Statewide PA

Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA House and Senate Panels Vote to Reject DEP’s New Drilling Regs
April 13, 2016April 13, 2016

Yesterday the Pennsylvania State House and Senate energy committees voted to disapprove the state Dept. of Environmental Protection’s proposed new Article 78 and 78a drilling rules. In February when the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB) approved the new regulations after those regs were vigorously opposed by conventional drillers in the state, the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) blasted the decision calling the DEP “deceptive” (see PA Board Adopts New Drilling Regs, PIOGA Blasts DEP “Deceptive”). The Pennsylvania Independent Petroleum Producers Association (PIPP) filed a lawsuit on March 24, 2016, in the Commonwealth court of Pennsylvania challenging the legality of controversial new regulations (see PA Conventional Drillers File Lawsuit to Stop New DEP Regulations). The fight has now gone to the legislature, which has some, but not ultimate, authority to derail the new regulations. Yesterday the legislature used that authority when the energy committees for both houses voted to not approve the new regs. What happens next? The state’s the Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) will review the new regs on April 21 and make a decision about whether to approve them or not…
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Energy Companies | Ethane | Exporting | Industrywide Issues | NGLs | Pennsylvania | Rex Energy | Statewide PA

Rex Energy Cuts Deal to Export Ethane, Propane to Europe via Philly
April 12, 2016April 12, 2016

Rex Energy has stepped up to be the second Marcellus/Utica driller to cut a deal using the Mariner East pipeline to ship ethane, propane and (eventually) butane from western PA to the Marcus Hook refinery in Philadelphia, and from there load it onto ships heading to (in this case) Europe. Range Resources was the first driller to use Sunoco Logistics Partners’ Mariner East pipeline to send ethane to Marcus Hook and on to exporting (see Range Resources Ethane Heading to Marcus Hook Beginning February). The Swiss-based company INEOS cut a deal to buy Range Resources ethane to power both Norwegian and Scottish cracker plants (see Cracker Plant in Scotland “Brought Back to Life” Thx to Marcellus Ethane). Now, Rex Energy has cut a deal with INEOS to buy ethane, propane and butane, according to an announcement yesterday by Rex. The particulars (i.e. financial aspects) of the deal were not announced…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

List of 2016 Shale Gas Innovation Contest Finalists
April 12, 2016April 12, 2016

On May 18, the Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation & Commercialization Center (SGICC) will announce four $20,000 winners of this year’s Shale Gas Innovation Contest. In addition to showcasing the 12 finalists, this year’s event will also feature a Poster Contest highlighting research underway related to the oil and gas sector–from four major regional research universities. Below we have the list of all 12 finalists with a description of their qualifying technologies. Among the list is one of our favorite companies, HalenHardy, a previous winner of another SGICC award for Shale Gas Environmental, Health, & Safety (see HalenHardy Wins Ben Franklin EHS Award for Silica Air Shower). HalenHardy is headed by serial and intrepid entrepreneur (and MDN friend) Donny Beaver. Good luck Donny!…
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Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide OH | Statewide PA

HBK 2016 Energy Assessment, Predictions for OH/PA on Pipes, Taxes
April 12, 2016April 12, 2016

CPA/consulting firm HBK (Hill, Barth & King) is fresh out with their 2016 Energy Assessment–an analysis of energy trends, opportunities, challenges and risks. In the assessment (full copy below) HBK Energy Advisors (a division of HBK) weighs in on issues like Obama’s odious Clean Power Plan, renewable energy, LNG and more. Of particular interest to MDN is a series of predictions made not in the official assessment, but in an accompanying blog post on the HBK website. The analysts make a series of predictions for Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey and Florida. The first prediction for Ohio is that pipeline work in the Buckeye State will increase, mostly due to the NEXUS pipeline. Which we find interesting. Just last week we told you an analyst from Wood Mackenzie predicted the NEXUS won’t get built (see Utica Event: OH Landowners Will Lose $6.5B in 5 Yrs, NEXUS Nixed). Now we have another analyst/company saying it will get built! Have a look at HBK’s predictions and see if you agree with them…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Delaware Riverkeeper Keeps Up Aggressive Attack on FERC, New Angle
April 11, 2016April 11, 2016

THE Delaware Riverkeeper, a radical left-wing group that’s not much more than its director, Maya van Rossum, and a lawyer, continues (with big money funding from NGOs like the Heinz Endowments and the Park Foundation) to aggressively attack the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. We warned you last year that Riverkeeper was attempting to overload FERC’s approval process for the PennEast Pipeline by encouraging anti-drilling zealots to register, en masse, as “intervenors” (see Delaware Riverkeeper Scams FERC in Review of PennEast Pipeline). Riverkeeper even asked their wacko followers to register their own children as intervenors–again in an attempt to overload FERC’s workload. Riverkeeper has sued FERC God knows how many times now (see THE Delaware Riverkeeper Sues FERC, Tries to Close it Down). But since none of those efforts are working, Riverkeeper (and van Rossum) are trying yet another tactic. They want the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a “review” of FERC in hopes that somebody–Obama? Congress? another agency?–at the federal level will come down on FERC to prevent the agency from doing its job–reviewing and approving new pipelines. We have evidence…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Senate Race – Dems Try to Outdo Each Other as Anti-Frack
April 11, 2016April 11, 2016

“I hate frackers more than you do and I’ll screw them more than you will.” “No, I hate them more than you do!” And so it goes with the Democrats running in the primary for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. The three candidates vying to run on the Dem ticket in November are all, to one degree or another, anti-fracking. The lead candidate is Kathy McGinty, former chief of staff for failing Gov. Tom Wolf and former head of the Dept. of Environmental Protection under Ed “fast Eddie” Rendell. Her challengers are accusing her of being in bed with the frackers. She says fracking is OK–as long as you regulate it to death. None of them are qualified to be Senator, but then look who’s president right now…
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Baker Hughes | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Rig Counts for World, US Continue Steep Slide in March; M-U Down 1
April 8, 2016April 8, 2016

We’ve now gone beyond cutting into the bone and sinew with rig count losses–we’re now severing limbs. February’s Baker Hughes rig counts were awful, with both international and U.S. counts hitting record lows (see Rig Counts for World, US & Marcellus/Utica Crash in February). Somehow, it got worse in March. International rig counts went down 33 from 1,018 counted in February to 985 in March. In the U.S., rig counts went from 532 in February to 478 in March–a loss of 54 (10%). Month after month it just keeps going lower. Will the patient survive the carnage? On a more positive note, the number of rigs in PA, OH and WV cumulatively (the Marcellus-Utica) went down by just 1 rig. PA’s count went up 1 rig, OH’s count went down 2 rigs, and WV’s count stayed the same. Here’s the details…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA DEP Reignites Initiative re Inspections/Compliance/Enforcement
April 7, 2016April 7, 2016

On Tuesday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued an ambiguous, slightly threatening-sounding announcement about “restarting a process” that will lead to more consistency with “inspections, compliance and enforcement activities.” The announcement does not specifically mention the oil and gas industry, but o&g is a large part of what the DEP does–so presumably this is a new effort to clamp down on drillers and midstream companies. How will the DEP become more “consistent” with inspections and compliance and enforcement? That’s left unsaid. The DEP says it is conducting an “internal review” now, to be completed in May. They promise a coming public notice and comment period this summer…
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Energy Companies | Greene County (PA) | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Rice Energy | Statewide PA | Washington County

Rice Energy Fined ~$400K by PA DEP for Not Asking “Mother May I?”
April 6, 2016April 6, 2016

The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has slapped Rice Energy and a couple of Rice’s subsidiary companies with a hefty fine of $393,500. Egads! Must be Rice did some very nasty things, right? Turns out most of the reason why the DEP fined Rice was for not playing “Mother May I?” with the DEP. In one case Rice installed a waterline between a well pad and an impoundment–without “Mother May I?” permission from the DEP. In another case Rice built a pipeline through a swamp (i.e. “wetland”) without getting DEP “Mother May I?” permission. And in yet another case Rice installed three waterlines under a creek instead of one. Rice’s midstream subsidiary was cited for “not using best management practices”–a severe no no for the DEP. Rice Midstream’s lack of management practice decorum led to a small incidence of erosion that briefly turned a creek brown. Call in the EPA! That’s your PA DEP hard at work for the people–always on the job ensuring those nasty drillers tow the line and pay big fines…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA

PennEast Spins FERC Delay as a Good Thing – Optimism or Denial?
April 5, 2016April 5, 2016

We understand the value of a healthy, optimistic attitude. We consider ourselves to be a “glass half full” rather than “glass half empty” type of people. But we’re also realists. Last week the builders of the proposed PennEast Pipeline–a $1.2 billion, 114-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver approximately 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern PA to locations in southeastern PA and across the border to Trenton, NJ–received what we considered bad news. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told PennEast they would extend the amount of time they are taking until December of this year, rather than August, to complete their Environmental Review. And FERC won’t issue their final decision on authorizing the project until March 2017–at the earliest. PennEast had requested FERC wrap it all up by this August–an 8-month delay. In our book, that’s mildly bad news. But yesterday PennEast issued a press release saying the FERC announcement is an “important milestone,” almost lauding FERC for moving so quickly given a plateful of pipeline applications–even though it means the PennEast project now won’t be completed until 2018 instead of 2017. Is this a “glass half full” optimistic attitude? Or self-deluding denial? We can think of many reasons why it’s a manifestly bad thing that FERC has delayed–not the least of which is are multiple lawsuits sure to be launched by the radicals at THE Delaware Riverkeeper…
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Centre County | Lease & Royalty Payments | Meetings | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Royalty Owners Meet in State College: Bills, Lawsuits, Boycotts
April 5, 2016April 5, 2016

Last week Pennsylvania landowners (royalty owners) from around the state gathered in State College, PA for the 2016 NARO (National Association of Royalty Owners) PA Annual Meeting and Convention. A variety of interesting topics were addressed, including: support for House Bill (HB) 1391 that guarantees a minimum 12.5% royalty payment to landowners; coming lawsuits from landowners against the state over the state’s aggressive action in claiming ownership of the land under rivers and streams; and a call to boycott all films which star anti-fossil fuel man-child Leonardo DiCaprio…
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Chevron | CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies | Energy Corporation of America | EQT Corp | Noble Energy | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Rex Energy | Rice Energy | Statewide PA | Vantage Energy | XTO

Top 10 Marcellus/Utica Drillers in SWPA – Ranked by Production
April 4, 2016April 4, 2016

Everybody loves a list. We do too! We spotted a ranking in a recent issue of the Pittsburgh Business Times that lists the top 37 shale gas producers in southwestern Pennsylvania, based on the amount of gas they produced in 2015. We pulled the names of the top 10, listed in order from most to least…
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Allegheny County | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Winners of 2016 Northeast Oil & Gas Awards [FREE Access]
April 1, 2016April 1, 2016

Earlier this week (March 30th) the 2016 Northeast Oil & Gas Awards and Industry Summit was held in Pittsburgh. Once again the Awards and the Summit were a smashing success. Congratulations to all of the finalists and winners! Each year the Oil & Gas Awards recognize organizations operating responsibly and supporting the communities they operate within. Now in their 4th year, the Oil & Gas Awards are judged by over 100 senior industry professionals. Partners in the Northeast Awards are The US Chamber of Commerce, The Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, The Washington County Chamber of Commerce and the Western Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association. Here is a complete list of the winners, by category…
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Air Quality | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Philly Green Group Throws Temper Trantrum After Energy Hub Meeting
April 1, 2016April 1, 2016

Petulant, spoiled rotten children often grow up to be petulant, spoiled rotten adults–adults who throw temper tantrums when they don’t get their own way. Such is the case with members of Green Justice Philly, a coalition of anti-drilling groups opposed to fossil fuels and opposed to a plan to bring more fossil fuels to Philadelphia as part of a northeastern “energy hub” concept. Yesterday we told you about Wednesday’s closed-door meeting where a new study was released, a “road map” that can be used to bring more natural gas and natural gas liquids to the City of Brotherly Love (see Philly Chamber Publishes Roadmap to Turn Region into “Energy Hub”). There certainly wasn’t much love displayed by a handful of boisterous protesters outside of the meeting. The meeting was private and the disruptive protesters were not allowed inside to conduct their normal mischief. And therein lies the winter of their discontent. Following the event Green Justice Philly issued a press release to pout like little children crying that mommy wouldn’t let them into the room. Awww, poor babies…
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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Research | Statewide PA

Philly Chamber Publishes Roadmap to Turn Region into “Energy Hub”
March 31, 2016March 31, 2016

Yesterday a large group of business, labor and political leaders gathered in Philadelphia to hear about plans to turn Philly into an “energy hub” with more pipelines delivering natural gas and natural gas liquids to the region. Chemical plants and manufacturers would spring up to use the gas and gas liquids–creating a huge economic impact for the region. According to press reports there were 200 or more gathered for the unveiling of a new report from the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce’s Greater Philadelphia Energy Action Team (GPEAT). The report is titled, “A Pipeline for Growth, Fueling Economic Revitalization with Marcellus and Utica Shale Gas” (full copy embedded below). Meanwhile, 20-30 silly anti-drillers (who don’t have lives apart from protesting) stood outside and tried their darnedest to shout and disrupt the meeting. How did they react inside? By making fun and laughing at them! Philip Rinaldi, GPEAT Chair and President/CEO of Philadelphia Energy Solutions said this to the crowd as he took the stage: “I’m inclined to ask for a brief moment of silence to hear the protesters a little better.” Love it! You had to have a ticket into the private event–and the antis couldn’t score any tickets to disrupt the event–something they bitterly complained about. We say it’s about time someone pushed back against these disorderly ne’er do wells. Here’s how it went down inside the event, a place the antis couldn’t go…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Radical Group PennEnvironment Repeats Debunked Lies re Fracking
March 31, 2016March 31, 2016

Question: How do you know when PennEnvironment is lying about fracking? Answer: When they open their mouths to speak. That about sums up a conference call held by the radical Big Green group PennEnvironment yesterday. The call was held to repeat and regurgitate the same old lies, and otherwise bamboozle stupid people who don’t know any better–about the so-called harms of fracking, particularly on human health. Apparently PennEnvironment believes if you wait a few years until after your lies were 100% debunked, and just repeat the same lies again, people will forget and believe you the second, third, or fourth time. Here’s how it went down yesterday…
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