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Construction on WV Stonewall Gather Pipeline Begins, Runs Thru Dec

In early April MDN told you that a section of M3 Midstream’s Appalachia Gathering System (AGS) had been spun off into its own company called Stonewall Gathering System (see M3’s New Stonewall Gathering System Extends Existing AGS in WV). At the time plans were under way to build out gathering pipelines in West Virginia’s Harrison and Doddridge counties, running through Lewis and into Braxton County where the pipeline will connect with Columbia Transmission’s interstate pipeline. The plans have come to fruition and the Stonewall Gathering System is now being built. Incidentally, they’re looking for welders and laborers–but only through local unions…
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Big News: 3 More Marcellus-Powered Electric Plants Coming to WV

big newsThree weeks ago MDN reported a Buffalo, NY-based company had successfully gotten all necessary permits to move forward with building a $615 million, 549 megawatt electrical generating plant near Moundsville, WV that will be powered by Marcellus Shale gas (see Marshall Co Gas-Powered Electric Plant Gets WV Green Light). Then we told you the plant will burn not only methane (natgas), but also up to 25% of the mix will be ethane (see WV Moundsville Electric Generating Plant to Burn Methane + Ethane!). Looks like the Moundsville project was the proverbial canary down the WV coal mine–and it lived! In the past few days the father and son team behind the Moundsville project have announced three (yes 3!) more just like it–all in WV. Why is this a big hairy deal? The Moundsville plant was already slated to be WV’s single largest user/consumer of natural gas. Just think how much gas will be used quadrupling that number…
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XTO Paying $5.3M for Violating Federal Clean Water Act in WV

Mother May IPushing dirt around on drill pads can get very expensive if you don’t have a signed piece of paper in your hand that says, “Mother May I?” XTO Energy, the shale-drilling subsidiary of ExxonMobil, has just learned that the hard way. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with the U.S. Dept. of Justice announced a settlement yesterday with XTO–fining the company $2.3 million because “fill material” (i.e. dirt and rocks) got into nearby streams and swamps in several West Virginia counties when XTO pushed that dirt and rocks around to construct roads and well pads. Oh, and XTO has to “undo” the damage, spending another $3 million or so. Total price tag of $5.3 million for violating the “Mother May I?” Clean Water Act. If XTO had had the proper paperwork, they wouldn’t have been fined. The jack boots of the feds come down again…
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Radiation Detectors for Drill Cuttings Installed at 6 WV Landfills

Earlier this year the West Virginia legislature, in special session, passed a bill (HB 4411) that Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed into law that establishes certain regulations to allow WV landfills to accept drill cuttings (leftover rock and dirt) from Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling. One of the provisions in the bill is that landfills with special, set-aside “cells” for larger volumes of drill cuttings be equipped with radiation detectors (see WV Drill Cuttings in Landfill Bill Passes in Record Time). Work on installing those detectors at six landfills is almost complete. The detectors are (or will be) installed at two sites in Harrison County, and one site each in Brooke, Ohio, Wetzel and Wood counties. How will it work?…
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Smaller Dominion Pipeline Coming in WV – Part of Atlantic Coast?

Dominion plans to build a 550-mile, $5 BILLION pipeline that will carry Marcellus and Utica Shale gas from West Virginia into Virginia and eventually to North Carolina (see Dominion Commits to Major New Marcellus/Utica Pipeline Project). As part of that project, or perhaps in addition to it, they plan to build a smaller diameter 34-mile pipeline, called the Supply Header project, from Wetzel County through Doddridge County and into Harrison County, where it will connect to the new Atlantic Coast pipeline…
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Painting a Different Picture of Pipeline Companies

You might think, when reading the claims of some groups, that pipeline companies are callous and will run their pipeline any ole place they want, landowners be damned. “See that hayfield? Who cares! Run that steel right on through it!” That’s the (false) impression you get from some people. The reality is, of course, far different. Let’s hear it straight from the horse’s mouth–from the people who do the surveying to figure out the route a pipeline will take…
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Antero’s Frack Wastewater Cleaned/Recycled by WV Startup

Chance Richie is a former officer on a U.S. nuclear submarine and the CEO and founder of Shalewater Solutions–a company started in 2011 that cleans and recycles frack wastewater in the Marcellus and Utica Shale. Richie’s company, located in Harrison County, WV, has landed one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica–Antero Resources. The key to Shalewater’s approach is the fact that all wastewater is not the same. The chemical composition changes from driller to driller, site to site, and shale play to shale play…
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Range “Sludge” in WV Landfill Not So Radioactive After All

The West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) is telling everyone to calm down over so-called radioactive “sludge” being dumped in WV landfills. You may recall not long ago a load of drill cuttings was refused at a southwest PA landfill for being “too radioactive” and sent to a different landfill, owned by the same company as the PA landfill, in WV (see Range Radioactive Containers Sent to WV for Disposal). That got everyone up in arms–that Range was “secretly” shipping stuff that will make those poor hicks in WV glow in the dark. So the WVDEP slammed the door on any more imported “radioactive sludge” (see Curious: Everyone’s Happy with WV Ban on Imported Drilling Sludge). The WVDEP launched and investigation and found the so-called sludge, or drill cuttings, have next to no radioactivity…
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McClendon Buys 48K WV Marcellus Acres, 27K More OH Utica Acres

silhouette questionYet another major announcement yesterday from Aubrey McClendon, former CEO of Chesapeake Energy and current CEO of a new company he founded, American Energy Partners (AEP). Aubrey is spending another $1.75 billion to buy more acreage (and functioning wells) in both the Ohio Utica and now, for the first time, in the West Virginia Marcellus Shale. The WV acreage is in the wet gas areas of the state. According to the AEP press announcement, East Resources is the seller. Which is interesting to MDN since Shell bought all (or nearly all) of East’s northeast shale acreage in 2010 (see East Resources Sells to Royal Dutch Shell for $4.7 Billion, Deal Includes All of East’s Marcellus Shale Operations). So was the deal actually with Shell using the East name on paper? Or leftover vestiges of the old East Resources?…
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Curious: Everyone’s Happy with WV Ban on Imported Drilling Sludge

Earlier this week MDN told you that a couple of containers with drilling sludge (mud, leftover rock and dirt) from Range Resources containing low levels of radioactivity were sent to a landfill in Bridgeport, WV for disposal (see Range Radioactive Containers Sent to WV for Disposal). The WV Dept. of Environmental Protection caught wind of it and has banned any further out-of-state shipments of drilling sludge from disposal in WV…
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Range Radioactive Containers Sent to WV for Disposal

Since we’re on the topic of “radioactive” and Range, a second story today from Washington County, PA involving Range Resources. Back in March, a couple of roll-off boxes (large steel containers) with…drilling mud? drill cuttings? sludge? we’re not sure…tripped an alarm at the Arden Landfill in Chartiers (Washington County)…
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Supply Chain: WV Company Specializes in Hard-to-Lay Pipelines

Looking to get a piece of the Marcellus/Utica  Shale business for your company (i.e. plug in to the supply chain)? Think niches. An interesting story about a West Virginia construction company that specializes in digging and laying pipelines for the oil and gas industry. But they don’t specialize in the easy stuff–they specialize in the hard stuff…laying pipeline over hills and mountains.

The company, Ronald Lane Inc., has to hang their backhoes from two to four steel cables, dangling on the side of mountains! And they have all the work they can handle because of the Marcellus…
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Rockford/Primoris Lands $92M in Marcellus Pipeline Contracts

Pipeliner company Rockford Corporation, a subsidiary of Primoris Services Corporation, announced last week they’ve landed five projects in the PA and WV Marcellus Shale to construct new pipelines–some of them wet gas, some dry gas–work totaling $91.9 million.

The Primoris press release details the specs for each project, including where they will be built:
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Antero Res 2nd Marcellus Driller to Use 100% NatGas Rig Engines

The parade of rig conversions in the Marcellus Shale to run on liquefied natural gas (LNG) continues. MDN previously told you about first EQT, then CONSOL switching to duel-fuel LNG/diesel engines. After EQT and CONSOL, Seneca Resources started to convert drilling rigs to run on 100% LNG (see Seneca Boasts First 100% LNG-Powered Drill Rig in Marcellus). You may now add Antero Resources to the club.

Antero recently converted the first of three rigs in West Virginia to run on 100% natural gas engines manufactured (as they were for Seneca) by General Electric. The engines will run on LNG, propane or even dry "field gas" that comes from the well itself. Kewl. From the Antero/GE press release:

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Crestwood Midstream – New Deal with Antero for Compressor Station

Crestwood Midstream provides pipelines and compressor stations in West Virginia for their customer, driller Antero Resources. In Nov. 2012 Crestwood purchased four compressor stations in Harrison and Doddridge counties to better serve Antero. Yesterday Crestwood announced another new deal with Antero to build yet another compressor station (for $35 million) to service Antero’s “western” acreage in WV.

The Crestwood announcement about the new deal with Crestwood:

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