Pennsylvania

Energy Companies | Energy Services | Pennsylvania | Shell | Tioga County (PA) | UGI Energy Services | Utica Shale

UGI First Utility in PA with Direct Connection to Utica Shale
November 13, 2014November 13, 2014

The next big story for the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale is not the Marcellus…it’s the Utica Shale, a layer a few thousand feet below the Marcellus. Our first piece of evidence? In September we brought you the exciting news that Shell has drilled six Utica wells in Tioga County, PA, two of them going online with stellar production (see Shell Drills 2 Successful Utica Wells in NEPA Marcellusland). Our second piece of evidence? UGI, a major utility company in Pennsylvania, reports they’ve just hooked one of those Utica wells into their natural gas distribution system–making UGI the first PA utility to directly tap into a Utica Shale well for retail residential delivery…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide PA

Bernstein: Marcellus Production Will Slow, Hit 25 Bcf/d in 2017
November 13, 2014November 13, 2014

A fascinating pair of research reports from Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC as been analyzed and summarized in a top notch article by SNL Financial. Historically the Marcellus has been divided into northeast Pennsylvania and southwest PA, the SW including WV and a tiny bit of eastern OH. Also historically, the NE portion of the Marcellus has produced more dry gas (methane only) than the SW, which is richer in wet gas (or natural gas liquids). However, because of lack of pipelines in the NE, researchers say dry gas production throughout the Marcellus–particularly in the NE–will slow over the next few years. Another juicy tidbit from the report: Bernstein researchers predict natgas production from the Marcellus will hit 25 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by end of 2017–just three years from now…
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CNG/LNG | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | UIL Holdings

LNG Facility the Crown Jewel in Scuttled PGW Sale
November 13, 2014November 13, 2014

We find it interesting now that the corrupt Philadelphia City Council has torpedoed the deal to sell the Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) to Connecticut utility company UIL Holding, the talk by council members has returned to the shiniest jewel in the PGW crown: their small LNG facility. You may recall that MDN previously warned of an ex-Enron employee, Boris Brevnov, who wanted to tank the sale to UIL so he could gain control of the LNG facility for himself (see Former Enron Exec Makes “Unethical” Play to Derail PGW Deal). With the deal now hosed, is Brevnov working in the background to get the LNG facility? We have no proof of that, but the thought has crossed our mind. The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article delving into the LNG facility and what may happen next in the ongoing saga of the PGW sale…
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Allegheny County | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Supply Chain

Non-Destructive Testing Company Opens Branch in Pittsburgh
November 13, 2014November 13, 2014

The depth and variety of companies that provide services for the shale industry never ceases to surprise us. Would you think that non-destructive testing (NDT) has a role in shale exploration and drilling? It does! And it has enough of a role that Applus RTD, a global energy service provider that delivers “technical assurance through non-destructive testing, inspection, and certification in every region of the world” has just opened a new branch office in Pittsburgh to service the demand for their services in the Marcellus/Utica region. One of their happy customers is Range Resources…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lebanon County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Sunoco Logistics

Sunoco Presents on Mariner East Pump Station in Lebanon, PA
November 12, 2014November 12, 2014

On Monday we told you that a few committed anti-drillers in Lebanon County, PA have been distracted from opposing the Williams Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project by shiny object syndrome–another pipeline project, from Sunoco Logistics (see New Target for Lebanon, PA Antis: Mariner East Pipeline). The Mariner East pipeline has been in the ground for decades, but Sunoco is repurposing the pipeline to flow natural gas liquids and that requires building a new pump station. A Sunoco rep presented information about the pipeline and the pumping station last night at the West Cornwall town board meeting–but the three Lebanon residents appealing the permits for the station with the zoning board weren’t allowed to ask questions, and boy oh boy did that tick them off…
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Allegheny County | Pennsylvania

Allegheny, PA Councilman Reveals Why He Voted Yes on Park Lease
November 12, 2014November 12, 2014

Pretty soon drilling will begin under (not on) Deer Lakes Park in Allegheny County, PA. After months and months of anti-drillers showing up at county council meetings to drone on and on about the disaster that awaits us all if drilling takes place a mile below the earth underneath the 1,180-acre park, council members voted to approve the plan (see Allegheny Cty Approves Deer Lakes Park Lease, Antis Throw Tantrum). The deal gives the county a $4.7 million signing bonus and 18% royalties. Sweet. It’s not often you get a full explanation from one of the politicians who faced the droning anti-drillers and then voted in favor of a project like this–but we have such a unique opportunity. Councilman Tom Baker, who cast one of two deciding votes in favor of the project, recently published his thinking and explanation for why he cast a “yes” vote for the Deer Lakes Park deal…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Utility’s Innovate Plan to Deliver Marcellus Gas to Customers
November 12, 2014November 12, 2014

Although there’s a lot a cheap, abundant, and clean-burning natural gas being produced in Pennsylvania, there’s still a lot of customers who can’t burn it because of lack of pipelines through their neighborhoods. Natural gas prices currently are 61% less than fuel oil and 68% percent less than propane. But when it costs between $500,000 and $1 million a mile to install the pipelines to carry the gas–you need a lot of customers to sign up to make it work. Not everyone signs up at the beginning–some wait and see. So in places like the suburbs of Philadelphia where there’s a lot of people, it has still been a conundrum–a complex problem with no obvious solution. One of the utilities serving the Philly area, Peco, believes they have solved the problem. Peco has proposed a new formula to the Public Utility Commission (PUC) that will allow them to assume that 75% of their customers will sign up for gas over the next 20 years. The Peco plan will allow current customers to stretch the natgas hook-up fee across 20 years, radically changing the economics and lowering the hook-up price for customers–making it a no-brainer to make the change–now or in future years. Here’s the details of Peco’s plan…
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Allegheny County | Butler County | Lease & Royalty Payments | Pennsylvania

East Allegheny, PA Leases School Property for Marcellus Drilling
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Earth to Mars (PA): To the anti-drilling parents in the Mars School District in Butler County, cast your eyes to the south in neighboring Allegheny County. The school district in East Allegheny, PA has just signed a lease with EQT to drill shale wells on district-owned property–in one case 500 feet away from the middle school! Now what was that about a well pad 3/4 of a mile from a Mars school–on non-school property–that has you so enraged? (see Rex Gets Permits to Drill Near Martian School, Antis Apoplectic) Back here on earth, the East Allegheny school board unanimously voted last night to lease 170.28 acres of district-owned land (in 14 parcels) to EQT. The terms are…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Butler County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Rex Energy

Rex Drilling Operation Near Mars School Put on Hold
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Nearly two months ago Rex Energy received permits to drill five wells on a single well pad in Middlesex Township (Butler County), PA. The site is something like 3/4 of a mile from a school and some of the dunderheaded anti-drilling parents at the school are opposing it (see Rex Gets Permits to Drill Near Martian School, Antis Apoplectic). Those parents should take a short trip south to Allegheny County where the East Allegheny School District has just leased school property for drilling (see today’s lead story). Anywho, even though the Delaware River Basin is clear across the state and hundreds of miles from Middlesex Township, THE Delaware Riverkeeper along with another virulent anti-drilling group, Clean Air Council (also from the Philly area), have launched a challenge against Rex Energy to prevent them from drilling on the opposite side of the state. Talk about sickos…
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Columbia Pipeline Group | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | NiSource | Northampton County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines

Columbia Hits Resistance to Compressor Upgrade in SE PA
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

A year and a half ago MDN told you that Columbia Gas, a subsidiary of NiSource, was planning to upgrade a compressor station in Forks Township (Northampton County), PA (see Columbia’s SE PA Pipeline Project Includes Compressor Upgrade). The upgrade is part of Columbia’s East Side Expansion project, a project that includes 16 miles of new pipelines to carry cheap Marcellus Shale gas to a natural gas-powered electric generating plant (and other customers) across the border in New Jersey. Last year we reported that the neighbors of the project were just fine with the upgrade. Today, that’s changed, although how much opposition is yet to be fully determined…
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Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

How Will Wolf Appointment of McGinty Affect Marcellus Drilling?
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Get this: From 2003-2010 PA Democrat Gov. Ed Rendell ran Pennsylvania over an economic cliff during his administration by raising taxes and raising spending even more. The mess was so bad it took current Gov. Tom Corbett several years to fix it and put the state back on the road to economic sanity. It’s not hyperbole to say that Corbett saved Pennsylvania from bankruptcy. The thanks Corbett got for saving the state? He got fired. Democrat Tom Wolf came along promising the moon–and (using $10 million of his own money and another $10 million of Californian “environmentalist” Tom Steyer’s money) he won. Yesterday Wolf named a former head of the Dept. of Environment Protection (and Wolf’s former opponent in the Dem primary for governor) Katie McGinty to be his chief of staff. Oh, did we mention that both Wolf and McGinty were cabinet members in the Rendell administration? Nothing like getting the band back together so you can take the state right back over the same economic cliff again. Leaving aside the larger economic issues for PA, we wonder how McGinty’s appointment will affect Marcellus drilling in the state…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Washington County

NEPA Anti-Driller Gets Permanent Injunction Against Trespassing
November 11, 2014November 11, 2014

Vera Scroggins, outside of NEPA a little-known anti-driller from Susquehanna County, PA with a potty mouth (see this video of Vera harassing filmmaker Phelim McAleer), has been permanently barred from stepping foot on property leased (or owned) by Cabot Oil & Gas. This has been a long-running court case/issue in northeast PA. Scroggins refuses to stop her so-called tours of Cabot well sites where she brings along fellow anti-drillers to point out…what? A drilling rig? A little, tiny well head sitting on an acre of land so small you can’t see it from 100 feet away? A truck lumbering up a road? She continually endangers herself and those she carts along on her trespassing adventures. Cabot had to sue to keep her off their land. Scroggins was slapped with a temporary injection last year (see NE PA Anti-Driller Slapped with Trespassing Injunction). The temporary injunction has just been made permanent by a Susquehanna County judge…
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Allegheny County | Chevron | Energy Companies | Pennsylvania

Chevron Scaling Back in the Marcellus/Utica? Maybe
November 10, 2014November 10, 2014

What a difference just a year or two makes–at least in the plans of a major oil and gas company like Chevron. It wasn’t so long ago that Chevron (2011) that Chevron bought out Atlas Energy and along with it 622,000 acres of Marcellus Shale leases. Chevron then picked up another 228,000 acres of Marcellus leases from Chief Oil & Gas. A little over a year ago Chevron got an initial approval to build a massive new 350,000 square foot headquarters in Moon Twp, PA, near Pittsburgh. Then the first red flag–Chevron put that project on hold in July of this year (see Chevron Puts Moon Twp, PA Office Building Project on Hold). Now a second, big red flag: Chevron is “restructuring” its northeast business unit. When a company throws around words like “become more efficient” and “long-term growth” that, frankly, does not foreshadow good things for some of the 700+ people who work in the Appalachia unit…
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Juniata County | Pennsylvania

Will Shale Drilling Come to…Juniata County, PA?
November 10, 2014November 10, 2014

Having tracked Marcellus (and Utica) drilling since 2009, MDN is familiar with all of the counties in the northeast that have had or are seeing active shale drilling. Some counties have had just a few wells, but many counties have had a lot of wells. So it’s always interesting when we run across a county that hasn’t had any active drilling but believes, for some reason, they may see it soon. Such is the case with Juniata County, PA. We had to look it up on a map–where the heck is that county?! Juniata is in central PA, more or less. Not too far from Centre County (where Penn State is headquartered). Juniata has to rank as one of (perhaps THE) most rural counties in all of PA, with a population of under 25,000 people. Recently a landowner from Tioga County, PA–where they’ve seen a LOT of Marcellus drilling–was a guest speaker at the Juniata County Association of Township Officials. He had some good advice for Juniata residents with respect to what to expect if shale drilling comes to the county…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide PA | Wastewater

Researchers: Frack Wastewater “Not quite as bad as we thought”
November 10, 2014November 10, 2014

What do you know–some real science has once again popped up with respect to shale drilling. A pair of researchers from Rice University published the results of their analysis of frack wastewater from the PA Marcellus Shale, the TX Eagle Ford Shale, and the NM Barnett Shale. The study, titled “Organic compounds in produced waters from shale gas wells” (full copy below) was just published in the October issue of the journal Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts. The study is a detailed breakdown of the chemical components found in shale wastewater. And what did the study find? According to one of the researchers, the results show the frack water “was not quite as bad as we thought”…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Minuteman Environmental Services | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA AG Kane Tries to Derail Counter Lawsuit in Minuteman Bankruptcy
November 10, 2014November 10, 2014

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane is once again trying to manipulate the court system to support her ongoing witch hunts into the Marcellus Shale industry. You may recall she previously abused her office in filing criminal charges against XTO Energy for an accidental spill that occurred two years before she took office (see PA AG Abuses Her Authority, Files Criminal Charges Against XTO). She’s also brought criminal charges against EQT (see PA Attorney Gen. Kane Abuses Office Again, Arrest Warrant for EQT). But it’s not only the big boys she has a vendetta against. She also shut down a small company that does environmental remediation and wastewater disposal (see Minuteman Enviro Says PA AG Office “Terrorized” Family Members, Filing Lawsuit). The company had the audacity to fight back, filing their own lawsuit against Kane because she’s forced the company into bankruptcy by her abusive actions (see Minuteman Sues AG Kane’s Office for $20M + Punitive Damages). Kane now wants to keep the bankruptcy court judge from making a ruling in that lawsuit, furthering her abuse of power…
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