Getting Marcellus NatGas to Customers without Pipelines
NOTE: This post was updated on 7/30/15 per the request of Compass Natural Gas Partners. The updates reflect that Compass does not market to rural communities/end users, but rather to manufacturers, fleets and businesses that are not located near natural gas pipelines. We thank Compass for setting the record straight. – Jim Willis, Editor, MDN
Wouldn’t it be great if you could sell Pennsylvania’s abundant, clean-burning and cheap Marcellus Shale gas to areas without access to a pipeline or natural gas? Just wave the magic wand and presto-magico gas is delivered to manufacturers, fleets and businesses where no infrastructure now exists. That’s the premise behind a very real company that aims to accomplish that lofty objective. Compass Natural Gas Partners, based in Camp Hill, PA, is building a first of its kind compressed natural gas (CNG) terminal in Lycoming County, PA that will accept Marcellus Shale gas in, clean it up (get rid of the water in it), compress it to 3600 psi, and load it into specially designed trailers that haul it to customers. If this project catches on, it has the power to change how natgas is distributed to locations with no pipelines…
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Must be that new advertisement airing in Pennsylvania warning folks against Gov. Tom Wolf’s Marcellus-killing 15% severance tax is having an effect. How can we tell? Because mainstream media outlets like the ABC affiliate in Harrisburg is manufacturing a false controversy about who’s behind the ads–quoting anti-drillers like Jan Jarrett from the non-transparent partisan group called the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center–to distract people from the effectiveness of the ad. Plus, the pro-Democrat Harrisburg Patriot-News doesn’t even bother manufacturing a false controversy–they just outright criticize and ridicule the ad, not even bothering with a veneer of objectivity…
In February 2014 there was an explosion and fire at a Chevron well pad that eventually spread from one Marcellus well to a second well on the same well pad in Greene County, PA (see 
Let the drilling begin! The three members of the Middlesex Zoning Hearing Board (Butler County, PA, where the Mars School District is located) voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject challenges by anti-drillers to changes in zoning laws that allow Rex Energy to drill a series of wells on a pad about 3/4 of a mile from the Mars School. Four Martian parents have worked themselves up into a frenzy, convincing themselves that faraway drilling will harm their precious, innocent lil’ chil’ren. The Martians have enlisted the help of anti-drilling groups from the opposite side of the state–the Philadelphia area–tapping into their deep pockets to fund endless lawsuits and appeals that are costing Middlesex taxpayers big bucks to defend (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection is wading into an area that’s likely best left to towns and municipalities: regulation of noise coming from Marcellus Shale drilling operations. The DEP wants drillers to craft a site-specific plan for noise mitigation for each and every well pad they drill. Problem is, the DEP won’t give drillers any standards against which to devise their plans. That is, the DEP isn’t willing to say “this loud is too loud at this distance from the drill site.” Drillers are understandably confused. How do you draw up a plan with no standards/no regulations? The DEP says noise is a funny thing–it can carry in one place but not another. They claim you can’t draw up hard and fast guidelines. One noise expert says trying to figure out the source of noise (and how to prevent it) is “sort of chasing ghosts”…