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Getting Marcellus NatGas to Customers without Pipelines

NOTE: This post was updated on 7/30/15 per the request of Compass Natural Gas Partners. The updates reflect that Compass does not market to rural communities/end users, but rather to manufacturers, fleets and businesses that are not located near natural gas pipelines. We thank Compass for setting the record straight. – Jim Willis, Editor, MDN

Wouldn’t it be great if you could sell Pennsylvania’s abundant, clean-burning and cheap Marcellus Shale gas to areas without access to a pipeline or natural gas? Just wave the magic wand and presto-magico gas is delivered to manufacturers, fleets and businesses where no infrastructure now exists. That’s the premise behind a very real company that aims to accomplish that lofty objective. Compass Natural Gas Partners, based in Camp Hill, PA, is building a first of its kind compressed natural gas (CNG) terminal in Lycoming County, PA that will accept Marcellus Shale gas in, clean it up (get rid of the water in it), compress it to 3600 psi, and load it into specially designed trailers that haul it to customers. If this project catches on, it has the power to change how natgas is distributed to locations with no pipelines…
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Industry-Backed Ad Turning the Tide Against PA Severance Tax

media biasMust be that new advertisement airing in Pennsylvania warning folks against Gov. Tom Wolf’s Marcellus-killing 15% severance tax is having an effect. How can we tell? Because mainstream media outlets like the ABC affiliate in Harrisburg is manufacturing a false controversy about who’s behind the ads–quoting anti-drillers like Jan Jarrett from the non-transparent partisan group called the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center–to distract people from the effectiveness of the ad. Plus, the pro-Democrat Harrisburg Patriot-News doesn’t even bother manufacturing a false controversy–they just outright criticize and ridicule the ad, not even bothering with a veneer of objectivity…
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PA Drought Conditions Begin to Affect Marcellus Drilling

Drought conditions now exist over a large part of Pennsylvania, and because of it, we are beginning to see some impacts on Marcellus Shale drilling. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) oversees water management/withdrawals from streams and rivers in the central and western part of the state. The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC) oversees it in the northeastern part of the state. The DEP has not (yet) issued any restrictions, but the SRBC reports that restrictions previously written into water permits for drillers in the northeast have affected the withdrawals of two drillers: Cabot Oil & Gas (in Susquehanna County) and Seneca Resources (in Tioga County)…
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Who Ya Gonna Call? PA DEP (Noise) Ghostbusters!

ghostbustersThe Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection is wading into an area that’s likely best left to towns and municipalities: regulation of noise coming from Marcellus Shale drilling operations. The DEP wants drillers to craft a site-specific plan for noise mitigation for each and every well pad they drill. Problem is, the DEP won’t give drillers any standards against which to devise their plans. That is, the DEP isn’t willing to say “this loud is too loud at this distance from the drill site.” Drillers are understandably confused. How do you draw up a plan with no standards/no regulations? The DEP says noise is a funny thing–it can carry in one place but not another. They claim you can’t draw up hard and fast guidelines. One noise expert says trying to figure out the source of noise (and how to prevent it) is “sort of chasing ghosts”…
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Research: Marcellus Frack Wastewater More Radioactive than Thought

A study published in April reportedly concludes that fracking wastewater may be “more radioactive than researchers previously believed.” The study, titled “Understanding the Radioactive Ingrowth and Decay of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials in the Environment: An Analysis of Produced Fluids from the Marcellus Shale” (full copy below) was published in the peer reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives. In a nutshell, the study says previous looks at the “you’ll glow in the dark, you’re all getting irradiated” issue has only looked at the presence of radium in frack wastewater. The researchers say that in order to judge the true radioactivity of frack wastewater you need to consider the isotopes that radium and radon breaks down into hours, days, weeks, months and years later–especially in closed tanks. And when you do, the authors say the level of radiation people (and the environment) is exposed to goes much higher that previously thought. Is this the smoking gun? Here’s MDN’s layman’s perspective on this new study…
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Disaster on the Horizon: PA Gov Wolf Creates Pipeline Task Force

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has proven, once again, the job he was elected to do is just too big for him. He’s not up to the task. Gov. Wolf has just announced the creation of a “Task Force on Pipeline Infrastructure Development” that will add an additional layer of interference by anti-drilling “environmental organizations” on where pipelines can and (preferably, from their viewpoint) can’t be laid. The Task Force is supposedly an “unprecedented collaboration of stakeholders” from government, drillers, midstreamers, and anti-drillers (euphemistically referred to as environmentalists). A “can’t we all just get along” committee. And this Task Force will “recommend a series of best practices” for where/when/how gathering pipelines will get laid in the Keystone State. John Quigley, acting secretary of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and former staffer at the anti-drilling PennFuture, will serve as chairman of the Task Force. God help us all…
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WPX Completes $200M Sale to Still-Unnamed Buyer in NE Marcellus

Earlier this month MDN told you that WPX Energy had sold contracts and contracted capacity to buy and sell natural gas on on Transco’s Northeast Supply Link pipeline for $200 million to an undisclosed buyer (see Mystery Buyer to Pay WPX Energy $200M for NE Marcellus Assets). We told you our best guess for who the buyer likely is: Southwestern Energy, the same company that just completed purchasing WPX’s leases and wells in Susquehanna County in February for $300 million (see WPX Finalizes Sale of NEPA Marcellus Leases/Wells to Southwestern). Yesterday WPX issued a press release to say the deal is now done and the money in the bank–but they still don’t/won’t name who the buyer was…
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Democrats Admit Wolf’s PA Severance Tax Goes as High as 20%

A diverse coalition of industry and business groups has come together, led by the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, to oppose PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s disastrous idea of a severance tax on the Marcellus Shale industry. The coalition has just launched a very effective television commercial. How do we know it’s effective? The Democrat PR machine (i.e. PBS’s StateImpact Pennsylvania) writes about the commercial and shows a screen shot of the Youtube version of it–but they don’t embed the Youtube version so you can actually watch it . Don’t worry, we embed it below. PBS can’t have anyone actually watch the thing for goodness sake! That might actually sway a few people. Amazingly, we do get an admission from the Democrats at StateImpact that if the price of natgas remains low in PA, Wolf’s severance tax actually zooms up to 20%–not the 5% he claims it is. Looks like somebody at StateImpact didn’t follow instructions to let the governor’s office review the story before it was published. Oh oh…
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Pittsburgh Newspaper Calls Out Dela. Riverkeeper over Penn East

It’s so unusual we have to highlight it. One of two major newspapers in Pittsburgh, the Tribune-Review, has called out THE Delaware Riverkeeper over its opposition to the Penn East Pipeline. The Penn East, if built, will run 114 miles from the Scranton, PA area to the Trenton, NJ area. An editorial in the Tribune-Review last Friday questions the true motivation of THE Delaware Riverkeeper in their opposition to Penn East and tells the group, in so many words, to put up or shut up. Tell us exactly how the pipeline will “damage” the environment–and if you can’t, go away and leave us all in peace to build a pipeline with tremendous economic benefits in both jobs and lower energy costs for consumers…
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PA Landowners Beware Antis Wanting to “Help You” w/Pipeline Deal

Landowners in northeast and central Pennsylvania should be wary of (and avoid) a new effort to try and recruit them into a “landowner group” that’s really just an anti-drilling group being formed to fight Williams and their much-needed Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. Two anti-drilling kids (or youths, if you prefer) are spearheading the effort. Alex Lotorto is one of them. Alex has been one of the community agitators against the natural gas fired electric generating plant proposed for Jessup, PA (see Serial Protestor Alex Lotorto Seeks New Venue in Jessup). Alex and another twenty-something anti-driller, Allison Petryk (from New Jersey), recently conducted a meeting for unsuspecting landowners at the Tunkhannock Public Library in Wyoming County…
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Drexel U Study Finds Little Air Pollution Near Marcellus Sites

Real ScienceFinally some real, honest, independent research into the effects of shale drilling on air quality has just been published in the peer reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology. Researchers from Drexel University published the results of air quality research titled “Atmosphere Emission Characterization of Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Development Sites” (full copy below). Rather than focus solely on the release of methane as a global warming concern, the Drexel researchers looked at volatile organic compounds and other pollutants that are a true health concern for people living close to drilling sites and compressor stations. The researchers took measurements using a more accurate instrumentation/methodology than other studies have used and they collected 17 samples at 13 sites including wells, drilling rigs, compressor stations and processing areas. This kind of research is long overdue. What did they find?…
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Penn State Defends Controversial Water Contamination Study

Two weeks ago MDN covered the news that researchers from Penn State had published a study that reportedly showed a Marcellus Shale wastewater impoundment had leaked and some of the wastewater had found its way to a crack underground and traveled up to a mile and a half away to contaminate 3 water wells. This happened in 2010–five years ago (see Penn State Finds Chemical Migration in 3 PA Water Wells from 2010). It seemed at first blush that this was important research not because it proves “fracking contaminates water wells, told you so told you so” as anti-drillers claim–but because of the research tools innovated by the team to detect small amounts of chemicals that may in fact come from shale drilling. However, a few days later the news broke that one of the so-called researchers on the team had actually been a consultant and worked for the three families with the contaminated water wells, helping them in their lawsuit against the driller. When that little overlooked and omitted fact became known, embarrased mainstream news organizations did something we rarely see–they printed retractions/corrections noting the huge conflict of interest (see Reversal: Media Discredits Penn State Water Contamination Study). It gave Penn State a major black eye and damaged their credibility. So Penn State fired off their own mea culpa to defend the research study and the “facts” of how this kerfuffle came to be…
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PA Gov Wolf Takes Aim at Bakken Oil Trains Traveling Thru PA

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is now taking aim at railroads transporting Bakken crude oil that pass through PA on their way to refineries along the East Coast. While railroads are typically regulated by the federal government, Wolf is a) hoping to pressure railroads apart from the feds, and b) may try to sneak in his own regulations on top of federal regulations. He’s hired an “expert,” Dr. Allan Zarembski, to look into the matter for the next three months–to provide Wolf with “policy recommendations” (which means new rules and regulations are on the way). Wolf sent a letter (copy below) to CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway telling them to shape up…
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New Permit Applications Down 30% in PA, DEP Scrambles for Funding

Starting in 2014, the price to file an application for a permit to drill a Marcellus or Utica Shale well in Pennsylvania went from $3,200 to $5,000 (see Coming Soon: PA Drillers to Pay 56% More for Marcellus Permits). In early 2014, then head of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection, Chris Abruzzo, said the fee hike and forecasted new revenue from it would allow the DEP to hire more help (see New Staffers on Way at PA DEP O&G Courtesy Higher Permit Fees). But a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum–the price of natural gas dropped like a rock because of too much supply and, in the northeast, not enough pipelines. Year over year the number of applications for permits to drill new wells is down about 30% according to the DEP, and that means the previously forecasted revenue isn’t there. What will the DEP do now?…
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PA Gov. Wolf Throws Temper Tantrum at Groups Opposing Sev. Tax

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is a typical Democrat. When he doesn’t get his own way, he throws a temper tantrum and stomps his feet and behaves like a child. Yesterday he sent his chief of staff, Katie McGinty, off to the Pennsylvania Press Club to give “reporters” the narrative they should use to try and mass brainwash the PA population on why his 15% severance tax plan is such a great idea (see today’s companion story). Meanwhile, Wolf sent a temper tantrum letter off to the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry along with a 16 other PA business organizations to lambaste them for having the gall to disagree with his severance tax plan and point out its shortcomings…
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Wolf Chief of Staff: Marcellus Industry Lying About Tax

According to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s chief of staff Katie McGinty, the Marcellus Shale industry is lying about its own economic health (or unhealth), and the only “responsible” thing to do is pass Wolf’s Marcellus-killing severance tax. That’s essentially what she said at a talk delivered to Democrat operatives–otherwise known as “reporters”–attending her speech at the Pennsylvania Press Club. “Reporter” Robert Swift was in attendance to take dictation/receive marching orders from McGinty and he “reports” this…
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