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Antero Resources Provides Update on Barbour County, WV

Location of Barbour County, WV

You don’t hear much about shale drilling in Barbour County, WV. In fact, the last time we tagged a post for Barbour was in 2013! (see CONSOL Buys 90K WV Marcellus/Upper Devonian Acres, Well Report). Let’s be honest–Barbour is not a hotbed of drilling activity. Antero Resources’ VP Al Schopp recently provided an update on Barbour at a local Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Antero owns no active wells in the county, but has paid out money in severance and property taxes (perhaps a joint ownership in some wells?). Regardless, Al did his homework and provided excellent up-to-date numbers for what is (and is not) happening in Barbour with respect to shale drilling.
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CONSOL Buys 90K WV Marcellus/Upper Devonian Acres, Well Report

CONSOL Energy issued a press release today updating their Marcellus Shale well results from wells drilled in Washington County, PA. In addition to PA, CONSOL owns leases for and is actively drilling in the West Virginia Marcellus area–most of it in the “wet gas” (natural gas liquids) area of the Marcellus. The update says they just completed their first pad in Barbour County, WV, a pad with six wells on it.

The big news in today’s announcement: CONSOL has just purchased another 90,000 acres of leases in WV–from Dominion Resources–for $190 million ($2,111 per acre). The deal will allow CONSOL to not only drill in the Marcellus layer, but also the Upper Devonian shale layer as well. CONSOL is one of the few drillers (so far) targeting the Upper Denonian (see MDN’s Upper Devonian category for stories about who else is targeting that layer)…
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New Pipeline, Wells Coming to Upshur & Barbour Counties in WV

Drilling for natural gas in the largely dry gas West Virginia counties of Upshur and Barbour is about to pick up–a lot. How do we know? CONE Gathering, the midstream part of a joint venture between CONSOL Energy and Noble Energy, is constructing a new 24-inch, 37-mile gathering pipeline through the heart of both counties. When that pipeline is done, it will start to connect a flurry of new wells drilled by CONSOL and Noble.

Construction on the new pipeline is set to start in six to nine months and will be completed another six to nine months after that. So the new pipeline may be online as early as a year from now…
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Mum’s the Word on New Tygart Valley Pipeline in WV

In December, MDN reported that Houston-based Crestwood Midstream will construct a new 16” inch Marcellus gathering pipeline that will run 42 miles through Preston, Taylor and Barbour counties in northeast West Virginia, connecting to Columbia Gas Transmission’s WB Pipeline in Randolph County, WV, delivering Marcellus gas to the Washington, DC and Baltimore markets (see this MDN story).

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Crestwood to Build New Marcellus Pipeline in NE WV

Houston-based Crestwood Midstream yesterday announced they will construct a new 16” inch Marcellus gathering pipeline that will run 42 miles through Preston, Taylor and Barbour counties in northeast West Virginia, connecting to Columbia Gas Transmission’s WB Pipeline in Randolph County, WV. By connecting to the WB Pipeline the new gathering pipeline will have access to the Washington, DC and Baltimore markets.

The new pipeline will be completed by this time next year and already has a long term “anchor” contract with Mountaineer Keystone, a Pittsburgh-based drilling company that will commence their horizontal drilling program in the area in the middle of 2012.

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Noble Energy and CONSOL to Partner on Marcellus in $3.4B Deal

handshakeIn March 2010, CONSOL Energy (Cecil, PA) paid Dominion Resources $3.5 billion for 500,000 acres of Marcellus Shale gas leases, instantly tripling their lease holdings. Since that time, CONSOL has continued to invest in Marcellus acreage and they now have 750,000 acres under lease. But CONSOL had a problem: Not enough money to develop their vast Marcellus acreage. So they did what is now a common practice—they found a partner to invest. Yesterday, CONSOL and Noble Energy (Houston, TX) announced that Noble will buy a 50 percent interest in 663,350 net undeveloped acres and fund drilling and completion costs in a deal worth $3.4 billion over an eight-year period.

The joint venture will concentrate on ramping up development of Marcellus Shale gas wells in three areas of Pennsylvania and West Virginia (see a map of CONSOL’s acreage below):

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