Research

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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!…
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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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    NY DEC Claims Their Sham Studies Better than Federal EPA Study

    Even though faced with overwhelming scientific evidence that fracking has and is being done safely everywhere it’s tried (see EPA Draft Report Says Fracking Doesn’t Pollute Groundwater Supplies), New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo won’t relent and change his mind to allow fracking. That’s the upshot of comments by Cuomo’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The DEC would rather use sham “studies” perpetrated by anti-drilling radical environmentalists rather than believe a four year, in-depth study by the federal EPA on whether or not fracking can be done safely. But then, we didn’t expect Cuomo would change his mind, because his decision was 100% political–not based on science at all…
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    Rig Counts Take Another Hit in May, Rapid Decline Continues

    We had thought/hoped that the we were near the end of a decline in drilling rig counts. But such is not the case. Baker Hughes released their May rig count report on Friday and it shows a continued slide in the numbers. In April there were 943 active rigs drilling on land in the U.S., down from 1,067 rigs in March (see Rig Counts Continue Big Decline in April, NE May Have Bottomed). In May, the number slide again–to 857 land-based rigs (a loss of another 86 rigs going idle). Double ouch. What about the Marcellus/Utica region? Did those rigs decline in May?…
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    EPA Releases Water Studies for NEPA & SWPA: Fracking is Safe in PA

    Last Friday MDN reported the good news that the EPA is finally winding down a years-long study of the potential impacts of fracking on groundwater supplies. The upshot? Fracking doesn’t pollute water supplies (see EPA Draft Report Says Fracking Doesn’t Pollute Groundwater Supplies). This is the result of a process that began in 2009 when Congress asked the EPA to study fracking and water, with an eye toward regulating fracking using the federal Clean Water Act. The EPA eventually designed a study and began their research in 2011. The final report was due in 2014 but was later moved to 2016. This draft report is the prelude to the final report. Weighing in at 998 pages long, the report says there’s lots you can be scared about–but in fact none of the nightmare scenarios about fracking and water have come true. This was a hard report to file for the Obama EPA–we’re sure of that. Tucked in the bowels of the report are details that the EPA themselves conducted 17 research projects and published 20 scientific papers as a result. Two of those projects looked at shale drilling in the Pennsylvania Marcellus region–one study in the northeast (full study embedded below), and one in the southwest (full study embedded below). What did they find?…
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    EPA Draft Report Says Fracking Doesn’t Pollute Groundwater Supplies

    researchYesterday the federal Environmental Protection Agency, at the request of Congress, released a draft assessment (executive summary below) on the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing activities on drinking water resources in the United States. The EPA studied other studies, leaving no stone unturned (950 “sources” in all). What did they find? “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.” That is, fracking doesn’t pollute water supplies. They did point out certain “vulnerabilities” that can arise from fracking: drawing down water supplies in areas where water is in short supply; fracking in a formation that has a water supply in it (which we’ve never heard of happening before); poorly cased and cemented wells (yes, we know about it and have improved it over the years); discharging “inadequately treated” wastewater into public drinking water supplies; and spills on top of the ground. In other words, the study doesn’t tell us a darned thing we don’t already know–and concludes fracking doesn’t pollute water supplies. How much more plain and clear can it get?…
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