Pennsylvania

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    Shakedown Complete: XTO Pays PA AG $400K to Make Case Go Away

    Make Him an Offer He Can't RefuseJust prior to going on trial for committing felonies while in office, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane (Democrat) needed something, ANYTHING, to distract the press from focusing on her own crimes. Since she took office in January 2013, Kane has targeted the Marcellus industry. One of the first high profile cases she manufactured (out of nothing) was to accuse XTO Energy of committing a crime in an accidental spill of a few thousand gallons of frack wastewater–an accident in Lycoming County, PA that happened years before she took office and didn’t have any long-term effects (see PA AG Abuses Her Authority, Files Criminal Charges Against XTO). The case Kane has tried to manufacture against XTO, launched in her first year in office, is finally over. Instead of dragging it out further, XTO decided to pay Kane $400,000 to make it all go away (called a shakedown in the organized crime world). Kane is settling with XTO using a “rehabilitation” program normally used for drunk drivers without a prior record–that’s how desperate she is to get this case settled and turn the focus away from herself for a few days. “Coincidentally” Kane’s own felony trial begins on Monday. It’ll be a sweet day to watch her frog marched out in leg irons when she’s convicted…
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    CELDF Loses Case to Represent Ecosystem – Turtles Disappointed

    Gavel-falling.jpgScore an important victory against the forces of darkness. The radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) does its best to trick townships into passing illegal bans on fracking and injection wells. In 2013 the CELDF fooled Highland Township in Elk County, PA into passing a ban on wastewater injection wells. They also tricked Grant Township in Indiana County, PA to do the same thing. Both towns are in court defending their illegal actions. One of the idiotic legal tactics used by the CELDF in both cases is to claim that an ecosystem is a “person” under the law–a person who can file to join the town’s lawsuit in an effort to protect itself (see It Speaks! An “Ecosystem” has Filed to Join a Lawsuit in PA). Of course the CELDF appoints itself as the representative of said ecosystem. It’s an asinine notion. Will the tree in my front yard sue me for cutting a branch off it? Will my gravel driveway sue me if I decide to pave it? Get real. Back to declaring victory. Pennsylvania General Energy (PGE) filed a lawsuit against Grant Township for $1 million for blocking construction of PGE’s legally permitted injection well. That CELDF has already said it won’t help Grant taxpayers foot the bill if they lose the lawsuit–after adopting the CELDF’s very own ban language (see Anti Group CELDF Won’t Help Grant Twp Pay $1M Judgement). Last week the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in PA ruled that a so-called ecosystem (the Little Mahoning Watershed) does NOT have standing in the case, completely rejecting the CELDF and their arguments. Grant Township taxpayers should be prepared to open up their wallets, they’re about to get soaked (note that the CELDF has already snuck out of town)…
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    PA’s Annual Oil and Gas Reports for 2013, 2014 & 2015

    PA DEPOn Tuesday MDN brought you what we thought was the very first Annual Oil and Gas Annual Report from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (see PA Releases 2015 Oil & Gas Annual Report (Very Cool)). In pretty short order we heard from several MDN readers that the DEP’s excellent report was, in fact, started in 2014 under then-Gov. Tom Corbett. We should have known such a useful report would be the creation of a Republican administration. MDN heard from Pat Henderson, formerly PA Gov. Tom Corbett’s Energy Executive and now Director of Regulatory Affairs for the excellent Marcellus Shale Coalition, about the report. The very first report was issued by the DEP in 2014 and covers 2013. Unfortunately the DEP under current Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf removed that report from the DEP website. But Pat kept a copy and sent it to us. Below we have all three Annual Oil and Gas Reports for PA, covering the years 2013, 2014 and 2015 (dated 2014, 2015 and 2016). Thanks Pat!…
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    PA Releases 2015 Oil & Gas Annual Report (Very Cool)

    cool stuffYesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued what we believe is the first-ever Oil and Gas Annual Report, covering last year (2015). We’ve never seen one of these reports before (full copy below). [UPDATE: MDN subscriber Michele W. wrote to tell us the DEP has been producing annual o&g reports since 2013. Thanks Michele!] Our hat is off to the DEP. This is an EXCELLENT report! It’s chock full of very cool graphs and tables and useful information–in particular about the unconventional (shale) drilling industry in the state, but also about the conventional oil and gas industry in PA. At a very high level, we learn that total production of natural gas in PA for 2015 was 4.6 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), versus 4.05 Tcf in 2014–and that’s with less drilling! Most of the production came from the Marcellus Shale layer, but the Utica and Point Pleasant formations are showing a noticeable uptick in production. Among the many charts and graphs is a table showing the Top 25 producers of natgas in the state (see our separate post today on that); the number of shale and conventional well permits issued, by year; number of permits issued by county in 2015 (and a table with the Top 5 counties); number of wells drilled by year for both shale and conventional; number of wells drilled by county in 2015; the list goes on! Take time to read through this fascinating report about the most productive natural gas shale play in the second highest-producing natgas state in the country…
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    PA’s Top 25 Natural Gas Producers in 2015

    Top 25Below is a chart from the just-released 2015 Oil and Gas Annual Report for Pennsylvania, from the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The report is full of great charts and graphs and useful details about both the shale and conventional drilling industry in the state (see today’s lead story, PA Releases 2015 Oil & Gas Annual Report (Very Cool)). It’s hard for us to select a favorite chart/graph from the report, there’s so many of them! However, the table below is on the short list. It is a table showing the Top 25 natural gas producers, along with the amount of natgas produced, for 2015. It may or may not surprise you to learn that the #1 natgas producer in PA for 2015 was….Chesapeake Energy! It certainly didn’t surprise us to see the company in the #2 slot–Cabot Oil & Gas. Here’s the full table…
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    Video: DEP Acting Sec McDonnell Wants to Recycle Article 78 Regs

    Comin Around Again - EditedStateImpact Pennsylvania is populated with partisan hacks who pretend to be reporters. One of them is Marie Cusick (who has a degree in political science, not journalism). We’ve often pointed out the extreme left-tilting political bias in StateImpact’s “articles” (i.e. propaganda). What really galls is that taxpayers help fund it, since StateImpact is a project of the Public Broadcasting Service. We hate having our tax money fund such skewed reporting. But we digress. Yesterday Marie Cusick did an interview with the Acting Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Pat McDonnell. You may recall that Pat’s predecessor, John Quigley, was fired for colluding with Big Green groups and using a private email address to do it (see Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired). Quigley, formerly from the anti-drilling PennFuture organization, was a rigid ideologue with a thin skin–someone who didn’t like his extreme views being challenged. Pat McDonnell, on the other hand, has been with the DEP on-and-off for the past 20 years. He’s a lifer. And it appears he’s not nearly as rigid as Quigley was. Cusick sat McDonnell down for a brief interview (watch it below). Among her questions: What about conventional Article 78 drilling regs? Is it back to the drawing board? According to McDonnell, the answer to that is “no.” He plans to dust off the rebuffed Article 78 drilling regs developed over the past five years and try to get a form of them palatable enough for the drilling industry to swallow…
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    Comprehensive List of Laws Coming at Marcellus/Utica in PA-OH-WV

    nortonrosefulbrightThe legal beagles at global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright have done us all a huge favor. Researchers have just issued a quarterly legislative action update for the second quarter of 2016 looking at previously laws acted upon, and new laws introduced, affecting the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The “Quarterly legislative action update: Marcellus and Utica shale region” (full copy below) begins with a quick listing by state for existing or new laws introduced, with descriptions for each bill/law. This is, in one place, pretty much everything you need to know about what new laws (i.e. regulations) are coming down the pike that will affect the Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling industry…
    Read More “Comprehensive List of Laws Coming at Marcellus/Utica in PA-OH-WV”

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    REV LNG Building Small-Scale LNG Facility Near Towanda, PA

    Yellow, green and red semi-trailer trucks stand side-by-side at a rest area in North America.

    We’ve unearthed what we think is a neat story about a company we’ve written about before: REV LNG. Through his work with Shale Daily, MDN editor Jim Willis has had the pleasure of working with, and learning about, the unique technology REV LNG has developed. The company is one of the very few in the United States that buys, transports and sets up “mobile filling stations” (at drill pad sites) so drillers can use liquefied natural gas (LNG) to power their equipment. REV LNG’s uniqueness is that it’s a turn-key service. Customers just pay a “per gallon” fee to fill it up, and REV LNG takes care of the rest. REV LNG was one of the winners of the Shale Gas Innovation Contest in 2013, taking home $25,000 to help spread their technology (see Envelope Please: Winners of Shale Gas Innovation Contest are…). REV LNG is putting the money to good use. REV LNG is using that money plus an $800,000 technology innovation award from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Alternative Fuels Incentive Grant Program to build a small-scale LNG facility near Towanda (Bradford County), PA, with possible plans to build another such facility in Potter County. The LNG produced by REV LNG will be used not only in the drilling industry, but also to power LNG truck fleets…
    Read More “REV LNG Building Small-Scale LNG Facility Near Towanda, PA”

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    NGL Exports Driving Pipeline Projects in OH & PA

    Mariner East 2
    Mariner East 2 – click for larger version

    NGLs (natural gas liquids, including ethane, propane and butane) are changing the midstream game in Ohio. We spotted a story in the Youngstown Business Journal that talks about shipping NGLs out of the Marcellus/Utica region–exporting them to other markets both domestic and international. A fascinating part of the article is an interview with Sunoco Logistics Partners about their Mariner East 1 and 2 projects and what Sunoco LP has planned…
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    Penn State Eats Crow: No Link Between Fracking & Earthquakes

    eat crowIn May MDN highlighted news that Penn State University had set up a seismic monitoring system throughout Pennsylvania to track earthquakes in the Keystone State (see Penn State Claims Link Between Fracking & Earthquakes, Without Research). We pointed out at the time that researchers had jumped the gun by theorizing fracking may be the cause for some of the earthquakes. At the time they said: “We have not done enough analysis of the data to make any conclusions yet, but there is a correlation spatially and temporally between the fracking and the earthquakes.” In other words, “We haven’t actually done the research, but we’re going to say there’s a connection between fracking and earthquakes–because we feel like it.” Now that they’ve done some of the research, those same Penn State researchers have changed their tune. What they say in a recently issued report is this: “The report found no correlation between the seismic events during that period and Marcellus Shale fracking or gas injection wells.” Sounds to us like they’re eating crow…
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    Cabot O&G Adds Crew, Drilling More Marcellus Wells than Forecast

    Cabot logoCabot Oil & Gas, one of our favorite large independent drillers in the Marcellus, issued their second quarter 2016 update last Friday. There was plenty of good news, but we’ll start with the bad news first. Cabot lost $63 million during 2Q16 versus losing $27.5 million in 2Q15. Compared to some oil and gas companies with losses in the billions per quarter, Cabot’s loss is inconsequential. We’d call it treading water, financially. The good news is that they are planning to drill and complete more wells than originally planned for 2016. That is, the market is picking up again. Cabot announced they recently added back a second completions crew in Susquehanna County, PA, the only county where they drill in PA. They still operate just a single rig, but that rig is accomplishing a lot for the company. At the beginning of 2016 Cabot planned to drill 25 Marcellus wells (see Cabot O&G 2015 Update; Cutting 2016 Drilling Budget 58%). In Friday’s update, the company said they now plan to complete an additional 15-20 Marcellus wells, over that original number. Good news indeed! In 2Q16 Cabot averaged 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of net Marcellus production (1.8 Bcf/d gross operated)–an increase of 14% compared to 2Q15. Below is Friday’s update…
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    PennEast Pipeline Responds to Sierra Club’s “Tittelations”

    PennEast Pipeline Route Map
    PennEast Pipeline Route Map – click for larger version

    Jeff Tittel, director of the radical, fringe New Jersey Sierra Club, tried to “Tittelate” green wackos in New Jersey and Pennsylvania to oppose the much-needed, completely safe Penn East Pipeline with a recent column (full of lies) published in the Easton (PA) Express-Times. Why mainstream newspapers continue to publish outright lies is beyond us–but that’s the day and age we live in. So it fell to Penn East to publish a response to Tittel’s column, to set the record straight…
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    Today is Last Day to Contact PA DEP re Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline

    please helpMDN sent an email to our list of daily headline subscribers last week (below). This is a quick reminder that today is the last day to show your support for the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project, being built by Williams, to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection. How? Just click this link and fill out the brief form to add your name to a letter being sent to the DEP. It will take you less than 60 seconds. It’s a small thing you can do to help this project get built–and to beat back the anti-fossil fuel naysayers. Please do it right now, as soon as you read this. Here’s the original letter we sent last week…
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    Epsilon Energy: Still No Marcellus Drilling, Focused on NEPA Pipe

    Epsilon EnergyCanadian driller and midstream company Epsilon Energy had a shareholder rebellion in 2013 and threw out the sitting board of directors (see Shareholder Rebellion at Epsilon Energy – New Board as of Today). Epsilon CEO Michael Raleigh announced at the time that the company had embarked on a turnaround strategy of focusing on the Marcellus Shale–less than a year after saying they would scale back in the Marcellus (see Epsilon Energy Makes “About-Face” on Marcellus Drilling). Epsilon was and remains a very small player in the Marcellus–but the Marcellus is it’s entire focus. The company released its second quarter 2016 update yesterday. From what we can tell, the company has not drilled, and doesn’t plan to drill, a single Marcellus well since 2014. However, they do own a 35% interest in the Auburn Gas Gathering system in the northeast PA Marcellus (Williams is majority owner with 44%). Epsilon’s capital expenditures for 2Q16 were a grand total of $100,000 (i.e. nothing), all of it spent on the Auburn system. Here’s the latest from Epsilon…
    Read More “Epsilon Energy: Still No Marcellus Drilling, Focused on NEPA Pipe”

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    PA Court Rejects Radicalized Kids’ Global Warming Lawsuit

    rejected.jpgLast August MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by a group of left coast radicalized children who want to force the federal government to become communist and “force action” on mythical climate change (see Group of Kids Sues U.S. Govt to Force Action on “Climate Change”). In January of this year, we brought you an update, telling you that radicalized, fringe Catholic groups had joined the cause with the ignorant children (see Climate Change Lawsuit by Radicalized Children Gets Interesting). What we didn’t know is that at the same time manipulating adults on the Left Coast were (ab)using children to file their lawsuit, the same thing was happening in Pennsylvania. A group of minors, being manipulated by radical adults, filed their own version of the same lawsuit. In PA the lawsuit asked the court to use the state’s so-called Environmental Rights Amendment to force the Executive Branch (i.e. the governor) to develop a plan to protect these poor, defenseless children against mythological man-made global warming. That is, it was a lawsuit to stop all drilling for oil and natural gas–flying under the guise of protecting PA citizens from “climate change.” On Tuesday, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania rejected this nonsensical lawsuit, tossing it out (full copy of the decision below). Now the radicalized children, still being manipulated by radicalized adults, are appealing the case to the PA Supreme Court…
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    Both Conventional & Shale Drillers Continue to Oppose New PA Regs

    just say no7/29/16 Update: Please see the note at the end of the article for a clarification on when/how the new Article 78a drilling regulations may (or may not) take effect.

    An update on the status of new drilling regulations in Pennsylvania. The short version: both the conventional and unconventional (shale) drillers in the state are actively opposing new regs, even though new shale regs were recently passed into law. The slightly longer explanation: those new shale regs, referred to as Article 78a, were voted on and signed into law in June (see PA Gov Wolf “Eager” to Sign Drilling Law Forced Down His Throat). At the same time, conventional drilling regulations were sent back to the drawing board before being introduced again. Although new shale regs were ostensibly adopted, they are not (yet) in force. The shale industry recently attempted to tweak the new regs to make them less onerous, but that effort failed last week (see Bill Tweaking Article 78a Shale Drilling Regs Dies in PA House). Where does it all stand now? New Article 78a regulations, as adopted, are undergoing a review at the PA Attorney General’s office. AG Kathleen Kane, a committed anti-driller, is going to trial in two weeks for committing felonies while in office (unrelated to drilling)–so she’s distracted. After the AG’s office signs off (who knows how long?), then the new regs will go into full force. Unless it can be stopped…
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