Pennsylvania

  • |

    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”

  • | | | | |

    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”

  • | | | |

    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”

  • | | | | |

    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”

  • | | | | |

    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”

  • | | | | | | |

    Range Floats Plan to Use Drill Cuttings to Build Roads

    This one is sure to set the anti-frackers into a tailspin. Range Resources has applied to the PA State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to begin using drill cuttings (leftover rock and dirt that comes out of the ground) as an “aggregate” or material to build roads to drilling sites. There’s nothing wrong with drill cuttings, but sometimes there are low levels of radioactivity found in them–far below any kind of health threat. But we can see the headlines now: Radioactive Roads! Run for the Hills! Drillers Want to Poison Mother Earth! That’s how the shrill anti-fossil fuel lobby will try and spin this.

    We’re sure Range knows they’ve opened a can of worms with this one. Let’s see how it all plays out in the coming 60 days, the time period authorized by the DEP to receive public comments on the proposed plan…
    Read More “Range Floats Plan to Use Drill Cuttings to Build Roads”

  • | | | |

    Anti-Drillers Target PA DEP Official for Elimination

    The anti-drilling long knives have come out for a mid-level PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) official because he dared to invest money in a mutual fund that buys energy stocks, investing in a PA driller (Cabot Oil & Gas, man knows a good thing when he sees it), and for an investment in a company that manufactures natural gas vehicle engines.

    Said official, Executive Deputy Secretary for Administration and Management Jeffrey Logan, has nothing to do with permitting or reporting or anything with the oil and gas end of the DEP’s business. There’s no “insider knowledge” he gets because of his position. But that’s OK–it’s time for a little anti-drilling bloodsport. Let’s shove him out on the stage in the limelight and begin target practice to see if we can bring him down…
    Read More “Anti-Drillers Target PA DEP Official for Elimination”

  • | | | | | | | | | | |

    MarkWest: 7 New NE Plants Online in Past 4 Mos, 17 More Coming!

    Number 1There are a number of midstream (pipeline and processing plants) companies operating in the Marcellus and Utica region. The country’s largest midstream company, Kinder Morgan, increasingly has a presence in the region. Joint ventures of various kinds, like Blue Racer Midstream (Dominion and Caiman Energy) are important new–and big–players. Williams Partners is one of the biggest. But if we had to identify which midstream company has the most assets, the most presence in the region, we’d have to say it’s MarkWest Energy. Yesterday MarkWest issued an operational update on their Marcellus and Utica projects–and frankly, it’s really impressive. This is a “time to crow about what we’ve done and will do” update. They’ve earned the right.

    Over the past four months MarkWest has brought seven new, major projects online: 5 new cryogenic processing plants (separates wet gas into two streams, methane and NGLs), and 2 new fractionation plants (further separates the NGLs into their components, like ethane, butane and propane). Each one of these projects represents hundreds of millions of dollars of investment and hundreds of jobs. Here’s the kicker: MarkWest has another 17 major processing and fractionation projects under construction! Incredible. Below is the update issued yesterday by MarkWest which identifies many of projects and customers. It’s well worth your time to read:
    Read More “MarkWest: 7 New NE Plants Online in Past 4 Mos, 17 More Coming!”

  • | | |

    Statewide PA Poll Shows Strong Majority Want Marcellus Drilling

    The Democrat candidates running in the primary for governor in Pennsylvania, all of whom (with maybe one exception) support less Marcellus drilling in the state, including a draconian moratorium, might want to pay attention to the results of the recent statewide poll conducted by Franklin & Marshall College. It shows 68% of Pennsylvanians support Marcellus Shale drilling. They WANT the gas industry in the state. It shows the wacko fringe objectors to be 27%. You do the math and see how you win by bashing shale drilling in PA.

    Here’s a summary of the results from the latest F&M poll:
    Read More “Statewide PA Poll Shows Strong Majority Want Marcellus Drilling”

  • | | | | |

    Vol 2 Photojournal for Cabot Well in Susquehanna County, PA

    Photojournal of a PA NatGas Well Vol 2A quick note to let you know that tomorrow (Saturday, Feb. 1) you can once again download Photojournal of a Pennsylvania Natural Gas Well: Book 1: Ground Preparation. It’s a really cool book of photos (and captions) taken by a non-professional photographer, Susquehanna County resident Janice Gavern. MDN recently reported on Janice’s project to document a Cabot Oil & Gas shale well being drilled just outside of Montrose, PA, close to (yes) Dimock (see PA Resident Snaps 8,000 Pictures of Cabot Well Construction).

    Jancie has been a busy beaver. She’s now posted her second volume in this multi-volume series: Photojournal of a Pennsylvania Natural Gas Well: Book 2 Site Set-up. You can grab a copy of this volume for free on Sunday, Feb. 2. Be sure to grab them while they’re free! It will save you $9.99 (or if you like, download it and pay the $9.99 to give Jan a little bit of money for her efforts).

    What if you don’t own a Kindle reader? No problem. You can download and install a Kindle reader application on your computer, smartphone–just about any device you have that connects to the internet. So don’t lack of a Kindle stop you from grabbing a copy of Jan’s books.

  • | | |

    Captain Planet to the Rescue! Rice Energy’s Sense of Humor

    We just love this story. Rice Energy is one of our favorite Marcellus/Utica drillers. It was founded by Dan Rice and his boys. Dan was, for over 10 years, the single most successful mutual fund manager in the United States. After he helped found Rice Energy to take advantage of shale drilling in the northeast, his bosses at Blackrock fired him–for their own mistakes (see BlackRock’s Screw-up with Dan Rice & Rice Energy). Dan has had the last laugh, however. The company went public last week and is now valued at $2.8 billion (see Rice Energy IPO Soars, Brings in $84M More Than Expected).

    What does this have to do with Captain Planet, you ask? It seems that Dan and the boys have a healthy sense of humor (which is why we love Rice). Instead of naming their wells after the landowner, which is the usual practice, they instead name Rice wells after super heroes! Including, yes, Captain Planet–the wacky environmentalist cartoon character from the 1990s. It just brings a smile to our faces, and we thought it would to yours as well. Below is the list of Rice wells and the super heroes they’re named after…
    Read More “Captain Planet to the Rescue! Rice Energy’s Sense of Humor”

  • |

    PA Dem Gov Candidate McGinty’s Love/Hate Relationship with Fracking

    This is interesting. Kathleen McGinty, like John Hanger, is a former Secretary for the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection. And like Hanger, she’s running in a crowded field of candidates seeking to be the Democrat nominee for governor come this November. Unlike Hanger, however, she says she is not in favor of her party’s dangerously stupid idea of a Marcellus fracking moratorium. However, she does want to tax and regulate the Marcellus industry to death, just like Hanger and her other Democrat comrades.

    McGinty doesn’t stand a chance of getting the nomination. Neither does Hanger. But what the heck, it’s interesting to see them flail about when they talk about the miracle of hydraulic fracturing and try to explain why fracking is not the best thing since sliced bread for PA’s otherwise poor (Obama) economy. They twist themselves into verbal knots trying to both embrace shale drilling and reject it at the same time…
    Read More “PA Dem Gov Candidate McGinty’s Love/Hate Relationship with Fracking”

  • | | | | |

    Ongoing Fallout from PA Supreme Court’s Wrong Act 13 Decision

    bozo mushroom cloudOne month ago Pennsylvania got the sad news that the state Supreme Court struck down important (and large) sections of the 2012 Act 13 Marcellus Shale drilling law (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against State/Drillers in Act 13 Case). The disappointing aspect of the decision is that Chief Justice Ron Castille, a Republican, joined three Democrats on the bench in deciding to use, for the first time, PA’s Environmental Rights Amendment to create new rights that didn’t exist before (drunk on their own power?). In fact the basis on which Castille made his poor judgment was based on his admitted prejudiced view that drilling and fracking is inherently harmful to the environment–which of course is not the case (see Industry Vet Points Out Error in PA Supreme Court Act 13 Ruling).

    One of the biggest problems with the PA Supreme Court decision is that the four justices agreeing to strike down zoning (and other) provisions in Act 13 could not agree on their reasons for doing so, weakening the decision’s usefulness in future cases. They also sent portions of the original case back to a lower court that, if those decisions go the wrong way, will totally wipe out the Act 13 law, sending PA back to the drilling stone ages again, without important environmental protections provided for under the law. Last week Penn State University law professor Ross Pifer analyzed the high court’s poor decision on a webinar call…
    Read More “Ongoing Fallout from PA Supreme Court’s Wrong Act 13 Decision”

  • | | | | |

    New Study: Conventional Gas Wells Produce 3X Wastewater as Shale

    Let’s frame this up so you have a proper understanding for the source of this information: A postdoctoral research associate dude at Duke University (a really smart student) teamed up with another smart student getting her master’s degree in environmental management at Duke, to study how much wastewater is produced by both conventional (or traditional) natural gas wells and unconventional horizontally-drilled shale wells in Pennsylvania. In essence they researched and wrote a term paper on the topic which will be published in the February issue of the journal Water Resources Research (see below). The postdoctoral dude has since left Duke and is now an assistant professor of biogeochemistry at Kent State. Hence, we have a “new study issued by Kent State and Duke University.” We’re not denigrating their accomplishments! Just giving you a proper understanding for how these “studies” are sometimes researched and how they’re reported about in the media.

    Anywho, the research from our two intrepid students shows that overall, because there are so many shale wells in PA, and because it takes a lot more water to frack a shale well than a conventional well, that (surprise!) shale wells produce more wastewater that conventional wells. The interesting aspect of their research–the finding that is worthy of putting their names in academic lights over–is that per unit of gas recovered, shale wells produce only 1/3 as much wastewater as conventional wells. Let’s put this startling discovery another way: If irrational anti-drillers banned all horizontal fracking of shale wells tomorrow in PA (whoops, the PA Democrat Party is trying to do just that!), and we went back to the days of only mining gas by conventional wells, in order to produce as much gas as we now produce today, we would produce three times as much wastewater to get it from conventional wells. We’d also have to sink way more holes in the ground to get it…
    Read More “New Study: Conventional Gas Wells Produce 3X Wastewater as Shale”

  • | | | | | |

    PA Dem Consultant Lectures Party to Avoid Marcellus Moratorium

    Every now and again the truth pokes through–even in publications like the Philadelphia Inquirer. We read with interest an op-ed in today’s Philly Inquirer that tells the truth about how the Marcellus Shale is responsible for creating 290,000 jobs in Pennsylvania over the past few years–a state with an unemployment rate stuck above 7%. Some 28,000 of those jobs are “core” industry jobs that pay on average $83,000 per year or more. The op-ed says the Marcellus has given Pennsylvania families a reason to be optimistic about their financial future.

    The fascinating thing to MDN is that the op-ed is written by Democrat consultant Mike Butler, current executive director of the Consumer Energy Alliance (Mid-Atlantic section). Mike is a former political consultant for Democrat Bob Casey for U.S. Senate (who sadly won), Dan Onorato for PA governor (who happily lost to Tom Corbett), and on the staff of former Democrat Congressman Jason Altmire. Huh. A Democrat singing the praises of the Marcellus shale, and at the close of his comments he warns the leaders of his party that the statewide moratorium they say they will enact if they regain political power in the state should be “avoided.” We’d use stronger words, but we’re happy to see at least one Democrat in the entire state hasn’t lost all of his marbles…
    Read More “PA Dem Consultant Lectures Party to Avoid Marcellus Moratorium”

  • |

    PA’s State Energy Plan: All of the Above…AND Below!

    above and belowPennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett continues to impress and confound Democrat governor wannabes like John Hanger who seek to replace him. The Dems have been salivating like mad dogs at the prospect of winning back the governor’s chair in November. For them and their mainstream media accomplices (we were going to say media whores, but thought that may be a tad to strong from the family-friendly MDN), it’s a foregone conclusion that Corbett is history…toast…on the way out. But Corbett, long accused of being a “tool” of the drilling industry by jealous Luddites on the anti-drilling side, still has some fight left in him, and he came out swinging earlier this week when he introduced his PA State Energy Plan. In stark contrast to the puffery and flummery offered up by NY Gov. Andrew “the ditherer” Cuomo with his energy plan from a few weeks ago (see NY Releases a Draft (Frackless) State Energy Plan), the PA plan is a breath of fresh air for Pennsylvanians.

    The title of Corbett’s energy plan says it all: Energy = Jobs. In a turn of phrase we absolutely love (taking a jab at the empty PR platitudes from Obama), Corbett’s plan doesn’t pick any winners or losers to support, he supports all options, something he calls an “all of the above — AND below” strategy. Love it! Something else we love about Corbett is his philosophy of government: Corbett says government doesn’t create jobs, private industry does. Government’s job is to protect public health and safety and create an positive atmosphere for job creators. Wow! When was the last time a politician finally “got it”? A politician whose actions back up his words? A politician with guts? That’s Tom Corbett…
    Read More “PA’s State Energy Plan: All of the Above…AND Below!”