Statewide PA

Chevron | Energy Companies | Fayette County | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Chevron Wins Right to Build Freshwater Pond for Fracking in PA
August 27, 2013August 27, 2013

Last week the Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Marcellus Shale driller Chevron, declaring that Chevron has the right to construct a pond (“impoundment”) to hold fresh water used for fracking. The landowners in question (Mr. & Mrs. Humberston) did not want the pond constructed on 11 acres of their land but since the lease they signed did not specifically limit it, and since having lots of fresh water to frack with is a requirement for drilling (a reasonable expectation), the court ruled Chevron was within its rights to construct the pond…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

CSSD Says First Marcellus Certifications Coming Later this Year
August 23, 2013August 23, 2013

MDN previously told you about a new, independent group–a cooperative between the drilling industry and environmentalists–called the Center for Sustainable Shale Development, or CSSD (see Important: Drillers & Enviros Form New Group, Launch Cert Program). Members of the group on both sides have taken heat for working together to create very strict standards for Marcellus and Utica Shale drillers (see Eco Groups Shun EDF over Membership in Sustainable Shale Center).

The CSSD created a list of 15 standards they want drillers to conform to–some of the standards very costly, especially to small drillers. The group is moving forward with their plans and intends to begin certifying drillers “later this year”…
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Exporting | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Consultant: Retooling PGW LNG Terminal for Exports Problematic
August 23, 2013August 23, 2013

MDN previously told you that the 176 year-old Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) natural gas utility company went on the auction block in July with the aim of privatizing it (see Phila. Gas Works Goes on Auction Block – Marcellus Key in Sale?). At the time, it seemed like one of the keys to a sale would be converting an existing liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility owned and operated by PGW into an export facility for exporting Marcellus Shale gas.

However, according to a confidential report issued earlier this year by a PGW consultant, such a scenario would not be all that attractive for a potential buyer. The cost to convert the facility would be far more than the existing value of the entire company, plus there are real estate issues to contend with…
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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | Supply Chain | West Virginia

MSC Releases Annual Marcellus Job/Workforce Survey
August 22, 2013August 22, 2013

What types of companies in the Marcellus/Utica Shale region are hiring? What types of jobs are they hiring for? And where are they hiring? Those are just some of the answers you’ll find in the latest annual membership survey from the Marcellus Shale Coalition (copy of survey results embedded below). In addition to those questions, the survey also addresses which functions and services drillers outsourced (pay attention supply chain companies!), and which positions were hardest to fill (pay attention job seekers!).

The press release announcing and summarizing the survey results:
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Industrywide Issues | Landfills | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Revisiting the Radioactive Shale Cutting Issue in PA
August 22, 2013August 22, 2013

Because of ongoing concerns about the radioactivity of leftover rock and dirt (“shale cuttings”) being dumped at PA landfills, the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) began a 12-14 month study of the issue this past January (see PA DEP Announces New Study of Radiation in Shale Drilling). A new update on their efforts and on the radioactive waste issue appears in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The article points out the dramatic increase in radioactive alarms going off at landfills over Marcellus waste shipments (happened nearly 1,000 times last year). However, the article also provides much-needed context and points out the radiation detected is minuscule because the detectors are so finely tuned to detect medical waste, and that in reality most of the time there is no issue or cause for concern.

The article begins this way:
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Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

2nd High-Level Defection from PA DEP: Kevin Sunday Joins PR Firm
August 22, 2013August 22, 2013

A second high-level defection from the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In March, then-Sec. of the DEP Michael Krancer announced he would leave the DEP and return to private law practice (see Developing… PA DEP Sec. Krancer Resigns). Krancer has been gone since April 15th. Now, a second prominent DEP official–deputy press secretary Kevin Sunday–has left too.

Harrisburg PR firm Quantum Communications announced yesterday that Sunday has joined their company and will “help lead” the “growing energy practice” at Quantum…
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Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Pro-Drilling PA Gov. Tom Corbett Applauded by National GOP
August 20, 2013August 20, 2013

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, strongly pro-drilling, was the star of the show at the Republican National Committee meeting in Boston last Thursday where he gave a speech at a gathering that included so-called Republicans like NJ Gov. Chris Christie and MA Senator Scott Brown–RINOs with much more national name recognition. Corbett got repeated applause for reducing the bloated size of government in PA (cleaning up the mess left by Ed Rendell) and for ramping up Marcellus Shale drilling.

Pennsylvania GOP Chairman Rob Gleason said New York wants Corbett to come make a speech in the Empire State to show the apparently clueless (our words) Cuomo how to get it done when it comes to drilling. Here’s what Gleason said about Corbett’s Boston speech, about his conversation with the head of the GOP in NY, and about the controversy that has erupted over the PA Democrats’ idiotic vote to “temporarily” ban drilling statewide:
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Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA NatGas Production up 58.5% to 1.42 Tcf (!)
August 20, 2013August 20, 2013

The top-notch editors at NGI’s Shale Daily have put together a must-see report on Marcellus Shale production in PA. Natural gas production in PA was up an astonishing 58.5% in the first six months of this year–to a new high of 1.42 trillion cubic feet. The report identifies the state’s top-producing well (in Bradford County, find out which driller and how much gas it produced in the report), and includes a handy chart showing production by county, breaking out methane, condensate and oil production.

The article/report begins this way:
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Democrats: Internal Fighting Over Vote to Ban Shale Drilling
August 19, 2013August 19, 2013

Well well, finally a mainstream media outlet that is talking about the elephant (or in this case the donkey) sitting in the room that’s so big, it can no longer be ignored–i.e. the firestorm that has erupted inside the Pennsylvania Democrat Party over their idiotic vote in June to support a statewide, ongoing moratorium/ban of Marcellus Shale drilling (see PA Democrat Party Votes to End Marcellus Shale Drilling Statewide). MDN previously told you about the building dissension within elected Democrat ranks over the vote (see 18 PA House Democrats Dissent from Party’s Vote for Frack Moratorium).

We wouldn’t call the internal squabbling in the Democrat Party a full-blown internecine war–yet. However, it’s getting there, according to an article printed over the weekend in the Harrisburg Patriot-News. Be forewarned that the Patriot-News article is written from a Democrat apologist viewpoint that tends to downplay how serious this issue is within Democrat ranks–but they can’t cover up the truth. The article is more of a begrudging, feet-dragging “guess we have to write about this” article than a gleeful “screw the Republicans again” article they would rather write. Keep that in mind as you read:
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Crime | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Student Intern Vandalizes 3 Gas/Oil Wells in PA Allegheny Forest
August 19, 2013August 19, 2013

What are those anti-drilling professors teaching in college these days anyway? A very misguided student intern, working on a project to clear a trail in the Pennsylvania Allegheny National Forest, decided he would vandalize three gas and oil wells drilled in the forest–wells that are legally there, with the blessing of PA state officials. Wells that are helping to reduce carbon in the atmosphere (if that sort of thing is important to you). Wells that may or may not have been horizontal shale wells.

So this so-called student–Jeffrey Branham (from Arizona)–damaged three wells and caused oil to spill on the ground, contaminating the precious environment he thinks he’s saving. What a dope…
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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Should the Full 7-Member PA Supreme Court Re-Hear Act 13 Case?
August 19, 2013August 19, 2013

The PA townships that sued the State of Pennsylvania last year over a section of the new Act 13 law that prevents towns from slapping their own zoning requirements on top of a uniform state zoning standard sense they may have won at the state Supreme Court level (which will allow them to zone) and are arguing against having oral arguments re-heard by all seven justices.

The original case–arguably one of the most important to come before the state Supreme Court in a long time–was originally heard by seven justices last fall–but one of the seven has since resigned due to campaign fundraising irregularities. The six justices remaining are three Democrats and three Republicans. Court watchers predict the Act 13 case decision will break down along party lines. If it’s a split decision at the Supreme Court level, the lower court ruling which favors the towns will stand. So the towns are arguing they don’t want the case re-heard by a full panel, now that a seventh justice (a Republican) has just taken the bench.
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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Court: Preparing to Drill Locks Up All Land in a “Unit”
August 19, 2013August 19, 2013

PA landowners listen up: If your gas/oil lease is near the end of its term with no drilling and you looking forward to signing a new lease, you may have a problem. If the driller holding the lease decides to do work in preparation for drilling on your neighbor’s property, you’re locked in too if your land is part of the drilling “unit.” According to a court case recently decided in PA, if a driller prepares to drill (which may be as little as moving around some dirt, depending on the language in the lease), the obligations of the lease are then fulfilled and all land in that unit is locked in–even if actual drilling doesn’t happen for a long time.

In legalese it’s called the habendum clause…
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Energy Companies | Lease & Royalty Payments | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Statewide PA

PA Director of Game Commission Double-Dipping with Gas Leases?
August 19, 2013August 19, 2013

An extensive investigative article about the director for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, William A. Capouillez, appears in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer. The article spotlights a potential conflict of interest between Capouillez’s day job and his moonlighting side job as an agent for property owners who lease their land for oil and gas development. The issue? He signs private deals with the same companies that often work with his state agency. For one driller–Range Resources–it’s become a serious (legal) issue.
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Sierra Club Looks for a New Warmist to Lead the Faithful
August 19, 2013August 19, 2013

The head of the extremist Sierra Club for the state of Pennsylvania is retiring, and the “race is on” to find someone just as extreme to fill his shoes. What does the PA Sierra Club’s Jeff Schmidt think is the most pressing issue facing the Keystone State? Of course it’s the mythical bogeyman “climate change.” What utter folly to say the climate changes! It’s like saying the sun shines and the earth rotates–which happen to be the two things that most affect the weather on this chunk of rock we call planet earth. Of course the climate changes–it’s definitional. What Schmidt means is that he believes man is causing catastrophic global warming–or anthropogenic warming. When the so-called “average temperature” on earth stopped warming about 15 years ago, the true believers had to quickly rename their manufactured crisis to “climate change.”
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Research | Statewide PA

Shale Gas Roundtable Issues Recommendations for PA Gas Drilling
August 16, 2013August 16, 2013

In March, MDN told you about the Shale Gas Roundtable, a group of high level participants from industry, government and academe organized and run by the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute on Politics (see Out of the Shadows: Another New Group Wants to Regulate PA Shale). The Roundtable has intentionally maintained a low profile–some might call it secrecy–in an attempt to craft a set of recommendations that will be taken seriously by both sides of the drilling debate and actually acted on, instead of being shelved as just another list of “nice to do” initiatives.

The group, which first met in September 2011, came all the way out of the shadows yesterday by releasing a 139-page report (full copy below) on their best thinking and recommendations to date. The report is a duesy–and we mean that in a mostly good way. Thorough and long, and full of concrete recommendations, the report tackles everything from proposed changes in the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection to new standards for water sourcing, biodegradable fracking chemicals, erosion controls, proposed new laws and even (yes) a vote in favor of forced pooling as the best way to minimize disturbance of surface land…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide PA

Is an “Independent” Shale Research Organization Possible?
August 16, 2013August 16, 2013

The Shale Gas Roundtable–a southwestern PA group made up of representatives from the oil and gas industry, government and academe–released an important new study on Wednesday with a list of comprehensive recommendations for how shale drilling can and should go forward in Pennsylvania (see today’s companion story). One of the boldest proposals by the group is the establishment of an independent research organization to study the effects of shale drilling. The trick is to craft an organization whose research is unassailable–no accusations that “industry” or “enviro groups” funded the research and therefore said research is skewed or tainted. How to do that?

The Roundtable proposes to borrow an idea from the automotive industry…
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