Just when you thought West Virginia Governor Jim Justice could be trusted with oversight of the state’s Marcellus/Utica industry, he goes and spoils it. Justice, who made his fortune in coal, is once again trash-talking shale gas. This time Justice is questioning a proposed shale gas-fired power plant planned for Brooke County.
Read More “WV Gov. Jim Justice Trash-Talks Brooke County Gas-Fired Power”
Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica. Peregrine announced yesterday the company has cut a deal to buy “producing royalties in Doddridge County, West Virginia from several private sellers.” The private sellers are landowners/rights owners with wells drilled by Antero Resources and Jay-Bee Oil & Gas. No details on how much the deal was for.
Read More “Peregrine Buys Royalty Rights from Doddridge County, WV Landowners”
Researchers at West Virginia University have won a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Dept. of Energy to develop technology that will cut down (eliminate) methane from leaking at natural gas production sites–like wells and pipelines. The researchers are developing a “methane mitigator system” to trap what is sometimes called “fugitive methane.” But don’t expect successful outcomes from this research to appease environmental nutjobs. They’ll still hate methane anyway, even if every last molecule is trapped.
Read More “WVU Researchers Get $1.5M Grant to Develop Fugitive Methane Tech”
Last December MDN brought you news that Equitrans had canceled a contract with Trinity Energy Services to build a portion of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline project (see Equitrans Cancels Trinity Energy Contract re Mountain Valley Pipe). Since that time talks have broken down between the two sides over compensation for change orders and other items, and now Trinity is suing Equitrans, demanding MVP sell the pipe in the ground to pay Trinity $103.8 million to satisfy the money Trinity says it is owed.
Read More “Construction Co. Sues MVP for $104M, Demands Sale of Pipe”
Another week, another look at the rig count. The onshore rig count continues to bump along near the bottom of historic lows. It’s not AT the bottom (thank God), but it does continue to flirt with low numbers. According to Enverus, which tracks rigs using GPS units, the count bottomed at the beginning of July with 264 active rigs. Since then it’s risen and currently stands around 280 rigs. Week to week it goes up and it goes down, but not down significantly. According to Enverus, the count lost a rig last week.
Read More “Enverus Onshore Rig Count Bumps Up & Down, Utica Loses 1 Rig”
We’re always suckers for railroad story. Not sure why, but we love reading about short line railroads that do well because of the shale industry. We spotted such a story about the 48-mile short line Belpre Industrial Parkersburg (BIP) Railroad between Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Relief, Ohio (via Marietta). BIP expects to double its traffic over the next year to 18 months thanks to the Marcellus/Utica Shale industry and the business it’s generating.
Read More “WV to OH Short Line Railroad Growing Thx to Marcellus/Utica”
Waaaiiit just a minute. Did we just slip through the looking glass? Ten Democrat State Senators from West Virginia sent a letter earlier this week to Warren Buffett asking the billionaire to consider investing in natural gas projects in the Mountain State. The letter states their sadness that Atlantic Coast Pipeline was canceled, but expresses hope that Buffett’s purchase of Dominion’s other pipeline assets augurs a bright future. We could have sworn this letter was sent by conservative Republicans!
Read More “10 Democrat Senators Ask Warren Buffet to Invest in WV NatGas”
Whew. We can now breathe a sigh of relief. On July 7 TC Energy’s Columbia Gas Transmission subsidiary announced an unplanned outage (for maintenance work) for the Mountaineer XPress (MXP) pipeline in West Virginia–near Leach, Kentucky (see Mountaineer XPress Unplanned Maintenance Knocks 2 Bcf/d Offline). The “force majeure” outage knocked nearly 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of gas flows offline. On Saturday, July 11, TC Energy brought Mountaineer XPress back online–two days earlier than forecast.
Read More “Mountaineer Xpress Pipe Back Online After Unplanned Maintenance”
West Virginia University (WVU) has created a new “water quality impact portal” website that allows people to investigate water quality in shale gas regions of West Virginia. The portal contains data for more than 1.3 million surface and groundwater samples from 14 counties where most Marcellus Shale gas development has occurred. The data comes from federal and state agencies.
Read More “WVU Launches Water Quality Portal to Gauge Impact of Shale Wells”
A group of leftwing radical professors (all of the Democrats) from seven universities in Ohio and Pennsylvania have colluded to write a letter to the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The letter trash talks the billions of dollars in economic impact and tens of thousands of jobs ethane cracker plants and the petrochemical industry will have in the region. The leftist gang of seven poo-poos those estimates and says the proposed PTT cracker is too “risky” to approve. How do they figure?
Read More “Leftwing Academic Hacks Trash Talk PA, OH Cracker Plants”
Enverus (formerly known as Drillinginfo) recently released its latest FundamentalEdge report that explores the ongoing supply response to demand destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the report, Enverus estimates how much dry gas production each major shale play produced, month by month, from January through May of this year. The numbers show that production from the Marcellus/Utica, which produces the most natural gas of any play, decreased the most of any play–by some 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) from January to May.
Read More “Marcellus/Utica NatGas Production Drops 1.5 Bcf/d Jan to May”
Energy Solutions Consortium (based in Buffalo, NY) has been attempting to build a Marcellus/Utica-gas fired electric power plant in Brooke County, WV for years. In Feb. 2019 we spotted a news story that said the project finally received all of its permits and would begin construction in 2019 (see WV NatGas Power Plant Gets Final Permits, Construction Begins Soon). Construction never happened last year. However, we have new evidence construction may now be on the horizon.
Read More “Brooke County, WV Gas Power Plant Inches Closer to Construction”
SECUR O&G, LLC is headquartered in Sewickley, PA, but its main operation, a Marcellus/Utica waste processing center, is located in the Bens Run Industrial Park in Friendly (Tyler County), WV. SECUR processes both liquid and solid drilling waste and handles TENORM (technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material) at its Bens Run facility. Last Friday SECUR filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of WV.
Read More “WV Marcellus/Utica Waste Processor SECUR Files for Bankruptcy”
Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica. In January 2019 we told you about Peregrine’s purchase of rights from undisclosed sellers in southwest PA (see Peregrine Energy Buys Royalty Rights in Greene County, PA). In March of this year, Peregrine purchased more rights, in Fayette County, PA. Yesterday the company announced they’ve purchased yet another round of rights–in Washington, PA and two counties in WV.
Read More “Peregrine Energy Partners Buys More Royalty Rights in SWPA & WV”
EQT announced yesterday it has closed on a deal to sell “certain non-strategic assets” to Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) for $125 million, plus another potential $20 million later on. MDN first told you about this deal on May 13 (see Diversified Buys 900 EQT Wells (67 Shale Wells) for $125M). This is the first time EQT has commented publicly on the DGO deal. EQT’s statement differs from previous news accounts about the deal.
Read More “EQT Provides More Details on DGO Asset Sale, 1.4 Bcf/d Curtailment”
This has to be a first in the modern shale era. There are now more active fracking crews working in the Marcellus Shale than in any other shale play, including the oily Permian. There are 450 fracking fleets available in the U.S., but only 70 of them are active right now. The Marcellus is using 31% of those active fleets, while the Permian is using 30%. We never thought we’d live to see the day!
Read More “More Frack Crews Now Active in the Marcellus than the Permian!”