Antero Responds to Critics of New WV Wastewater Facility
Two weeks ago MDN provided an update on the new Antero state-of-the-art frack wastewater treatment plant and landfill being built in West Virginia (see Update on Antero’s $275M Wastewater Facility in WV). Once built, this new plant will recycle 98% of the water used, for re-use by Antero in its fracking and drilling operations. According to Antero’s regional senior vice president and chief administrative officer, Al Shopp, although it may be cheaper to just inject the wastewater down an injection well somewhere, the more environmentally friendly, long-term solution is to do what they are doing–recycle it all. You might think that would please environmental Nazis–but you would be wrong. They want zero drilling and anything, including a better way to handle wastewater, will lead to more drilling and therefore is opposed by these nutters. Al Shopp responds to some of their nonsensical arguments against the new plant…
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Norwegian oil giant Statoil, which is 67% owned by the country of Norway, was an early and big mover in leasing Marcellus and Utica Shale acreage, amassing a huge 665,000 acres. Over the past few years Statoil has been equally aggressive in divesting itself of its non-operated acreage (Statoil doesn’t do the drilling) in the northeast–in particular in West Virginia. This is about to get complicated, but we’ll try to make it understandable. A lot of Statoil’s acreage is in joint venture deals. In December 2014, Statoil sold some of its “working interest” in the Marcellus acreage it owns in WV and PA to Southwestern Energy for $394 million (see 
FirstEnergy is one of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. FirstEnergy loves the shale industry. In April, MDN reported that FirstEnergy’s construction crews had begun erecting steel poles for a new 18-mile high voltage power line that will run through Harrison and Doddridge counties in WV (see 
Antero Resources announced yesterday that the company has just cut a deal with Southwestern Energy to purchase 55,000 net acres located in Wetzel, Tyler and Doddridge Counties in West Virginia for $450 million. Antero says the acreage is in the “core” of the Marcellus and some 75% of the acreage also includes Utica Shale rights. The acreage Southwestern is selling is acreage they themselves bought in 2014 from Chesapeake Energy. Chessy originally signed the acreage with landowners for $5 per acre (peanuts). Southwestern paid Chesapeake $12,000 per acre (see 
In August MDN brought you the news that Antero Resources has decided to build a new state-of-the-art frack wastewater treatment plant in Doddridge County, WV for $275 million (see 
MarkWest Energy has been fined $76,405 by the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) for a series of water quality violations in connection with projects they’ve built in West Virginia from 2013 to this year. In addition to the fine, MarkWest is required to submit a plan to correct problems that still exist. This isn’t the first time MarkWest has been to the WVDEP wood shed. In 2013 they were fined $306,000 for polluting a small stream near their new Mobley processing plant in Wetzel County (see