Pennsylvania

Clearfield County | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Wastewater

Opposed to Proposed Injection Well in Clearfield County, PA
July 11, 2012December 19, 2012

Windfall Oil & Gas Company wants to build an injection well to dispose of Marcellus Shale wastewater in Brady Township (Clearfield County), PA. They’ve submitted an application to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees permitting and regulation of injection wells nationwide. The PA Department of Environmental Protection would also need to approve such a well.

Currently there are only eight injection wells in the entire state, two of them in Clearfield County. There is a movement by local politicians and residents to oppose the new injection well, and depending on the news account you read, there will be either an open or a mostly closed-door meeting on July 23 with the EPA present to discuss the proposed well.

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Clearfield County | Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Violence

Protesters Illegally Shut Down Drilling Rig in Central PA
July 9, 2012December 19, 2012

Protesters have illegally shut down an EQT drilling rig in Moshannon State Forest in central Pennsylvania. The rig was in the process of being commissioned (just getting started) and protesters blocked the road trucks were using to access the rig.

In addition to blocking the road, two protesters sat 75 feet up on a tree platform connected to a cable stretched across the road. If a truck cut through or snagged the cable, it would cause the demented protesters to fall out of the tree platform. That’s how sick these people are.

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Bradford County | Housing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania

Marcellus Drilling Means High Housing Prices in Towanda PA
July 9, 2012December 19, 2012

When an area sees a lot a drilling, one of the unintended consequences is a serious jump in the price of housing—both rental and for purchase. Towanda (Bradford County), PA seems to be ground zero for an extraordinary jump in housing prices over the past few years. How about $2,000 to rent a two-bedroom apartment in this relatively rural part of PA? Yeah, nosebleed-high prices.

An article in yesterday’s Towanda newspaper, The Daily Review, highlights the plight of a family flooded out of their Towanda home last year. Because of the high prices for real estate due to the Marcellus drilling boom, they still have not been able to leave their FEMA trailer.

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Energy Companies | Energy Services | Hilcorp Energy | Industrywide Issues | NiSource | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide OH | Statewide PA

NiSource, Hilcorp Energy Joint Venture in Utica Shale
July 9, 2012December 19, 2012

NiSource Inc. announced today they are entering a joint venture with Hilcorp Energy and combining their Utica Shale acreage together with Hilcorp doing the drilling. They’re also establishing a midstream joint venture called Pennant Midstream to construct an initial 50 miles of wet gas gathering pipelines in northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania. And the new midstream company will build a natural gas processing complex in Ohio.

No word on exactly how much acreage the combined two have together in the Utica Shale, but the jv plus the new pipelines and processing plant is a major development for both eastern OH and western PA.

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Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Will There be Marcellus Drilling in PA State Parks?
July 9, 2012December 19, 2012

So far there has been no Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania’s 61 state parks that sit over top of the Marcellus (out of 120 state parks total). But that may soon change because the state doesn’t own the mineral rights for most of its parks.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Wayne County

DRBC Says No Marcellus Vote Until Nov. 2012 Earliest
July 6, 2012December 19, 2012

Eastern parts of Pennsylvania that sit within the boundaries of the Delaware River Basin have been locked in a drilling moratorium since the Marcellus drilling boom began. Eastern PA has the misfortune of sitting inside the boundaries of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), which delayed a vote to allow drilling in November 2011. That vote has still not taken place.

Carol Collier, executive director of the DRBC, made an impromptu visit with Wayne County, PA landowners while in the area last week, and updated them on the “progress” being made on adoption of new drilling rules. She told landowner coalition representatives there are two reasons why new drilling rules for the Delaware River Basin will not be voted on before November 2012 at the earliest: (1) They’re waiting to see what New York does, and (2) they’re waiting for the Nov. 6 election.

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Accidents | Bradford County | Chief Oil & Gas | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania

Hydrochloric Acid Spill at Drilling Site in Bradford, PA
July 6, 2012December 19, 2012

It wasn’t a happy July 4th at the Yoder Unit 1H Marcellus well in Leroy Township (Bradford County), PA. The well, in the process of being drilled by Chief Oil and Gas, experienced a leak of 4,700 gallons of hydrochloric acid from a faulty valve. Most of the acid stayed on the drill pad, but some of it ran off into a local “plunge pool” constructed by Chief and killed some minnows. Fortunately, the acid never reached nearby Towanda Creek and did not create a safety hazard for nearby landowners.

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Altela | Clarion County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | McKean County | Pennsylvania | Wastewater

Altela Set to Open 2 New Frack Wastewater Plants in PA
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

Two new fracking wastewater treatment plants will come online in Pennsylvania on August 1st—one in Clarion County, the other in McKean County. As MDN reported back in November, Altela Inc. will use a distillation process to purify fracking wastewater, a “green” alternative instead of chemically treating the water (see this MDN story).

The new news is that Altela is almost ready to open two new plants using their green technology.

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Berks County | Bucks County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Montgomery County | Pennsylvania | Regulation

Republicans Sneak SE PA Drilling Ban into Budget Deal
July 2, 2012July 2, 2012

An eleventh hour deal was snuck into the Pennsylvania budget signed into law by Gov. Tom Corbett late Saturday night. On Friday, an amendment was introduced to the budget that would establish a moratorium on drilling in southeastern Pennsylvania in the South Newark Basin, a small area which stretches from New Jersey through Bucks, Montgomery and Berks counties in PA.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed an evaluation of the South Newark Basin, which contains both shale and coal bed methane deposits, along with four other East Coast basins and issued a report showing how much natural gas each basin contains (a copy is embedded below). The report says the South Newark Basin contains a minimum of 363 billion cubic feet of natural gas deposits, and their best guess is it contains around 876 billion cubic feet. It’s much smaller than the Marcellus, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.

With all of the gas drilling in the rest of the state, and with new drilling laws now in place, why place a temporary moratorium that expires in 2018 on the southeast region of the state? That’s where politics rears its ugly head—and this time it’s the Republicans who are to blame.

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Statewide PA | Sunoco Logistics

Sunoco & Carlyle Group Ink Joint Venture for Philly Refinery
July 2, 2012July 2, 2012

Apparently the merger underway between Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco is going well enough, and the promise of Marcellus and Utica Shale big enough, that Sunoco has inked a deal with The Carlyle Group to form a joint venture to keep the Philadelphia refinery operating. The new joint venture will save 850 jobs at the plant. Wording in the extensive press release below indicates that shale—Marcellus, Utica and Bakken—will all play an important role for the refinery moving forward.

This is good news for the workers at the refinery, and good news for consumers who will continue to have access to low-cost oil, natural gas and other petrochemical products that will be produced by the refinery. Here’s the press release announcing the deal:

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Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Shell | Statewide PA

PA Budget with Shell Cracker Plant Tax Credit Passes
July 2, 2012July 2, 2012

At 11:45 pm Saturday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, for the second year in a row (and his second year in office), signed into law an on-time budget for the state—a budget that does not raise taxes. No small feat given the current sad state of the economy.

One of the biggest victories for Corbett in this year’s budget (supported by both Republicans and Democrats) was the passage of a tax credit for Shell and other companies who invest in an ethane cracker plant for the state:

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Statewide PA

PA Legislature Reaches Deal on Tax Credit for Cracker Plant
June 29, 2012June 29, 2012

A deal has been struck by the Republican majority legislature in Pennsylvania to grant Shell a tax credit over a 25-year period starting in 2017. Gov. Tom Corbett had originally proposed the tax credit be capped at $66 million per year, or a total of $1.7 billion, but the final version of the law, if passed, places no limit on the total amount other than a credit of five cents per gallon of ethane used. So the total deal may exceed $66 million per year.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pennsylvania | Statewide NY | Statewide PA

SRBC Suspends Water Withdrawals in Some Areas
June 29, 2012June 29, 2012

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), actively manages water withdrawals for shale drilling from the rivers and streams that are a part of its jurisdiction. The DRBC allows no water withdrawals at all—yet.

Yesterday the SRBC suspended withdrawals at 37 different locations because water levels have dropped from lack of rain. This happens periodically. Withdrawals in some locations are suspended for a time, and then allowed to restart when levels rise again. The SRBC continues to do a good job of managing water supplies throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Here’s the press release and list of affected areas:

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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Washington County

The Politics of Shale Energy
June 29, 2012June 29, 2012

There is a brutal fact of politics no candidate can escape (try as they might): People vote their pocketbooks. The quintessential example of that that political axiom is Washington County, Pennsylvania. Heavily Democrat in voter registration, Washington County voters did something 3 1/2 years ago they haven’t done in over 40 years—they voted for a Republican for president (John McCain). And you can bet your bottom dollar Romney will be their choice this time around.

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Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Yaterra Ventures

New Driller Arrives in the Marcellus – Hunting for Oil
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

There’s a new name in drillers coming to the Marcellus Shale: Yaterra Ventures. In a press release yesterday (see below), Yaterra announced they they are close to concluding negotiations to take over the leases for 150 wells on 1,600 acres in western Pennsylvania. Yaterra does not mention who the potential seller is. It strikes MDN as unusual that Yaterra would issue a press release prior to the deal closing, but sometimes these high finance deals escape our understanding!

One thing we do understand from the release: Yaterra is not after natural gas in the Marcellus. They’re after shale oil.

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Delaware County (PA) | Economic Impact | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Sunoco Logistics

Will Marcellus Shale Save Philly Marcus Hook Refinery?
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

Last year the Philadelphia region was hard-hit when both Sunoco and ConocoPhillips announced they would shut down a combined three refineries in the area. Since then, ConocoPhillips sold its refinery for $180 million to Delta Air Lines which will convert and use the plant for jet-fuel production. Sunoco is in talks to sell its one of two refineries (in Philly) to a joint venture headed by the Carlyle Group—but if that doesn’t develop, they’re going to shut it down.

And then there’s the Marcus Hook refinery, which closed it doors “for good” in April. Officials from the town of Marcus Hook and Delaware County are working hard to get it reopened. As part of that process, they commissioned a $100,000 study, just released, from IHS Consulting. The study identifies seven possible uses for the idled refinery, and pegs its best chances of reopening based on the abundance of natural gas and gas liquids coming from the Marcellus and Utica Shale region.

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