EQT Dumps Marcellus Drilling, Concentrates on the Utica in 2016
In addition to releasing their third quarter 2015 results yesterday, the top brass from EQT also held an analyst phone call. On that call we got updated details from EQT’s president of exploration and production, Steven Schlotterbeck, about the single highest initial-producing Utica Shale well ever drilled, EQT’s Scotts Run 591340. We also heard from Steve about two more Utica wells they’re currently drilling–one in Greene County, PA (about five miles from the Scott’s Run well), and one in Wetzel County, WV. But the big news from yesterday’s call came from EQT CEO David Porges. He said EQT has decided to suspend drilling in central PA and in the Upper Devonian–anyplace outside of their “core” Utica locations. Essentially, EQT is giving up on the Marcellus (for now) and going after the Utica instead. This is certainly big news and affects landowners in Marcellus-only areas–pretty much any place outside of southwest PA and the northern panhandle of WV. Porges says IF the Utica pans out as expected, it will be bigger than the Marcellus production-wise over time. EQT’s current thinking is that they will trim their drilling program to concentrate on drilling 10-15 Utica wells in 2016…
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Part of the ongoing hit series in the Democrat-owned Harrisburg Patriot-News that attempts to smear the Marcellus industry (see 
Not long after she took office, Pennsylvania’s Democrat Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, brought criminal charges against XTO Energy for an accidental spill in Lycoming County, PA that happened two years before she was in office (see 
Here’s a thought: Why doesn’t the Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) convert more of the gas it buys to take gas from the nearby Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale and dump buying gas from the Gulf Coast–because PA’s gas is closer and much cheaper, it will result in lower costs for PGW and lower bills for consumers. Now, where do we go to collect our $1.5 million consulting fee for that fine idea? The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission contracted with Michigan consulting firm Schumaker & Company, Inc. to perform a top to bottom audit of the PGW. While we don’t know how much the audit cost, we did find a 2008 proposal from Schumaker to New York State touting the same kind of audit, with a total price tag (back then) of $1.3 million. So we figured with a little inflation the audit just turned in by Schumaker must have run at least $1.5M. The chief, number one suggestion by Schumaker? PGW can save $6-$7 million a year by buying more of its gas (60% more) from the Marcellus Shale region, upping it from the current 33% they buy from the Marcellus now. Maybe we should get into the consulting business. Sure pays better than blogging!…
In the 2014 campaign for governor of Pennsylvania, California billionaire Tom Steyer gave over $10 million to Tom Wolf’s campaign to help him get elected (see 
MDN has just published Volume 2 of the 
“No, really, I don’t have a drinking problem,” says the alcoholic who believes just one more drink won’t hurt. Such is the power of denial. That’s the analogy that went through our heads when we read this headline: “Wolf Says Legislators In Denial.” Wolf, the taxaholoic, is the one who is in denial. He’s not listening–to Republicans or to people in his own Democrat Party. Pennsylvanians don’t want his high tax “fix” of the budget. But Wolf is, choose your adjective: obstinate…obtuse…clueless…desperate. That last one is the most likely–desperate to pay back the teachers’ unions that elected him. He can’t afford to not boost taxes–on everyone and everything (especially the Marcellus Shale)–in order to fork big money over to Big Education. Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats together are working on a bi-partisan budget that they intend to pass without Wolf–with a veto-proof majority. Wolf is toast. He can’t govern, and he’s proved it. Time to govern around him…
In a sit-down in September with the editors of the Washington Observer-Reporter (near Pittsburgh), the PennFuture Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley, was reported to have said the following: “He [Quigley] is proposing to create an office of environmental justice within the department and hire “the right individual” to advise him on policy” (see 
A complicated court case just decided by Pennsylvania Superior Court has implications for all land and mineral rights owners in PA. The case is called Wright v. Misty Mountain Farm LLC. This is how we understand it. In 1950 Fred and Jeanetta Buck sold some property in Bradford County, PA to Robert and Marjorie Wright. However, the Bucks kept the oil/gas/mineral rights for themselves, having already leased the mineral rights for the property. The mineral rights lease eventually expired in 1971. At that time, Robert and Marjorie Wright, the surface owners, figured with the expiration of the lease, the mineral rights reverted to them–so they signed a lease to allow oil and gas drilling. In 1988 the Wrights signed over the property and the lease to David and Patricia Wright (we’re assuming son and daughter-in-law). David and Patricia signed new leases on the property in both 2001 and again in 2005. Eventually Jeanetta Buck died and in 2010 while reviewing her estate and its assets, Shirley Matthews, administratrix of the estate, discovered/claimed the mineral rights still belonged to the Bucks. So Matthews conveyed the subsurface mineral rights to Misty Mountain Farm LLC. Patricia Wright argued that the when the original lease made by the Bucks in 1950 expired, ownership of the mineral rights also expired–in 1971. A lower court and then the Superior Court disagreed and ruled that unless there is specific language saying that when a lease expires so too do the mineral rights, then the mineral rights still belong to the original rights owner. Whew. Get all that? Bottom line: Just because a lease expires it doesn’t mean the party who owns the mineral rights loses their claim on those rights…
The radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) does its best to trick townships into passing illegal bans. 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 
We wonder, do the liberal editors of the Democrat propaganda machine known as the Scranton Times-Tribune consider it “fair” to close down legitimate businesses that provide jobs and tax revenue to the state by targeting them with even higher taxes, forcing them out of business because they no longer turn a profit? Is “profit” a bad word around the news room of the Times-Tribune? Is the word “capitalism” banned from so-called reporters’ lips at the Times-Tribune? Those are the kinds of thoughts that roll around our brain box when we read yet another sycophantic “we need to tax the Marcellus industry more than we do already” editorial from the brainiacs at the Times-Tribune…
MDN has been highlighting stories and writing about potential water well contamination by Range Resources at their Yeager well and wastewater impoundment site in Amwell Township (Washington County), PA since 2012 (see MDN’s list of 
If landowners along the route of the PennEast Pipeline don’t sign a lease with the company, PennEast says they will be forced to (and will) use eminent domain to gain lease rights. The PennEast, as a reminder, is a proposed pipeline costing $1 billion that will run from Luzerne County, PA (near Wilkes-Barre) all the way to Mercer County, NJ (just outside of Trenton), flowing 1 billion cubic feet of clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas each and every day. Landowners along the pipeline’s route will still own the land, but there will be restrictions–you can’t erect a building over top of a pipeline, for example. PennEast looks at eminent domain as an absolute last resort. However, according to the radicals at the PA Sierra Club who are opposing the pipeline, around two-thirds of the landowners along the pipeline’s route have not yet signed a lease to allow the pipeline across their land. PennEast recently filed their official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) seems to have a grudge against EQT. Last October the DEP levied a $4.5 million fine against EQT over a leaky wastewater impoundment in Tioga County, PA (see 
It seems like almost every day we read the “bad news” that more rigs are being laid down in the Marcellus/Utica, and jobs are being lost. We’re in the midst of a vicious down cycle right now in the industry, waiting for light to appear at the end of this long tunnel. So when we spot a story, or press release (in this case) about a company selling to the industry that’s actually expanding rather than contracting, we like to highlight that good news. A company we’d not previously heard of, Inspectorate (aka Bureau Veritas, a French company), announced yesterday they have expanded their offices and laboratories in Linden (NJ), Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Inspectorate is a testing and inspection service for the oil and gas industry. The reason for their expansion in the northeast (and elsewhere in North America) is an uptick in demand for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) testing. Shale gas production drives increased market demand for propane, butane, and ethane, and along with it, the need to test it to ensure and verify quality…