Pennsylvania

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    Haynesville Shale Tops Marcellus Rig Count, 1st Time Since 2011

    The Haynesville Shale, found in East Texas and Louisiana, last week surpassed the Marcellus for total number of active drilling rigs. That’s the first time the Haynesville has had more active rigs than the Marcellus since 2011–six years. What’s up with the “sleepy” Haynesville? It’s not so sleepy anymore. Last year one of the biggest and best drillers in the Marcellus, Range Resources, paid $4.4 billion to buy out and take over a Louisiana driller (see Range Resources Buys Louisiana Driller in Deal Worth $4.4B). Range drills in the Terryville Field in Louisiana, which sits just over top of the Haynesville. This year Range is spending 34% of their capital expenditure budget on Louisiana drilling–money that could have been spent in the Pennsylvania Marcellus. Why is the Haynesville picking up again? (1) It costs less to drill in Louisiana because taxes and other drilling costs are lower, and (2) pipeline infrastructure is already in place to sell the gas into higher-paying markets. This is a very loud warning to those in PA who say “drillers won’t go anywhere else ’cause the gas is here” as a justification for slapping a severance tax on top of the impact fee on top of a corporate state income tax: THEY’RE ALREADY LEAVING PENNSYLVANIA, going to the Haynesville and other plays. How obtuse can you be? How stupid is it to RAISE taxes when drillers are already shifting away from the state? If PA lawmakers insist on slapping drillers with a severance tax, drillers will be happy to turn the spigots off for a while until prices go up and they can afford to pay the tax. Drillers are equally happy to spend their money drilling new wells in other states, given regulatory problems and high taxes. And then where will your “easy money” come from to balance an overspent state budget?…
    Read More “Haynesville Shale Tops Marcellus Rig Count, 1st Time Since 2011”

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    Faux “Conservative” Group Runs Attack Ads re Fixing PA DEP

    We have more evidence that a so-called “Conservative” environmental group, calling themselves Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, is anything but conservative. Let’s strip the euphemisms away, shall we? Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship is a group of liberal Democrats pretending to be conservative Republicans. It is a pretense. A lie. How do we know? It all goes back to the budget bill passed by the Pennsylvania Senate. Republicans, which control both the House and Senate in Pennsylvania, passed an unbalanced budget of $32 billion. Problem is, there’s only $30 billion of projected revenue. So after passing the spending part of the budget, the legislature (i.e. Republicans) now have to “come up with” $2 billion to cover the difference. The pressure has been intense to punish the successful Marcellus industry by stealing even more of their money (PA already takes an overly generous portion of their profits). Senate Republicans caved to the pressure and floated a spending plan that includes a severance tax (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill). The House, so far, has resisted the siren song that wants to lure them onto the rocks of killing the Marcellus industry. The Marcellus industry has, for years, complained about the sloooooooow response times in approving drilling permits by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). As an olive branch to the industry, Senate Republicans also included (in the budget bill) fixes to the slow DEP, to speed things up (see PA Senate’s “Olive Branch” of “Relaxed Regulations” for Drillers). So-called Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship are now spending big money advertising against the Republicans who voted for the budget bill because of the DEP fix included. Thing is, a LOT of PA Senate Democrats (11 of 17) also voted for that budget–but “Conservatives” for Responsible Stewardship isn’t spending a dime to run advertising against the Democrats. What does that tell you?…
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    Chester County, PA Town Floats Illegal Pipeline Ordinance

    Uwchlan Township in Chester County (near Philadelphia) has put itself on a path to get sued. The town is in the process of proposing and adopting new zoning ordinances that govern how pipelines can get built within town boundaries. The problem, of course, is that they don’t have that right. Federal pipeline projects are governed by federal law and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. State pipeline projects are governed by the state’s Public Utility Commission. Local yahoos can’t just take it on themselves to overturn federal and state law. Sorry boys and girls, it doesn’t work that way. You’ll need to suppress your inner anarchist. Some of the things the town wants sounds pretty tame: install secure fencing at the site, have an evacuation plan ready. But some things are certain litigation waiting to happen: pipeline operators must compensate the town for “any loss of tax revenue that results from a decline in real estate values” caused by construction the pipeline. And how, prey tell, will the town calculate that? Home values go up and down with the wind–year in and year out. Many factors beyond a pipeline affect property values. This is real hubris on the part of Uwchlan…
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    Dela. Riverkeeper Loses Fed. Court Case Against NEPA Pipeline

    In March, Big Green group THE Delaware Riverkeeper (leftist political lobbying arm for the William Penn Foundation that funds it) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third District requesting the court overturn a Clean Water Act permit granted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Kinder Morgan’s Orion Project in northeast Pennsylvania. Yesterday, in a humiliating defeat, the Third Circuit rejected Riverkeeper’s request and ruled the Army Corps was well within its right to grant the permit (full copy of the ruling below). In October 2015, Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) filed their official, full application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking approval for the Orion Project (see Tennessee Gas Pipeline Files PA Orion Project with FERC). The project will cost $143 million and construct 13 miles of “looping” pipeline in Pike and Wayne counties, Pennsylvania. The project will boost capacity on the TGP by another 135 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), allowing TGP to pump more Marcellus Shale gas to Mid-Atlantic and New England states. The project received full FERC approval in February of this year (see TGP Orion Project in NEPA Gets Final Approval by FERC). The project remains on track to be built/online in June 2018…
    Read More “Dela. Riverkeeper Loses Fed. Court Case Against NEPA Pipeline”

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    More Pushback on PA Senate Plan to Fix Slow DEP Permit Reviews

    There is a growing storm of opposition to a plan put forward by the Pennsylvania Senate in the current budget bill to fix the problem of long delays in issuing permits by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). Enough traitorous Republicans in the Senate joined with just about all of the Democrats in the Senate to pass a budget bill that slaps new taxes on natural gas–a severance tax on drillers and a gross receipts tax on consumers (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill). As an olive branch to the industry, Senate Republicans also included (in the budget bill) fixes to the slow DEP, to speed things up (see PA Senate’s “Olive Branch” of “Relaxed Regulations” for Drillers). The DEP has a policy of issuing erosion and sedimentation permits 14 days from the date of application. These types of permits are common and necessary when building roads, well pads, etc. Lately it has taken the DEP 250 days to issue those permits! Permits related to drilling wells are supposed to take no more than 45 days. Those permits now average 93 days. The DEP is hopelessly backlogged–and it’s getting worse. The Senate olive branch was meant to address this serious issue. But of course antis have (and continue) to come out in force to oppose the fix. Now, an assortment of previous Secretaries of the DEP have also voiced their concerns about the plan–including a voice we highly respect, Michael Krancer…
    Read More “More Pushback on PA Senate Plan to Fix Slow DEP Permit Reviews”

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    Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement Pipeline Advances in PA

    In March of this year, Williams filed a full, official application for the Northeast Supply Enhancement project (see Williams Files with FERC to Expand Transco Pipeline to NYC, NE). The new project is meant to increase pipeline capacity and flows heading into northeastern markets. In particular, Transco wants to provide more Marcellus natural gas to utility giant National Grid beginning with the 2019-2020 heating season. National Grid operates in New York City, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. There are a number of components to the project, but the key component, the heart of the project, is a new 23-mile pipeline from the shore of New Jersey into (on the bottom of) the Raritan Bay–running parallel to the existing Transco pipeline–before connecting to the Transco offshore. Much of the Raritan Bay pipeline is located in New York territorial waters. In a case of “here we go again,” the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which has been corrupted and politicized by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, sent a notice to Williams in July (to their Transco subsidiary) to declare the application for a 401 water-crossing permit for the Northeast Supply Enhancement project is deemed “incomplete,” pending certain items (see NY DEC Tells Williams NE Supply Water Permit App is “Incomplete”). However, NY isn’t the only state involved. The project wants to build 10 miles of pipeline, build four roads and build a new compressor station (next to an existing compressor) in Pennsylvania. Even though the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been slow in issuing permits for drilling (see today’s story More Pushback on PA Senate Plan to Fix Slow DEP Permit Reviews), the DEP is far less dysfunctional than the NY DEC. The last Saturday the DEP published a notice in the Pennsylvania Bulletin that the agency will issue the necessary permits for the project in PA after a public comment period that ends on Sept. 18…
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    PA Senate Slips Anti-Landowner Measure into State Budget Bill

    Not only did the Pennsylvania Senate pull a real boner by voting for a severance tax and gross receipts tax (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill), they also slipped another provision in the PA budget bill that, until now, has gone unnoticed. This new provision has big implications for both landowners and drillers. The Senate slipped in Section 1610 (see the language below) which changes established lease law with respect to oil and gas wells that no longer produce anything. Under existing law, when an oil or gas well stops producing–and the landowner quits getting royalty checks–the lease is considered terminated. Done. Finished. Under Section 1610, drillers can resurrect those dead leases under a couple of conditions. If the landowner doesn’t officially state “your lease is now dead since you’re not producing anything” a driller quick-like-a-bunny restarts production at the well and sends the landowner a check, it would re-start (or continue) the existing lease with its existing terms. Or if the driller sends a notice to the landowner stating its intention to drill a new well on the property, and if the landowner doesn’t object (given a 3-month time limit), the driller is free to begin drilling a NEW well, under the OLD lease terms. Section 1610 really stinks, in our humble opinion. It means a driller can drill a new shale well after an old conventional/vertical well quits producing–without having to sign a new lease or pay a new bonus or negotiate a new royalty rate. Doesn’t seem right to us!…
    Read More “PA Senate Slips Anti-Landowner Measure into State Budget Bill”

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    Businesses Learn How to Get a Piece of $6B Shell Cracker Pie

    As the mighty $6 billion Shell ethane cracker begins construction in Beaver County, PA, plenty of local (and regional) businesses are asking the question: How can we get in on the action? How can we win contracts for goods and services? The Beaver County Chamber of Commerce aimed to help answer that question yesterday at a 3-hour event held at the Club at Shadow Lakes. The “Doing Business in the Era of Shell” seminar drew a crowd of 300+. Some of the speakers were from Louisiana–where they went through a similar process when SASOL built an $11 billion petrochemical project there. Here is some of the wisdom passed along to those who attended…
    Read More “Businesses Learn How to Get a Piece of $6B Shell Cracker Pie”

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    PA State Senator Floats Bill to Make Criminal Protesters Pay

    PA residents in Lancaster County have a keeper in freshman Senator Scott Martin. Back in May MDN reported that Martin was cooking up legislation to send the cleanup bill for illegal protests–to the protesters (see PA State Senator Introducing Law to Send Protesters Cleanup Bill). The bill is now here–Senate Bill (SB) 754 (full copy below). Sen. Martin has refined his ideas. Law and order folks (those of us who are sane, rational people) are tired of the lawless actions by a few who oppose pipelines, drilling, Trump…whatever. Sen. Martin and those in the drilling/pipeline industry fully support free speech the right of antis to make fools of themselves. It provides entertainment! What Sen. Martin and those in the industry don’t support, however, is when paid protesting thugs break the law by destroying property and blocking access to legal businesses attempting to do legal work. We saw how so-called environmentalists (who were actually anarchists) “protested” in South Dakota–leaving behind an environmental disaster that cost millions to clean up–far worse than any pipeline spill would have been. Police and first responders were deployed–at a cost of millions of dollars. South Dakota bore most of the cost. That is, taxpayers paid for it. Under Sen. Martin’s bill, if protesters break the law while protesting in PA, incidents that require police and other first responders to handle the situation, those law-breaking protesters will pay the cost of said police and first responders. WE LOVE IT! It’s about time people were actually held accountable for their illegal actions…
    Read More “PA State Senator Floats Bill to Make Criminal Protesters Pay”

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    Faux “Conservative” Group Campaigns Against Fixing PA’s Broken DEP

    A national group of antis calling themselves “conservative” are attempting to meddle in the affairs of Pennsylvania. If you’ve been reading MDN for any time, you know about the current huge, stinking mess of a budget in Pennsylvania. Republicans, which control both the House and Senate, passed an unbalanced budget of $32 billion. Problem is, there’s only $30 billion of projected revenue. So after passing the spending part of the budget, they now have to “come up with” $2 billion to cover the difference. The pressure has been intense to punish the successful Marcellus industry by stealing even more of their money (PA already takes an overly generous portion of their profits). Senate Republicans caved to the pressure and floated a spending plan that includes a severance tax (see Traitorous PA Senate Republicans Pass Severance Tax Bill). The House, so far, has resisted the siren song that wants to lure them onto the rocks of killing the Marcellus industry. So far. The Marcellus industry has, for years, complained about the sloooooooow response times in approving drilling permits by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). As an olive branch to the industry, Senate Republicans also included (in the budget bill) fixes to the slow DEP, to speed things up (see PA Senate’s “Olive Branch” of “Relaxed Regulations” for Drillers). Now we hear from some national group, calling themselves Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, that the PA Senate plan to fix the DEP will create an environmental holocaust. Let us assure you, there is nothing “conservative” about Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. They are Big Green liberals pretending to be conservative. They’re now spending big money (from their Big Green friends) to advertise, in a bid to pressure the legislature to dump the “fix the DEP” plan…
    Read More “Faux “Conservative” Group Campaigns Against Fixing PA’s Broken DEP”

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    PA Gov. Wolf’s Non-Response Response on Atlantic Sunrise Delays

    Over the past year or more MDN editor Jim Willis has signed numerous petitions supporting the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project–but it wasn’t until he signed one at a recent Williams event that the got a response from Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf. Atlantic Sunrise is a $3 billion, 198-mile natural gas pipeline project, most of which will get built in northeast Pennsylvania. The project is ready to begin construction, NOW, but still needs a few permits from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In an attempt to get the DEP (and Gov. Wolf) moving, Williams co-hosted an event in July to pressure the DEP and Wolf into granting final permits (see Atlantic Sunrise Pipe Rally: ‘Time to Kick Politicians in the Ass’). As guests entered the event, held at the Shadowbrook Golf Course in Wyoming County, PA, they were asked to sign a petition supporting the project. The petitions were delivered to Gov. Wolf and the DEP. Perhaps signing a paper petition, instead of an online/electronic petition, did the trick. MDN received a form letter email response from Gov. Wolf (below). In his response, Gov. Wolf says he supports pipeline development, but that he also supports “strong regulations” to protect people’s health, water, air, blah-biddy blah blah. It is a masterful example of saying nothing at all, while trying to appear you’re saying something. Here’s what we “heard” in Wolf’s response: Screw you–the project will get approved when it gets approved and I don’t care when that is”…
    Read More “PA Gov. Wolf’s Non-Response Response on Atlantic Sunrise Delays”

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    Babst Calland Adds 6 New Lawyers in Pittsburgh O&G Practice

    Babst Calland is one of the biggest and best energy law firms in the northeast, with its headquarters in Pittsburgh. MDN is a long-time fan and reader of the company’s Shale Energy Law Blog. One of the ways you know whether the shale industry is getting busier, or less busy, is to watch the law firms that practice in the shale space. Here’s a bit of good news to share. Babst Calland has, in one fell swoop, added six new members to its energy practice–all of them with experience and expertise in oil and gas. Yes, the firm already has some 130 attorneys on staff. Adding another 6 energy lawyers boosts the size of the firm’s headcount another 5%. That’s pretty significant–and evidence that the Marcellus/Utica shale space is heating up. Here’s BC’s announcement of who just joined up…
    Read More “Babst Calland Adds 6 New Lawyers in Pittsburgh O&G Practice”

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    Findlay Twp Signs Deal w/Range to Drill Under Town Park, $3K/Acre

    Findlay Township (Allegheny County, PA, west of Pittsburgh) has just signed a deal with Range Resources to allow drilling under (not on) the towns 61-acre Clinton Park. Terms of the deal: Findlay gets a $3,000 per acre signing bonus and when the gas begins to flow, an 18% royalty. That means Findlay will get a nice, fat check for $183,000 in the next 90 days. The lease has been a long time in coming. Town supervisors worked on a deal five years ago, but then drilling slowed down and the deal was “put on the shelf.” Range will actually drill under the property from the Seibel Farm, which sits just over the border in Beaver County. The board of supervisors voted unanimously to approve the deal…
    Read More “Findlay Twp Signs Deal w/Range to Drill Under Town Park, $3K/Acre”

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    Shell Cracker Plans to Build Truck Facility in Washington County

    Click for larger version

    Please note: Thanks to MDN reader Todd S. from Washington County, PA for correcting our map/distance from the Starpointe Business Park to the cracker plant location in Monaca, PA. Our previous Google map showed an incorrect distance (46 miles). It is actually ~28 miles. The story below has been corrected to reflect it.

    It looks like Shell is going to build a trucking dispatch operation for its ethane cracker–but it won’t be located anywhere near the cracker site. The new trucking facility will be located in Washington County, PA–a half hour away. MDN was one of the first to announce Shell’s final investment decision to build an ethane cracker plant (that we now know will cost $6 billion) in Beaver County, PA (see Breaking: Shell Pulls the Trigger, PA Ethane Cracker is a Go!). A lot has happened at the site, situated on a former zinc smelting plant site in Monaca, PA. Shell built a new access road for trucks accessing the site–a concrete bridge overtop an adjacent highway–even before the final investment decision (see Shell Begins Building Bridge to PA Cracker Plant Site). Shell leased a huge office building and parking lot near the site (see Shell Leases 76,000 Sq Ft Office Space Near Cracker Plant Site). Shell even leased part of a nearby mall parking lot, for workers to park there (see More Evidence that the Shell Ethane Cracker Plant in PA is a Go). Everything we’ve seen thus far seems to be activity in and around Monaca–in Beaver County. That is, until now. A meeting yesterday of the Washington County (PA) Board of Commissioners hinted that Shell is about to build a facility there. Yesterday the commissioners voted to approve a new 31-acre development with a “90-bay distribution center and trucking dispatch operation” at Starpointe Business Park, in Hanover Township. The resolution contained this language in describing the project: “…to construct a two-unit building for Shell.” County officials and Shell officials won’t confirm a thing, but it seems pretty likely Shell is planning to build a big trucking facility in the business park, which is (by our calculations) about 28 miles and a half hour from the cracker site…
    Read More “Shell Cracker Plans to Build Truck Facility in Washington County”

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    Lawrence County, PA O&G Production “Inching Upward Again”

    Lawrence County, located along Pennsylvania’s border with Ohio, is not the first county you think of when discussing Marcellus/Utica drilling in western PA. There have been no permits to drill new shale wells in Lawrence so far this year. However, the county does have 58 operating shale wells–and the amount of gas those wells produce is gradually rising. All but 10 of the wells are owned and operated by Hilcorp. Most of the wells are located in just two townships: Pulaski and Mahoning. Linda Nitch, executive director of economic business development for the Lawrence County Regional Chamber of Commerce, believes Hilcorp is pumping more gas from the wells it owns in Lawrence. She’s hearing from some landowners that their royalty checks are “getting a little bigger”…
    Read More “Lawrence County, PA O&G Production “Inching Upward Again””

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    Philly Refinery “Mired in Debt” – Fights for Survival

    In 2012, Sunoco inked a deal with The Carlyle Group to form a joint venture to keep Philadelphia’s historic refinery operating (see Sunoco & Carlyle Group Ink Joint Venture for Philly Refinery). The jv was called Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), and its CEO was the charismatic Philip L. Rinaldi, who was called “fossil Phil.” The refinery flourished–and saved 850 jobs. But PES hasn’t been without its challenges. They tried to expand their operation at the Southport Marine site in Philadelphia by leasing an additional 200 acres to build a terminal for shale oil imports and exports. But in the end, Gov. Wolf (a dunce) decided the land next to the refinery would be better used as a parking lot for imported cars coming from Japan (see PA Gov Wolf Kills Plan for PES Refinery Expansion in Philadelphia). Late last year fossil Phil decided to hang it up and retire (see PES’ Phil Rinaldi Stepping Down; Will Philly Energy Hub Die?). Can’t blame him. PES is now, according to Bloomberg, in a fight for its survival. The culprit is the exorbitant (we’d call it extortionist) fees PES must pay the federal government for something called Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs. What are they? And will they spell the end of PES?…
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