Research

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    New EIA Monthly Report Breaks Out Natgas Production by PA/OH/WV

    Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), has just replaced a previous monthly report with a new report that will be of keen interest to MDN readers. It used to be that the EIA produced the Monthly Natural Gas Gross Production Report. That report is no more. Instead, it has been replaced by the Monthly Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production report. The old report tracked and reported natgas production by state/region for LA, NM, OK, TX, WY and the Federal Gulf of Mexico. Those locations were, traditionally, where the vast majority of natural gas was produced in the U.S. But with the shale revolution, that’s now changed–dramatically. In addition to reporting monthly natgas production by state for the traditional locations, the EIA is adding 10 new states to the monthly report: AR, CA, CO, KS, MT, ND, OH, PA, UT and WV. Yep–where the super producing shale plays are located, including PA, OH and WV where the Marcellus/Utica is located. What’s the difference between this new report (which we’ve included below) and the monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) produced by the EIA?…
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    USGS: Marcellus/Utica Among Biggest Water Users in US Shale Plays

    The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is out with a new study on how much water is used to drill and frack shale wells across the United States. The report is titled “Hydraulic fracturing water use variability in the United States and potential environmental implications” and has been accepted for publication in the journal Water Resources Research. Sorry, we don’t have a full copy of the report, but we do have a summary of the report below which says that the heaviest water use is in shale plays like the Marcellus/Utica, which sits in an area with abundant water supplies (good for us). What the report fails to do is provide perspective–that the volume of water used in drilling and fracking shale wells is minuscule compared to the volumes used in electric power generation and agriculture. More water is used for golf courses than it is to drill shale wells! So while the study is no doubt interesting, it has (in our opinion) limited value…
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    Join MDN at RBN Energy’s “Summer in the City” Event July 23 – NYC

    join usMDN invites you to join us in attending RBN Energy’s “State of the Energy Markets” one-day event in New York City on July 23. Before you hurry to say “yes,” a few caveats. It costs money (a lot of it). It’s aimed at executives working in the industry, as well as traders and investors. If that describes you (and we know that many of you read MDN), you may be interested in attending. We guarantee it will be a great event. Rusty Braziel & company will provide an overview of the key issues facing natural gas, NGLs and the crude oil market. They will explain how the markets for those three commodities interact and affect each other. They will also take a look at prices, where they may be heading, and how infrastructure affects price. If you are really “into energy” as we are, this is a must attend event. Details are below, along with a link to register…
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    Drilling for WVU/OSU’s $11M Study Gets Underway in Morgantown

    In November 2014 MDN told you that West Virginia University and Ohio State University received an $11 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy for a joint five-year study of Marcellus/Utica fracking and shale drilling (see WVU/OSU Get $11M Grant to Study Shale Energy Best Practices). The research project promptly got under way with baseline measurements and monitoring at the Morgantown (WV) Industrial Park where a new first-of-its-kind Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory will be located. With baseline measurements for air, noise, light and water at the site complete, it’s now time for the drill bit to start chewing away at rock and dirt…
    Read More “Drilling for WVU/OSU’s $11M Study Gets Underway in Morgantown”

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    PA Gas Outlook Report 2015 – Electric Plants Changing to Natgas

    Last week the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) released its annual Pennsylvania Gas Outlook Report, which provides insight into trends in the natural gas market, both nationwide and within Pennsylvania (full copy below). The report summarizes the financial and supply data for PA’s natural gas distribution companies (NGDCs) and looks at changes and trends in the natural gas market, including usage, financial status of utilities, and market pricing. The report is prepared to provide data about the regulated gas industry in Pennsylvania and the broader natural gas markets in the region and nationally. There’s lots of good information in the report. In particular we like the EIA list of pipelines due to be “in service” sometime in 2015 in the Marcellus/Utica region, included on page 6 of the report. The big news in the report is the dramatic increase in the change from coal to natgas for electric power generation–a trend that will continue to expand into the foreseeable future…
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    Northwestern U Prof Proposes Tweaks to Make Fracking Better

    A-OKA researcher at Northwestern University, Dr. Fengqi You, believes he has found a way to make fracking more environmentally friendly by making some tweaks in the way things are done. Dr. You says first you need to remove trucks from the equation and use pipelines to get water to and from fracking sites. Second, You says don’t drill all of the wells at once in the same place–spread it out over time to reduce the impact on the environment. Finally, You says to recycle frack wastewater instead of trucking it to injection wells. Do those things, says Dr. You, and fracking is A-OK. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly earth-shattering or new in You’s research. Or did we miss something?…
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    Syracuse U Prof to Defend Methane Migration Research (Sun. Night)

    on the airThe Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) and JLC United will air another live session of the Good News Table Talk Radio Show this Sunday, June 28 from 7-8 pm on WNBF Radio 1290 in Binghamton (listen online at: www.wnbf.com). Bob Williams, JLCNY Vice President and an environmental consultant with over 40 years experience, along with JLCNY board member Rob Rano, will interview and chat with acclaimed Syracuse University Earth Science professor, Dr. Donald I. Siegel. Dr. Siegel is the lead author of a Syracuse University study published earlier this year that found, after evaluating data from over 11,000 well water tests (34,000 samples) in Pennsylvania, that a water well’s proximity to fracking operations has no bearing on whether or not methane is found in that water well. In other words, fracking does not cause methane migration into water wells (see Syracuse U Study: Fracking Doesn’t Cause Methane in PA Water Wells). Radicalized environmentalists brook no dissent from their religious-like claims that fracking is the ultimate evil, so they immediately launched a smear campaign and personal attack against Dr. Siegel (see Syracuse Prof Targeted in Effort to Discredit Drilling Research). Tune in Sunday night to learn the truth–about water quality, methane migration, fracking fluids, and (yes) even about Dimock, PA…
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    EIA: Oil & Gas Jobs Plunge 6 Months After Oil Price Plunge

    Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, has authored an excellent article about how jobs in the oil and gas sector lag behind oil price gyrations. That is, once the price of oil drops to a certain level, it takes a while before jobs in the sector start to disappear. Which makes sense. Oil (and gas) prices are cyclical–they go up, they down, they go up again. It’s always been that way. When prices tank, companies don’t immediately layoff people–it take a few months of wait and see to see if prices will recover. If they don’t recover within a few months? That’s when layoffs start to happen, and the statistics show it. A startling statistic included in the EIA story below: on-shore rig counts hit a new low for the week ending June 19–54% below the same point a year ago. It’s the lowest rig count level in nearly six years. While you can’t say “half the rigs, half the number of jobs,” you can say “half the rigs means a whole lotta jobs are now, 12 months later, gone”…
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    API Study Shows Energy Regulations are Killing Jobs & Economy

    The American Petroleum Institute (API) released a new study yesterday authored by Wood Mackenzie, a global research firm, which compares government policies that promote the growth of the energy industry with government policies that stifle energy growth. The study, titled “A Comparison of US Oil and Natural Gas Policies: Pro-development Policies vs. Proposed Regulatory Constraints” (full copy embedded below) finds that the study found that unnecessarily restrictive energy and environmental regulations proposed by the Obama administration will lead to 830,000 lost jobs and a decrease of $133 billion per year in the U.S. economy. In other words, Obama is ruining this country with his energy/environmental policies…
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    EPA Begins Campaign to Discredit Their Own Fracking/Water Study

    You Read that WrongThe federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is furiously backpedaling after releasing a draft of their four-year study of fracking and water supplies with the conclusion that, “Hydraulic fracturing activities in the U.S. are carried out in a way that have not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources” (see EPA Draft Report Says Fracking Doesn’t Pollute Groundwater Supplies). Of course those of us who have long known this is the case have celebrated and pointed out the good news to the masses. Apparently the EPA, beholden to Big Green, either ideologically or financially, wasn’t prepared for the flood of stories saying “EPA says fracking is safe for water.” What to do, what to do? It’s obvious–they have to discredit their own research. Run away from it. So the EPA has begun to work with sycophantic members of mainstream liberal media, like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, to play up the “maybes, mights, could be’s and possibly’s” in the nearly 1,000-page report. In addition, the EPA has reactivated some of the retired dinosaurs from the agency to pitch stones at the research and paint nightmare scenarios. It’s like Jurassic World came to life at the EPA…
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    List of Who’s Still Active/Drilling in the Ohio Utica Shale

    Who’s still drilling/active in the Ohio Utica Shale? Depends on what criteria you use to measure it. We spotted a list of 19 “active” drillers in the Utica based on the criteria of who had producing wells in the first quarter of 2015. Fair enough. But as for who is actively drilling new holes in the ground right now? That’s a slightly different list. MDN recently published Volume 1 for the 2015 Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook (now in our fourth year of publishing this series). Our list shows 12 drillers who received at least one permit to drill in the Utica during the first four months of 2015. We have both lists below…
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    Manhattan Institute Report Says Shale 2.0 Just Getting Started

    The New York-based Manhattan Institute, a non-profit think tank with a mission “to develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility,” released a new report in May titled, “Shale 2.0: Technology and the Coming Big-Data Revolution in America’s Shale Oil Fields” (full copy embedded below). The report explores and debunks the current meme coming from mainstream media, Saudi Arabia and other opponents of shale energy that with the current low price climate shale energy in the U.S. is done…fini…kaput. Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of the paper, says Shale 1.0 is now done, having run it’s course. But we’re still very early in the game and Shale 2.0 is just getting started. And oh, the (economic) places Shale 2.0 will take us!…
    Read More “Manhattan Institute Report Says Shale 2.0 Just Getting Started”

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    Harvard Study: Fracking is Safe, Profitable, Good for Environment!

    Wow–who woulda thought Harvard University would publish a report that says fracking is a good thing (when done right) and that it will create 3.8 million new jobs by 2030 AND lower carbon emissions? The report, titled “America’s Unconventional Energy Opportunity” (full copy below) outlines “a strategic, fact-based approach to developing America’s new energy advantage to increase U.S. competitiveness and drive much-needed job and economic growth, to reducing environmental impacts, and to accelerating progress on climate change.” The authors say that with some tweaks to regulations and by using know best practices, hydraulic fracturing is safe–and an economic bonanza for America–AND good for the environment (reduces nasty carbon dioxide which causes mythical global warming)! It’s important to note the study was self-funded and published by the Harvard Business School. No outside money was involved from the likes of the Park Foundation or Heniz Endowments or William Penn Foundation–virulent anti-drilling Big Green organizations that routinely purchase “scientific” studies with pre-determined outcomes. This time is different. The authors were not beholden to big money benefactors. They are smart people tackling tough issues with an open mind–and the conclusion they come to is the same conclusion reached by millions of people who bother to research the issues: fracking is safe…
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    MDN Launches 2015 Marcellus/Utica Databook – 4th Year!

    2015 Databook coversEarlier this week Marcellus Drilling News launched the fourth series of our Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook. The 2015 edition of the Databook, Volume 1, officially launched on Tuesday. Never in our wildest dreams did we think back in 2012 that the Databook would become so popular. We’ve now published three complete series–the 2012, 2013 and 2014 series (3 volumes each, or nine volumes total) and this week begins the fourth series–for 2015. The heart and soul of the Databook is a series of maps–one for every county where permits for drilling have been issued–throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. The “secret sauce” for the Databook is to visually, through maps and charts (89 of them in this edition), show you who is drilling right now or soon will be–and where they are drilling…
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    A Sad First: EIA’s June DPR Reports Marcellus Production Slips

    This is a sad milestone in the Marcellus Shale. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued their latest Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) on Monday. We thought last month’s edition would show production in the Marcellus Shale would contract–but surprisingly it did not (see EIA DPR May 2015: Shale Production Slips, But Not in Marc/Utica). Overall production of natural gas in the U.S. did slip in May, but in the Marcellus and Utica natgas production went up. But the June edition of the report brings us the sad news that production in the Marcellus will decline from last month–by 28 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d). Also of note in the June report: There was a single shale play in which natural gas production will increase from the previous month. Can guess which one? It was the Utica!…
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    BP’s Annual Energy Report: Smallest Demand Increase since 1990s

    BP (what used to be known as British Petroleum) is, and has been for years, North America’s top natural gas marketer. Although first quarter 2015 marketer rankings aren’t out just yet, if you look at fourth quarter 2014, BP sold (i.e. marketed) twice as much natural gas on a daily basis as the next nearest company, which happens to be Shell (see NGI’s 4Q14 NatGas Marketer Rankings). Like other oil “majors,” BP issues a yearly outlook on worldwide energy consumption and trends. BP calls their version of this report the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. The company released the 64th edition of that review today (full copy below). BP themselves say this edition, “highlights the continuing importance of the US shale revolution, with the US overtaking Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest oil producer and surpassing Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and gas.” Readers of MDN already know those two facts: that the US years ago dethroned Russia as the #1 natural gas producer, and that more recently we’ve dethroned Saudi Arabia as the world’s #1 oil producer. What else do we learn from this year’s report?…
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