Pennsylvania

Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Butler County | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Rex Energy

Martians Still Trying to Invade Neighbors to Prevent Drilling
July 30, 2014July 30, 2014

Nasty, and frankly loony, anti-drillers in Mars, PA want to exceed their constitutional authority. They want a 2 mile exclusion zone around the school to deny landowners the right to allow Marcellus Shale drilling on or under their land. State law already prohibits drilling within 500 feet of a school. As we frequently point out, the Elk Lake School District in Susquehanna County, PA has a couple of wells right on school property (see Rural NE PA School Nets $1.7M in Royalties from 2 Marcellus Wells). The Elk Lake wells totally debunk any arguments from Mars parents that their little Martian crumb-crunchers would be damaged by drilling…
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Cameron County | Elk County | Energy Companies | Lycoming County | McKean County | Pennsylvania | Seneca Resources

Seneca Resources 3Q14: Drilling Moves Away from Lycoming County
July 29, 2014July 29, 2014

Seneca Resources, the Marcellus Shale drilling division of midstream and utility company National Fuel Gas headquartered in Buffalo, NY, issued their fiscal third quarter (everyone else’s calendar second quarter) update yesterday. Among the interesting items: Seneca has shifted its focus on new drilling away from Lycoming County, PA (Williamsport area) westward to Elk, McKean and Cameron counties. The shift in focus will remain until Williams completes its recently announced Atlantic Sunrise Expansion pipeline project. Also of note was the increase in Seneca’s production and where it came from…
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Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Forced Pooling | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

EQT’s (Mis)Use of 2013 Royalty Law Creates Forced Pooling
July 29, 2014July 29, 2014

A Pittsburgh-based attorney who, it appears (from his byline) sues shale drillers for a living, nevertheless offers up an excellent article in the Harrisburg Patriot-News that helps us understand the ill-advised royalty bill signed into law one year ago this month (see PA Gov Corbett Signs Back-Door Forced Pooling Bill into Law). The bill was meant to help landowners receive better, more transparent information in their royalty statements, but at the last minute a provision was added that allows leased properties to be pooled for horizontal drilling. Immediately after the royalty bill passed, EQT used the eleventh hour provision, called Secton 2.1 of the law, to sue 70 landowners (see Bad News: EQT Sues 70 Landowners Using New PA Forced Pooling Law). As with all things legal, this is complicated, but thanks to the lawyer’s article, we now have a better understanding of it…
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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

MSC Releases Annual Workforce Survey: Marcellus Continues to Hum
July 29, 2014July 29, 2014

Another 2,000 new Marcellus jobs are being added this yes–in 2014–by Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) members according to the latest annual Marcellus Workforce Survey conducted by the MSC. The latest survey (full copy of results below) is increasingly hiring skilled workers in engineering and construction. High-paying skilled jobs accounted for 26.5% of all new hires last year in the Marcellus Shale. And there’s lots more where that came from…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

PA Lt Gov Candidate Supports Raiding Drillers for Big Education
July 29, 2014July 29, 2014

Democrat Mike Stack, a PA State Senator from Philadelphia, is his party’s nominee for Lt. Governor this fall. Stack has close ties to big education and is a tool of teacher unions who want to raid another industry–shale gas drilling–to feed their addiction to ever-higher salaries while turning in ever-lower education standards for their students. So it’s no surprise that Stack is one of the toadies that introduced legislation to enact a sky-high severance tax on Marcellus Shale drilling…
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Industrywide Issues | Keystone Pure Water Tech | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Supply Chain | Wastewater

Exclusive: Breakthrough Tech Cleans Frack Wastewater <30 Minutes
July 28, 2014July 28, 2014

What if you were convinced an invention IS the greatest thing since sliced bread–at least as it applies to the world of shale drilling? And what if that invention could clean thousands of gallons of frack wastewater right on site and turn it into DRINKABLE water–in less than 30 minutes? And what if this process uses no chemicals, and even eliminates radioactivity, producing inert minerals (like iron) that can be sold for profit? Oh, and what if your cost, as the driller, was only $3 per barrel to work this magic? Would you believe such a tall tale? You would if you were me…
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Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Greene County (PA) | Pennsylvania | Utica Shale

EQT Takes the Plunge: Drilling 1st Utica Well in SWPA
July 25, 2014July 25, 2014

Yesterday EQT released an update for second quarter 2014 (see EQT 2Q14 Update: Profit & Production Way Up). The top brass for EQT also held an analyst phone call/update to discuss that update–to elaborate and add some color and additional information. It was an informative phone call. Among the most interesting items to be discussed is that EQT has finally found its way on the Utica. They plan to begin drilling what is likely the deepest Utica well ever drilled at a depth of 13,500 feet–in Greene County–Pennsylvania’s most southwestern county…
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Energy Companies | Energy Services | EQT Corp | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

EQT Midstream: 2 Major Pipeline Projects Advance, 1 Doesn’t
July 25, 2014July 25, 2014

In addition to yesterday’s big news that EQT has decided to “take the plunge” and drill what is thought to be the deepest Utica Shale well yet, in Greene County, PA (see MDN’s related story today), EQT also announced yesterday their plans for their midstream operations over the coming months. CEO David Porges said EQT Midstream will spend “over $350 million” on midstream projects in 2014. The company has three major pipeline/midstream projects on the books. Porges said two of those projects are advancing while one is going “on the back burner”…
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Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Cabot O&G: Afterburners Kick in on Rocket to the Moon
July 25, 2014July 25, 2014

MDN has an admitted soft spot for Cabot Oil & Gas. We know a number of Cabot personnel–all extremely talented and top-drawer professionals. Cabot has been (in our opinion) unfairly maligned for “causing Dimock” which is still a rallying cry for hacks like Josh Fox and his Gasland fictional movies. Even though we have an admitted crush on Cabot, the fact is, they are a stellar performer by everyone’s standards. Yesterday the company released second quarter results for 2014 and they report, among many interesting things, that the company produced an average 1.26 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from their wells in Susquehanna County, PA. Folks, the entire country produces 70 Bcf/d (see U.S. Hits New Daily Production Record Thx to Marcellus/Utica). If you do the math, the amount of gas a single driller is producing from a single PA county (Cabot/Susquehanna County)–is nearly 2% of all gas produced in the U.S. every day. Simply astonishing…
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Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Susquehanna County | Williams

Cabot CEO Dinges Talks Marcellus, Midstream Challenges
July 25, 2014July 25, 2014

MDN brought you the Cabot Oil & Gas second quarter update today in a related post. The company released their update yesterday. They also held a call for analysts and investors in which CEO Dan Dinges talked pretty frankly about his frustrations with Williams over problems with pipelines in Susquehanna County, PA where Cabot has drilled all of their PA Marcellus wells–to date anyway. Seems that Williams had some difficulties during the harsh winter and those difficulties stretched into 2Q14 as well…
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Anadarko | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Bradford County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Southwestern Energy | Sullivan County

Save the Loyalsock Coalition Attempts a New Spin Job Against DCNR
July 25, 2014July 25, 2014

Another anti-drilling spin job by the partisan, biased “reporters” at PBS’ StateImpact Pennsyvlania. The reliably anti-drilling Marie Cusick–who (going by her previous articles) hasn’t encountered a fossil fuel she likes–is once again trying to stir the anti-drilling pot against legitimate, legal and ethical drilling in the Loyalsock State Forest in central Pennsylvania. Anadarko Petroleum owns mineral rights for 25,000 acres of the Forest. Anadarko presented a plan in March 2012 (!) to drill there, a plan that STILL has not been approved by the Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (see PA DCNR Blocks Drilling in Loyalsock State Forest – For Now). Finally, there have been some baby steps toward granting Anadarko access to what they legally have a right to do…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Health Impacts | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

The Supreme Arrogance of SWPA Environmental Health Project
July 24, 2014July 24, 2014

You may recall an anti-drilling group that calls itself the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (SWPA-EHP) is trying to prove Marcellus drilling makes people sick (see Health “Study” of Whopping 27 People Blames Drilling for Symptoms and more recently, Anti-Drilling Group Distributes Air Monitors, Calls it Research). In an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, a media spokesman for SWPA-EHP makes the breathtakingly arrogant statement that his organization is the public health organization representing people affected by shale drilling in the U.S….
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Research | Statewide PA

Former DEP Sec. Krancer Skewers Auditor General “Report”
July 24, 2014July 24, 2014

Yesterday MDN brought you the news of Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale’s politically-motivated critical report of the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (see Anti-Drilling PA Auditor General Criticizes DEP in “Report”). We pointed out the huge conflict of interest on the part of DePasquale (he supports a renewable energy agenda). Today we have reaction from Michael Krancer, a former Secretary of the DEP during 2012, secretary during one of the four year period covered in DePasquale’s report. In his frank style, Krancer skewers the report, while keeping a smile on his face…
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Health Impacts | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA’s Sec of Health Fires Back at Reckless Accusations Against Dept
July 24, 2014July 24, 2014

The latest anti-drilling push in Pennsylvania is to plant seeds of fear and doubt that Marcellus “may be” harming some people’s health. That tactic has worked wonders in liberal New York, so the anti-fossil fuel crowd in PA have also glommed onto. First to appear are stories planted by anti-drilling PBS “reporters” accusing the state’s Dept. of Health of muzzling its own employees (see StateImpact Pennsylvania’s story Former state health employees say they were silenced on drilling). That story about a so-called buzzword list that supposedly would trigger a “don’t talk about it” rule (which is utter nonsense) was picked up and endlessly repeated in the liberal mediasphere–over and over and over and over again. That’s how yellow journalism works. Michael Wolf, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, has had enough and is now pushing back…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Research | Statewide PA

Anti-Drilling PA Auditor General Criticizes DEP in “Report”
July 23, 2014July 23, 2014

Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Democrat Auditor General Eugene DePasquale yesterday released a report (full copy below) criticizing the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) as being disorganized and ill-equipped to handle the rapid expansion of Marcellus Shale drilling in the state. What DePasquale forgot to mention in his report is his own whopping conflicts of interest. While he was a state legislator he pushed hard for so-called alternative energy programs to be funded by the state and as deputy secretary of the DEP he convinced a big wind farm operation to locate in the state. From his first day on the job, he was gunning for the Marcellus industry (see PA Auditor General Targets State’s Marcellus Drilling Industry)…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | Noble County | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Washington County

MarkWest Re-Opens Chartiers, PA Plant, New Plant in OH
July 23, 2014July 23, 2014

MarkWest Energy Partners provided an update yesterday for two of its processing plants–one in the Marcellus and one in the Utica. MarkWest said Plant III at its Houston complex (Chartiers, Washington County, PA) is back up and running after being damaged by a lightening strike back in May (see Lightening Strike at MarkWest Chartiers Plant Causes Evacuation). They also said a brand new processing plant at their Seneca complex in Noble County, OH is now online and running, adding an additional 200 million cubic feet per day of processing capacity (now totals 600 Mmcf/d). Next up? Yet another 200 Mmcf/d plant at the Seneca complex, due to open in 2015…
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