling industry). During a rambling address, Justice had this to say: “Now, I underline — underline, underline, underline — nobody loves the outdoors as much as me. Nobody loves water as much as me. We’re not going to break the law. We’re got going to do anything to damage the environment to the very best of our abilities. Or our waters. But we are not going to just say no.” And we have perhaps the first instance of that philosophy in action. The previous Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin Administration had enacted certain restrictions in WV permits for compressor stations–establishing noise and light restrictions to protect nearby residents. At the request of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA), Caperton removed those restrictions…
Last week we pointed out that of all the major pipeline projects we had hoped the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) would approve before Norman Bay quit the Commission in a huff, that NEXUS (runs through Ohio) did not get a go-ahead (see 
There may, finally, be movement by the recalcitrant Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to finally, after eight years, begin to move in the direction of guidelines to allow shale drilling in two northeastern PA counties: Wayne and Pike. Why is there movement now? Because last year landowners launched a lawsuit against the DRBC, a lawsuit the DRBC now senses they may lose (see 
New Jerseyans, who don’t seem to want new natural gas pipelines, will see lower electricity rates this year–thanks to Marcellus Shale gas that flows through pipelines to electric generating plants–in New Jersey. Last Friday the NJ Board of Public Utilities approved the results of the state’s annual electricity auction. The annual auction sets wholesale electricity prices that the state’s electric utilities will pay and pass through to all NJ residential customers who have not chosen a third-party electric supplier. It is the eighth consecutive year that electric prices are either stable, or have gone down. The reason for the lower rates: “cheaper prices for wholesale natural gas.” And guess where NJ’s cheap natgas comes from? Yep–the Pennsylvania Marcellus…
Forced pooling legislation in West Virginia has been put forward five times in the past seven years–and each time it has failed to win enough votes in the WV legislature. In its most recent incarnation (last year), forced pooling would allow drillers to form a “unit” for drilling (typically one square mile, or 640 acres) from a group of properties where at least 80% of the mineral rights owners have signed a lease (see 
One year ago (February 2016) MDN told you about an exciting new market for Marcellus and Utica Shale gas that may open up in the next 2-3 years in the Midwest (see 
In the midstream (i.e. pipeline) world, it seems like nobody owns 100% of anything. Big midstream companies like Williams and Kinder Morgan (and others) are composed of subsidiaries and (sometimes) MLPs–master limited partnerships. And beyond the companies within companies (like a Russian nesting doll), often pieces of pipeline systems are co-owned with other companies, even competitors! In 2014 Williams bought out Access Midstream, the renamed and former division of Chesapeake Energy called Chesapeake Midstream (see 
In August 2013 an extensive investigative article about a then-director for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, William A. Capouillez, appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer (see 
For those of us in a certain generation, you will recognize this: Fred, Daphne, Shaggy, Velma…and of course, Scooby-Doo! If you were raised watching cartoons on Saturday morning, and you watched Scooby-Doo, do you remember the name of the van they traveled around in? That’s right, the Mystery Machine! An image of the Mystery Machine is what floated through our brain as we read about the latest venture in researching air quality in Pennsylvania near drilling sites. Researchers from Drexel University (in Philadelphia) set out across Marcellus territory in “Drexel’s Mobile Laboratory, a Ford cargo van equipped with all the equipment necessary for measuring concentrations of chemicals and particles in the air at 1-10 second intervals while driving.” The Mystery Machine! And what, pray tell, did our intrepid Marcellus sleuths find be-bopping around the countryside? In the recently published study, “Analysis of local-scale background concentrations of methane and other gas-phase species in the Marcellus Shale” (full copy below), researchers say they found that even though the number of Marcellus wells being drilled has slowed quite a bit over the past few years, the amount of fugitive methane in the air has increased. And the increase can’t be explained by a general global increase in fugitive methane. The increase in fugitive methane in the Marcellus is due, our methane sleuths say, to the “increased production of natural gas from the region which has increased significantly over the 2012 to 2015 period.” The researchers conclude that “because everybody knows how evil and nasty fugitive methane is for global warming” (our words), this study is yet more evidence that Marcellus shale drilling (and pipelines, etc.) leak so much methane as to make any benefits we get from extracting and burning methane, over say coal, muted–even lost. Because we can’t put a cork in it, by extracting and using methane we’re making poor old Mom Earth even sicker. Which is, of course, total bunkum…