Cabot Signs Deal to Export Gas via Cove Point, MD
The good news continues to roll out of Cabot Oil & Gas. In a corporate updated issued yesterday, the company said they’ve signed a deal with Pacific Summit Energy (a subsidiary of Japanese company Sumitomo) to export up to 350,000 million Btus of natural gas per day via Dominion’s planned Cove Point, MD LNG export facility. The Cove Point facility is currently supposed to be in operation in 2017. The deal runs for 20 years. Previously, MDN told you that Japan and India have already spoken for 100% of LNG exports from Cove Point (see Dominion’s Cove Point LNG Facility Achieves Important Milestones).
In what seems to be unrelated but actually is related, Cabot also said they’ve achieved another milestone–they now produce 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day out of their wells in Susquehanna County, PA. That’s just one year after hitting 1 Bcf/d! So in one year production has skyrocketed another 50%. Truly astonishing. How much of today’s current production is Cabot committing to send overseas?…
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WPX Energy has made not only a smart move, but is doing the right thing. MDN told you last week about the three families in Franklin Forks, PA who say nearby Marcellus drilling by WPX Energy caused methane to migrate into their water wells (see 
Is Franklin Township in Susquehanna County, PA the new Dimock? Let us explain. You may recall that 17 families in rural Dimock, PA claimed that nearby natural gas drilling by Cabot Oil & Gas led to water well contamination from methane (natural gas) and/or fracking chemicals. The history of Dimock is well-established on this blog and in numerous other places. It was made famous by Josh Fox and his Gasland fictional movies. No one seriously believes the water in Dimock was contaminated with fracking chemicals because it’s never happened–anywhere. Not once. Methane, on the other hand, is a different matter. It can and does migrate–sometimes.
Cabot Oil & Gas continues to exceed expectations and, well, impress just about everybody! Yesterday Cabot issued an operations update. Among the highlights: They’ve just completed a 10-well pad in Susquehanna County (dry gas portion of the Marcellus). Calling it, “the new standard for operational efficiencies and technological advancement,” Cabot said the 10-well pad was completed with 170 frac stages and had a combined peak production rate of a huge 201 million cubic feet (Mmcf) per day. That’s an average of 20.1 Mmcf/d per well for all 10 wells! This is exciting stuff folks.
Is there an issue on which both anti- and pro-drillers can agree? Is there ever a time both sides can sit at the same table and discuss a potential problem, and do so without hyperbole and snarky comments? Is there an issue over which both sides can talk and not have it end in shouting? Indeed there is–and it is the issue of air pollution. MDN realizes we’re on shaky ground with our industry friends by writing this, but on several occasions we’ve pointed out there is a growing body of evidence that shows a marked increase in air pollution in heavily drilled areas–mostly from compressor plants, but also from drilling rigs, truck traffic, etc. (see 
This has to be a record for the Marcellus… The Pennsylvania court had ordered an auction of various parcels of land in Susquehanna and Bradford counties (in the prolifically productive northeastern “dry gas” portion of the Marcellus). There were 222 acres of land in total located in prime Marcellus drilling country. An auction was held on Oct. 30 in Wysox, PA and the land was all sold–to various buyers from across the country. Here’s the kicker: Some of the land sold for $16,700 per acre! This is rural farm land folks, not prime real estate in the middle of downtown. The money paid was not for a gas lease but the new owners get mineral rights with the land. You know the land was purchased in hopes of turning around and leasing it for Marcellus drilling. We don’t know for sure, but some of the land may even have been purchased by drilling companies (time will tell).