Accidents | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | Patterson-UTI | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp
Range Resources Drilling Rig Catches Fire in Lycoming County, PA
A Patterson-UTI drilling rig caught fire Monday night at a Marcellus well pad in Lycoming County, PA. The rig is contracted by Range Resources. The fire broke out around 10:30 pm Monday, shooting flames more than 100 feet high. The cause of the fire is not yet known, but it was not a “well-control incident” (out of control well burning)–that much is known. The local fire department chief credits the rig crew with getting things under control quickly. There were, thank God, no injuries.
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The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) finally got their reporting system back online after it had gone down for a second time in three weeks. We have collected the permits issued over a two-week period in this report, to catch things up (and because PA didn’t issue any permits for one of the two weeks). This current report shows permits issued from Monday, Feb. 28 through Sunday, Mar. 13. PA issued 15 new permits over the two-week period. The top permitees in PA were EQT and CNX, both with five permits each. In Ohio, 11 new permits were issued, with Encino Energy receiving four and Gulfport three permits. West Virginia also issued 11 new permits for the two-week period. Antero received six of WV’s permits, and both Southwestern Energy and Arsenal Resources scored two each.
As predicted last week by Reuters, Chesapeake Energy announced yesterday it is buying Marcellus driller Chief Oil & Gas plus associated non-operated assets from Tug Hill Operating for $2 billion in cash and approximately 9.44 million common shares. The total purchase price (given the current CHK stock price of $67/share) is roughly $2.6 billion. The combination makes Chesapeake a powerhouse driller in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus with 653,000 acres of leases.
Holy smokes! What just happened? For months (and months and months) the cumulative number of weekly permits issued to drill new shale wells in the Marcellus/Utica has fluctuated from the low teens to perhaps 30 total on the upper end. Last week, from Jan. 17-23, an amazing 61 permits were issued to drill new shale wells. Double the usual. Wow! Pennsylvania issued 24 new permits, Ohio issued 9, and blow-the-doors-off-we’ve-never-seen-so-many-permits-issued-in-one-week for West Virginia, the Mountain State issued 28 new shale permits.
In September MDN broke the news that Rockdale Marcellus had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (see 