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PA DEP Claims Energy Transfer Illegally Damaged Streams, Wetlands
Speaking of the exploded Revolution Pipeline located in southwestern Pennsylvania that’s led to a driller declaring bankruptcy (see EdgeMarc Energy Files for Bankruptcy, Blames Revolution Pipe Outage), yesterday the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued an order to Energy Transfer, builder of Revolution, to “identify and restore or mitigate all streams and wetlands that it illegally eliminated or altered during the construction” of the pipeline. DEP claims ET “illegally” eliminated at least 23 streams and changed the length of another 120 streams.
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The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry (PA Chamber) recently filed a brief in Commonwealth Court opposing THE Delaware Riverkeeper in a case that still has us angry and baffled. The case brought by Riverkeeper is clear across the state, hundreds of miles from the Delaware River Basin where Riverkeeper supposedly operates, and attempts to force a local municipality to adopt zoning ordinances it doesn’t want to adopt. And it involves Martians.
Beginning in 2012, MDN reported on the story of a community in western Pennsylvania (in Butler County) whose residents said that nearby drilling by Rex Energy led to contamination of their water wells (see 
A journey which began for Pennsylvania landowners in Butler County, PA in July 2015 is nearing an end. Two Butler County, PA landowners with a combined 245.7 acres of land leased to XTO Energy sued XTO in 2015 claiming that XTO is breaking the lease agreement by paying royalties below 1/8 of what XTO receives in revenue for the gas (see 
Rex Energy, a driller focused mainly on the Marcellus/Utica (headquartered in State College, PA), issued their third quarter 2017 update earlier this week. The company continues to bleed money, losing $47 million in 3Q17, versus losing $55 million in 3Q16. An improvement, but showing a profit would be a whole lot better than a loss at this point. Highlights for 3Q17: Rex placed the four-well Wilson pad into sales (Butler County, PA) with initial 24-hour average sales rate per well of ~10.9 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d). Total production averaged 182 MMcfe/d–with 38% of that liquids production. Rex drills in both western PA and eastern OH. Rex officials said they are currently working on 10 new wells in Carroll County, OH that will go online in 2018. So far Rex has drilled 30 wells in the Buckeye State. Below is the full 3Q17 update, along with excerpts from the analyst phone call and the latest Rex slide deck…
A group of so-called “health experts” pontificated at an event yesterday hosted by the League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters in Pittsburgh. They were supposedly there to discuss shale and public health. One of the gripe sessions took aim against Shell’s now-under construction ethane cracker facility. Speakers tried hard not to come right out and curse shale and the cracker–but they couldn’t help themselves. In the end they made untrue statements that imply the cracker will poison the community and make it unlivable. One speaker’s solution? “Don’t build it.” Typical. All you need to know about yesterday’s meeting is that one of the panelists is the staff attorney for the radical enviro organization Earthjustice. Truth was the main casualty at yesterday’s meeting…
Ahead of providing its third quarter 2017 update, yesterday Rex Energy, a driller focused mainly on the Marcellus/Utica (headquartered in State College, PA) has issued an update on two wells recently connected to sales. The two wells are located in Rex’s Butler County, PA “Moraine East” area. What’s unique is that both wells were completed with a newly revamped/tweaked completion design. Completions is that part of drilling a well when you frack it and hook it up to production. Rex doesn’t comment on how they tweaked their completion design. Typically, changing up completions may involve how long each frack stage is, the type (and quantity) of sand or other proppant used, the kind of slick water used, etc. Rex worked with an engineering firm to review their completions process and made some changes–and they are happy with the results. Initial daily production for the two wells averaged 9.4 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d). Rex reports the methane (natural gas) portion was 4 MMcf/d, NGLs of 820 barrels per day, and condensate averaged 70 barrels per day. Looks like Rex has a couple of winners, with more on the way using the new completion design…
Rex Energy, a driller focused mainly on the Marcellus/Utica (headquartered in State College, PA), is a plucky company. Although it has faced its share of financial challenges, it continues to drill in the Marcellus/Utica–bringing new wells online. Rex released an announcement yesterday to tout two new wells pads with a cumulative 10 new wells between them that the company has now brought online into production. Rex always refers to their drilling program in three areas: “Bulter Legacy” and “Moraine East” are drilled on Rex’s leases in Butler County, PA; “Warrior North” refers to Rex’s drilling program on land in Carroll County, OH. The latest two pads were both drilled in Rex’s Moraine East area of Butler County. One of the pads, the “Shields” pad with six wells, produced an initial cumulative rate of 9.2 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d), dropping to 7.9 MMcfe/d after 30 days. The “Mackrell” pad with four wells produced an initial cumulative rate of 8.4 MMcfe/d. No 30-day rate (yet) for the Mackrell pad. Here’s the particulars of our “little driller that could”…
Rex Energy began selling natural gas, gas liquids and condensate from its four newest wells, part of the “Baird” pad (in Butler County, PA) on May 31st. The company issued a press release yesterday to do some well-deserved crowing about their wells. Two of the wells (the 1H and 4H) are Marcellus wells and initial production is averaging 12.1 million cubic feet equivalent per day (Mmcfe/d). The other two wells (the 2H & 3H) target the Upper Devonian layer and initial production for those wells has been 8.1 Mmcfe/d. Rex also posted a new company PowerPoint presentation (full copy below) which shows a new 6-well pad in Butler County will go online to sales in August, another 4-well pad in September, and a 2-well pad and 4-well pad sometime in the fourth quarter. In addition, Rex expects to begin drilling a 3-well pad in the Ohio Utica (in Carroll County) in July…
THE Delaware Riverkeeper (i.e. Maya van Rossum) and a small group of anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (“Martians”) in Butler County, PA, have just suffered a crushing defeat in their years-long battle to prevent Rex Energy from drilling wells “near” a local school. Backed by money and legal help from Philadelphia Big Green groups Delaware Riverkeeper and Clean Air Council, the Martians filed frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit. The effort is aimed at denying landowners in Middlesex Township revenue from legally permitted drilling. The lawsuits have cost the taxpayers of Middlesex Township over $80,000 in legal fees. Even amid the back and forth lawsuits, at least two of the wells were permitted and drilled by Rex Energy, despite the bleatings of the Martians (see 
MDN spotted an announcement issue by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) stating they’ve assessed a $185,000 fine on the Constellation Pipeline and its builder EM Energy (i.e. EdgeMarc) for a series of violations when building the pipeline in 2014-2015. That sent us digging. We don’t recall a Constellation Pipeline (and we’ve been writing MDN since 2009). What is the pipeline? Where, in PA, is it located? What is its purpose? We think we found most of the answers…