Pennsylvania

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    Explosion & Fire at Chevron Well in SWPA – 1 Person Missing

    Chevron Well FireThere was an explosion and fire at a Chevron Marcellus shale well in Greene County, PA early yesterday morning. The explosion happened about 6:45 am at Chevron’s Lanco 7H well pad, in a remote area northwest of Bobtown. One person was treated for “minor injuries” and released. However, the sad news is another person is missing. Since the fire is still burning and hot, no one can get close enough to search for the missing worker, so we sadly assume the worst. Our prayers and thoughts go to the families involved.

    Chevron has flown in a disaster team from Wild Well Control (Houston, TX) to get the fire extinguished, but it will take at least “several days” before the fire is out. Below we have the information we’re able to find concerning the explosion and fire–why it happened–along with some perspective on the level of danger workers face working in the shale drilling industry, plus we make some connections and provide background you won’t find anywhere else but here, on MDN…
    Read More “Explosion & Fire at Chevron Well in SWPA – 1 Person Missing”

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    New SRBC Research Finds Marcellus Drilling Safe for Water

    This is fascinating–at least for those of us with an interest in the Marcellus and Utica Shale. The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) which monitors and controls water withdrawals from creeks and rivers that empty into the mighty Susquehanna River (which eventually empties into the Chesapeake Bay), has long been a model of how to properly manage the areas under their control when it comes to shale drilling. The SRBC stands in stark contrast to the dysfunctional Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) which is hamstrung by New York City influence–apparently beholden to self righteous and self important liberal fat cats like Gov. Can’t-Make-a-Decision Cuomo and Mayor Ban-All-Fracking Bill de Blasio.

    While the DRBC dithers, along with Cuomo, on whether or not to allow drilling, the SRBC forges ahead and does real science–out in the field–to ensure the water resources under their management are not being adversely impacted by Marcellus drilling. The SRBC launched a state-of-the-art Remote Water Quality Monitoring Network in 2010 to track water quality throughout the SRBC region. They’ve just issued a second, comprehensive report on their findings thus far (embedded below). And what are those findings? Marcellus Shale drilling is not/has not adversely affected water quality anywhere in the SRBC region. Huh. Who would of imagined that? Science yet again proves that shale drilling is safe for water supplies…
    Read More “New SRBC Research Finds Marcellus Drilling Safe for Water”

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    Loyalsock Drilling Gets an Anti-Drilling Spin Job by PennFuture

    spinWe normally skip pronouncements from extremist anti-drilling groups like PennFuture. They, along with other PA groups like PennEnvironment, the League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters, Sierra Club, Shale Justice…you get the idea–hold unreasonable views on shale drilling and development. They simply want it all stopped–which ain’t gonna happen. There is no reasoning with them–no middle ground or acceptable way to drill for shale for such groups. So they become ever-more shrill in their false accusations and allegations about what may/maybe/might/could/possibly/theoretically happen if a particular area were to see shale drilling. Say, oh, like the Loyalsock State Forest in PA.

    We include a press release by PennFuture below, spinkled with lots of unspoiled this’ and pristine thats, pushing the panic button that (gasp) Anadarko Petroleum might actually be allowed to drill on land they legally hold the rights to drill on (see Manufactured Controversy over Drilling in Loyalsock State Forest). Why, that forest actually contains a “critical bird nursery”–can you imagine the malevolent intent of disturbing little birdies? What a wicked company Anadarko must be. Below is the PennFuture press release that we think has more to do with fundraising than any real or imagined harm that may come to Loyalsock. We bring it to you as an example of a masterful spin job…
    Read More “Loyalsock Drilling Gets an Anti-Drilling Spin Job by PennFuture”

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    PA Rural Residents Burn Marcellus Gas, Save Big Bucks on Heating

    One of the conundrums of shale gas drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale is that the places where the gas is drilled and extracted are largely rural–places like Susquehanna County, PA, in the northeastern part of the state. The entire county has 43,000 residents (11,700 families). The largest “city” in Susquehanna County is the county seat of Montrose, population 1,600 (750 households). It’s just not all that economical to run natural gas pipelines to homes around the county–even though residents live atop an embarrassing riches of natural gas. One company, Leatherstocking Natural Gas, changed all that last year when they started to run pipelines to residences and businesses around Montrose.

    This winter, one local business owner (an auto mechanic’s shop) now heating with natural gas, responded to his new fuel source this way: “Before when you were here, you asked if I was going to save money [by heating with natural gas]. I said ‘I sure as hell hope so.’ Well, I sure as hell am, let me tell you.” That about sums up the change from heating with oil to heating with home-grown, cheap and abundant Marcellus shale gas…
    Read More “PA Rural Residents Burn Marcellus Gas, Save Big Bucks on Heating”

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    Ben Franklin Shale Gas Center Wins a Prize Itself – $750K

    For the third year running, the Ben Franklin Technology Partners Shale Gas Innovation & Commercialization Center (SGICC) holds a contest for newly-launched small businesses with innovative products or services for the Marcellus Shale drilling industry (see 2014 Ben Franklin Shale Gas Contest – $100K in Cash Prizes!). The deadline to apply for this year was Feb. 1, and after an extensive review process, four winners of $25,000 prizes will be announced on May 15 in Pittsburgh. You might say four awards totaling $100K isn’t much, but thanks to a grant from the State of Pennsylvania, the SGICC is about to help far more than four companies at a time.

    Yesterday the Secretary of the PA Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) visited State College, PA to confer a $750,000 grant on the SGICC. There are many worthy upstart companies each year that can use a small economic boost to bring their new idea/technology to market. The SGICC will use the new grant money to do just that by in turn making small grants themselves–with an important string attached. The recipient company must match the grant with their own 1-to-1 matching investment. If the SGICC awards a grant of $20,000, the company receiving it must match it with their own $20,000. SGICC has already made their first grant, in Punxsutawney…
    Read More “Ben Franklin Shale Gas Center Wins a Prize Itself – $750K”

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    CSSD’s Andrew Place Talks About 3-Leg Approaches & Firehoses

    Eckert Seamans, the Pittsburgh, PA energy law firm that employs the former PA Sec. of Environmental Protection (and pot smoking proponent running for governor) John Hanger, hosted a morning breakfast meeting last Friday in Southpointe to discuss “responsible shale development.” Er, has it been *irresponsible* thus far? At any rate, three speakers were on the agenda for the breakfast conclave, one of whom was EQT’s Andrew Place–the interim and outgoing director of the Center for Sustainable Shale Development, or CSSD (see Center for Sustainable Shale Comes Roaring Back (to Life)).

    According to Place, the CSSD takes a “three-leg approach” to the shale drilling issue. And although the public has heard virtually nothing from the CSSD since it’s founding until a few weeks ago when it came roaring back, Place said it’s been a nonstop “firehose” of activity over at CSSD HQ. From the breakfast meeting (that curiously didn’t include Hanger on the speaker’s dias), here’s more on Andrew Place’s comments:
    Read More “CSSD’s Andrew Place Talks About 3-Leg Approaches & Firehoses”

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    ‘Noise Solutions’ for Drilling/Compressor Plants Locates in NWPA

    Here’s a feel good supply chain story. A privately held Canadian company that in 1997 innovated a way to make industrial operations–like noisy compressor plants–quieter, wanted to build a manufacturing plant here in the U.S.–near the oil and gas industry that will use their innovative products. So where did Scott MacDonald, president and CEO of Noise Solutions, look? The northeast of course–Marcellus and Utica territory. He considered New York, but the taxes are way too high and the shale drilling non-existent. He also considered West Virginia and Ohio, which were good choices. But MacDonald settled on Sharon (Mercer County), PA as the new home for a plant that already employs 35 people and is on it’s way to employing 125 or more.

    MacDonald and Noise Solutions will spend $5 million to renovate the former Winner International warehouse where the company chose to set up shop. That investment along with the ripple effect of full-time employees paying local and state taxes (and spending much of their paychecks in the local community) gives Sharon a big “economic stimulus” courtesy of this Canadian company. Here’s more about Noise Solutions and their new operation in Sharon, PA…
    Read More “‘Noise Solutions’ for Drilling/Compressor Plants Locates in NWPA”

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    PA’s Long-Lived Marcellus Renaissance Can’t be Denied, Even by NY

    Judging by the stories we’re now seeing, must be Gov. Cuomo’s internal poll numbers are a lot worse than we thought. So bad that his buddies at Gannett need to try and prop him up by rewriting current history. Get this, the headline for a story in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin actually attempts to make the claim that the economic miracle happening right across our border in PA…isn’t actually happening! Talk about chutzpah. “Pay no attention to all of those jobs–all of that money–all of the new tax revenue. None of it’s real. It’s all a flash in the pan. Here today, gone tomorrow.”

    Wow. We guess you can fool some of the people all of the time, going by the PSB’s propaganda…
    Read More “PA’s Long-Lived Marcellus Renaissance Can’t be Denied, Even by NY”

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    PA Dems, DRBC Squeal over Proposed Cut to DRBC Budget

    The Delaware River Basin Commission suckling pig is about to have less slop in the trough to gorge itself on, thanks to wise oversight by PA Gov. Tom Corbett. The DRBC, for those who don’t know, is an interstate quasi-governmental agency made up of the states that are in the Delaware River Basin, including Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey (where HQ for the DRBC is located) and Delaware. The governors for each of those states plus a representative from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers make up the voting board of the DRBC.

    For years PA has borne the brunt of the funding for the DRBC–disproportionately–lavishing the DRBC staff with buckets of cash with which they supposedly do their jobs. PA has had enough. Time for the other states that profess to love the DRBC so much to pull their own weight, so Corbett has decreased the amount of money PA will contribute to the trough. And that has the pigs squealing, including Corbetts potential Democrat opponents for the governor’s chair and (not surprisingly) DRBC staffers who have gone apoplectic with dire warnings…
    Read More “PA Dems, DRBC Squeal over Proposed Cut to DRBC Budget”

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    Marcellus Prejudice on Display at Washington, PA Church

    This is interesting, and sad, and maddening: A developer purchased a run-down, abandoned convent in downtown Washington, PA (for $11K) with plans to invest $300,000 to fix it up and put business offices in it. Or perhaps (this is the rumor) turn it into temporary housing for Marcellus Shale workers. That “M” word–that’s all it took. The pastor at the church across the street, Immaculate Conception, is against it. So too is the local town councilman. Their fear? Those disgusting, low-life “transient” workers will (don’t laugh) bring down the neighborhood. It won’t be safe to (don’t laugh) walk around at night. Because, you know, (whispering)…transients. Better to keep the old convent, a bombed-out looking eyesore, in downtown rather than have transients lurking about.

    Now if the developer was wise he would have said something about housing “undocumented workers” (i.e. illegal aliens) at the convent. That would magically make the project A-OK. Here’s the interesting/sad/maddening story:
    Read More “Marcellus Prejudice on Display at Washington, PA Church”

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    Harrisburg Newspaper Criticizes 0.00255 Drilling Part of PA Budget

    If you want to know what the prevailing political attitudes are from Pennsylvania’s (Democrat) politicians, look no further than the editorial page of the Harrisburg Patriot-News newspaper. There you’ll find whatever the next party line attack will be against PA Republicans and/or the shale drilling industry. And so today what do the learned, careful, deliberative minds of the PN editors focus on in PA Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed budget which he unveiled on Tuesday–a budget which is an astonishing $29.4 BILLION in size and includes spending INCREASES for education and old folks but no broad-based tax increases? One of the sources for revenue in the budget–pocket change really–is a measly $75 million (which is 0.00255, or roughly 2/10ths of 1% of the entire budget) raised by allowing a little bit more drilling under, not on, state forests. And that’s what the editors at the PN jump on about the budget. Amazing.

    What’s even more amazing is the mental gymnastics they have to perform to criticize Corbett’s proposal–a proposal that does not allow any new rigs or drill pads on state forest lands! They resort to quoting anti-drilling organizations like PennFuture with arguments made with more “maybes,” “mights,” and “coulds” than you can count. In other words, absent any scientific evidence to the contrary, we should not do something (that Eddie Rendell and John Hanger once did, raising $444 million), simply on Democrat anti-drillers’ say-so. Maybe the PN editors like Hanger’s plan to turn PA into a bunch of pot smokers (they can tax) instead? We say, no thanks…
    Read More “Harrisburg Newspaper Criticizes 0.00255 Drilling Part of PA Budget”

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    PA Gov. Corbett’s Bold Plan for More Drilling in State Forests

    marijuana jointPA Gov. Tom Corbett released his draft budget yesterday and his plan calls for ending the now three-year moratorium on drilling in state forests–which will bring in $75 million for Harrisburg politicians to play with. Predictably, the Democrats are squealing like stuck pigs about the proposed lifting of the moratorium. John Hanger, former Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection under “Fast Eddie” Ed Rendell has already gone on record opposing drilling in state forests (see PA Democrat Gov Candidates Support Partial/Full Moratorium). Apparently John thinks there’s more money to be made by turning PA into a pot smoking state (see John Hanger pushes Democratic gubernatorial rivals to address progressive agenda). New campaign slogan: Pass a Joint for John!

    Here’s the “funny” part: Rendell and Hanger leased state forests in 2009 & 2010 and hauled in $444 million for the state–then they clamped down and stopped it before leaving office. Apparently moratoriums on drilling in state forests are good for thee but not for me when it comes to PA Dems like Hanger. Here’s more on Corbett’s bold plan to re-open some state forests for drilling:
    Read More “PA Gov. Corbett’s Bold Plan for More Drilling in State Forests”

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    UGI/AmeriGas Talks up the Marcellus & NEPA Auburn II Pipeline

    AmeriGas Partners is the nation’s largest propane company, serving 2 million+ residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and motor fuel propane customers from 1200 locations in all 50 states. Chances are in a city of any size, there’s an AmeriGas storefront someplace around town. AmeriGas is also a subsidiary of PA-based utility company UGI. AmeriGas/UGI held a conference call yesterday to discuss the company’s first quarter financial performance (their quarters are slightly different from calendar year quarters).

    There were a number of references to the Marcellus made by John Walsh during the call. Walsh is the vice chairman of AmeriGas and president of UGI. Most of those Walsh’s references revolved around UGI’s Auburn Pipeline gathering system that finally went live last year (see UGI Wins! Auburn Pipeline with Marcellus Gas in NEPA Goes Live). We’ve selected out relevant portions of Walsh’s remarks from yesterday mentioning the Marcellus Shale and it’s importance to UGI’s future:
    Read More “UGI/AmeriGas Talks up the Marcellus & NEPA Auburn II Pipeline”

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    The Unconventional Rise & Sale of Atlas Energy

    Atlas Energy, aka Atlas Resource Partners and Atlas Pipeline Partners, is a Pittsburgh-based exploration and production (E&P) and midstream company with active drilling operations not only in the Marcellus/Utica region but another four resource plays as well. The company has an unconventional history, to say the least. The entrepreneurial Cohen family from Philadelphia bought a major stake in the company in the late 1990s and installed son Jonathan in Pittsburgh to help run it. The Cohens had no special knowledge or foresight but seemed to be in the right place at the right time (the Marcellus Shale), because in 2010 the Cohens sold Atlas Energy to Chevron for a pile of cash (see India’s RIL Loses Bidding War for Atlas Energy – $4.3 Billion Deal with Chevron Goes Forward).

    An interesting story about the entrepreneurial Cohen family, the businesses they’ve founded or grown, and the rise of Atlas Energy as a major driller in the Marcellus…
    Read More “The Unconventional Rise & Sale of Atlas Energy”

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    New Frack Wastewater Injection Well Coming to Elk County, PA

    Looks like more injection wells are on the way in Pennsylvania. Injection wells are used to pump leftover frack fluid (and brine, naturally occurring salt water that comes of the hole longer after fracking is done) deep underground for safe disposal. There are a lot of injection wells in Ohio, and PA drillers who don’t recycle or find another way of disposing of wastewater typically ship it to OH. (Vol. 3 of the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook, out in a week, contains what we believe the most comprehensive list of frack wastewater and landfills in existence. Pre-order a copy now!)

    Seneca Resources has just received federal approval to convert an old vertical natural gas well in Elk County, PA into an injection disposal well. The Elk injection well will pump up to 60,000 gallons per day of wastewater and brine into the Elk 3 sandstone formation. However, before they begin operations at the Elk injection well, Seneca still needs an approval from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection…
    Read More “New Frack Wastewater Injection Well Coming to Elk County, PA”

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    Chapter Closed: 2 Landmen Sentenced to Federal Pen for Fraud

    The conclusion of an ignominious episode for landmen. Last year MDN told you about two rotten apples in the barrel–landmen who concocted a scheme to steal ownership rights from unsuspecting landowners and sell those rights to drillers, pocketing the money for themselves. There were caught. One fessed up right away–it took the mastermind behind it a bit longer but he finally confessed too (see 2nd Landman Pleads Guilty to Single Count in $2.4M Fraud Scheme).

    Last Friday a federal judge in Pittsburgh sentenced Derek Candelore (33, of Jeannette, PA) to three years, four months in federal prison. His sidekick William Ray (29, of Monroeville, PA) got eight months in the federal pen…
    Read More “Chapter Closed: 2 Landmen Sentenced to Federal Pen for Fraud”