EQT Pays PA DCNR $874,200 to Lease Under Ten Mile Creek
This is a story that continues to bug us. The state of Pennsylvania, specifically the Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), is grabbing money that we think belongs to private landowners. The DCNR has been, for years, claimed that under a centuries-old law that the state of PA “owns” the property under “navigable” waterways–including rivers and streams (see PA DCNR Publishes Lease Agreements for Deals Under Rivers/Creeks). We understand the state claiming the Delaware River, and maybe the Susquehanna River, is a “navigable” body of water. The DCNR uses the “navigable waterway” excuse to sign leases with drillers under much smaller waterways than the Delaware and Susquehanna–siphoning money that would have gone to landowners. A landowner might own the land on both sides of, say, Ten Mile Creek, as we’re sure happens. However, the land under Ten Mile Creek does not technically belong to them. In fact, certain long portions of the land under Ten Mile Creek are now leased to EQT, and EQT paid handsomely for it. The company leased 218.55 acres under Ten Mile Creek in Greene and Washington counties (southwestern PA) for $874,200, which works out to be exactly $4,000 per acre! Not to mention a whopping 20% royalty! That’s money that (in our opinion) should go to the landowners who own the land along the creek, not to the state. Until landowners sue or the legislature acts, the state will continue to pick the pockets of landowners who own land along PA’s waterways…
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The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just collected a whopping $1.7 million fine from Energy Corporation of America (ECA) for violations at 17 well sites in Cumberland, Jefferson, and Whiteley Townships in Greene County, and Goshen Township in Clearfield County. ECA’s violations? “Failure to properly contains fluids in onsite pits, unauthorized discharge of industrial waste into groundwater, unauthorized disposal of residual waste, failure to restore the pits and well sites, and operating solid waste storage, treatment, and transfer facilities without permits.” Pretty serious stuff. Essentially, ECA (according to DEP) was sloppy in how they handled flowback and brine, using open pits to store it long after their use was outlawed under new Chapter 78a regulations were adopted. Spills from those pits contaminated a water well of one nearby resident. It’s interesting to MDN that as you read the consent order (full copy below), not only is ECA listed, but also “Greylock Production.” You may recall our news from late last year that ECA reorganized itself under a new name–Greylock Energy–shafting existing shareholders in favor of a new investor, ArcLight Capital (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has fined CNX Resources (formerly CONSOL Energy/CNX Gas) $433,500 for violations at four shale well sites in Greene County, PA. The violations, which happened in 2015/2016, include failure to control and dispose of wastewater properly and failure to prevent erosion. Some of the flowback/wastewater ended up in a small stream called Jacobs Run. We always find the language of these announcements by the DEP somewhat strange: “CNX Gas Company, LLC (CNX) has agreed to two civil penalties totaling $433,500 for violations at well sites in Greene County.” Really? The company getting fined has to “agree” to accept the fine? Apparently we don’t fully understand how regulatory agencies work in PA. What if CNX didn’t agree to the fine? Would the DEP come back with a lower amount, “Will you accept this fine instead?” But we digress. CNX themselves noticed the problems and self-reported the violations. After doing so, they fired two of the service companies they were using. The unnamed service companies were obviously guilty of cutting corners that resulted in improper disposal of wastewater. Interesting factoid: Half of all the wells CNX has drilled in PA are located in Greene County…
In early October MDN told you about a second Marcellus gas-fired electric generating plant being planned for Greene County, PA (see 
In March MDN brought you the news that APV Renaissance Partners (a subsidiary of American Power Ventures) wants to build a 1000 megawatt, combined-cycle power plant at the old Hatfield’s Ferry site in Greene County, PA–to be powered with Marcellus Shale gas (see 
In reporting on APV Renaissance Partners’ plan to build a 1000 megawatt electric power plant in Monongahela Township (Greene County), PA, today, we noticed an interesting closing paragraph in the story we quoted, which says: “Another energy company, Hill Top Energy Center, also has proposed constructing a natural gas power plant in Greene County. Hill Top has proposed building a 536-megawatt plant on 41 acres of land off Thomas Road in Cumberland Township. A public hearing on Hill Top’s proposed air quality plan will be held by DEP at 6 p.m. Nov. 2 in the Carmichaels Area High School auditorium.” A second Marcellus-fired power plant planned for Greene! Who knew? We went searching for details we could find to share with you about this second project, which will get a DEP hearing in a month…
NGI’s Shale Daily has done it again. Ace reporter Jamison Cocklin has unearthed news that (so far) no one else has: Rice Energy has quietly, confidentially, hush-hush purchased all of the assets of LOLA Energy. The sale raises a lot of questions. But first, who is LOLA? No, not the show girl in Barry Manilow’s 1978 hit song Copacabana. LOLA Energy was birthed near the end of 2015, by former EQT executives using $250 million of private equity money from Denham Capital (see 
In March MDN brought you the news that APV Renaissance Partners (a subsidiary of American Power Ventures) will submit a permit to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) “within the next month” for a combined-cycle power plant at the old Hatfield’s Ferry site in Greene County, PA–to be powered with Marcellus Shale gas (see 
It’s hard to keep track of all the Marcellus and Utica Shale-fired electric plants being planned, built and going online. We recently highlighted a list of 11 such projects getting built in Ohio (see 
Rice Energy turned in it’s 2016 update this week, along with a look at what’s coming in 2017. As for top line financial numbers, Rice lost about the same in 2016 as they did in 2015: A loss off $298 million in 2016 vs. a loss of $291 million in 2015. Although Rice owns and drills on a small acreage position in the Texas Barnett Shale, the vast majority of their focus continues to be in the Marcellus/Utica. The company plans to spend $1.5 billion in 2017, broken out as follows: $1.035 billion for drilling and completion activity in the Marcellus/Utica shale plays; $225 million for land purchases; and $315 million spent by Rice Midstream ($255 million for gas gathering and compression and $60 million on water services). With that money, Rice expects to drill 75 new wells and complete another 55 wells in the Marcellus in 2017. In the Utica, Rice plans to drill 20 new wells and complete 20 wells in 2017. Land acquisition will happen in three counties: Greene and Washington Counties (in PA), and Belmont County (in OH). How much will they pay, on average, to lease new acreage? We have an answer for that…
The sharp folks over at the Pittsburgh Business Times have been looking through data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and have compiled a list of 20 drillers who have at least a dozen shale wells in the southwest PA region. And they ranked them from lowest to highest. We’ve grabbed the list below. The interesting thing for MDN is that there is one name in the list not familiar to us, and we’ve been watching this space since 2009. Always fun to learn something new. Here’s the list of southwest PA’s “Top 20” Marcellus drillers…
It’s certainly not THE highest, but it is certainly one of the highest fines we’ve seen assessed by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). Yesterday the DEP fined Rice Energy $3.5 million “for multiple violations of environmental laws at 10 well sites and 6 pipeline locations.” The violations, spanning “several years,” occurred at sites in Washington and Greene counties. Here’s the details…
We spotted an article on the topic of forced pooling in Pennsylvania. Forced pooling is always an interesting topic for MDN. However, it was not pooling, but the article’s details on three southwestern counties in PA that really caught our attention. According to the author (in quoting two geology experts), Allegheny County (i.e. Pittsburgh), along with nearby Washington and Greene counties are located in the “core of the core” or the very best of the very best parts of the Marcellus Shale play. The article also references research by Range Resources which says Allegheny and Washington counties have the “highest in-place gas reserves not only in the Appalachian Basin but ‘perhaps the world’.” Yikes! That’s pretty enthusiastic language about the gas supplies trapped under Pittsburgh and surrounding areas–and great news for landowners in those counties…
In 2014 Pennsylvania anti-drillers from a local chapter of the Izaak Walton League, a so-called conservation organization, attempted a smear job on the Marcellus Shale industry. They alleged that shale drillers were illegally dumping frack wastewater in an abandoned coal mine, the Clyde Mine, which sits near the Ten Mile Creek where the creek joins the Monongahela River. According to the smearmeisters, the illegally dumped wastewater was leaking out of the mine and into Ten Mile Creek (see 
This is an important story for both drillers and rig workers, potentially answering the question of who can and can’t be sued if something goes wrong when drilling a well. In 2006 Atlas Resources leased land in Greene County, PA to drill shale wells. In 2007 Atlas hired Gene D. Yost & Son, Inc. to drill wells for Atlas, including on the land leased in Greene County. Yost was the subcontractor, employing people to do the work using Yost’s equipment. As workers were removing drill pipe, preparing to shut in the well, there was an accident which appears to be operator error. One man, Rock A. Doman, was killed. The Doman family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Atlas Energy for negligence. After years of litigation and court findings, an appeals court ruled last week that Atlas is, in fact, a “statutory employer” under PA law, meaning they are immune from such lawsuits. That is, because Atlas hired another company for that company’s services, they (Atlas) cannot be held responsible for what the company they hired theoretically did or did not do. In this case, Yost’s “negligence” (if indeed there was any negligence) is not transferable to Atlas…