Although Big Coal tried its best to prevent a single new gas-fired electric plant from getting built in West Virginia–indeed delaying several projects for years–we’re happy to report the first such project, in Brooke County, finally has ALL of its necessary permits and will begin construction this year.
Read More “WV NatGas Power Plant Gets Final Permits, Construction Begins Soon”
The West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization (SORO) says WV has a serious problem. Drillers are not plugging old/non-producing wells (most of them conventional). In fact, SORO says there are some 4,500 wells that have been unplugged for so long, they are considered “orphaned”–the original driller is long gone, out of business, and there’s nobody around to do the plugging. Something’s got to change.
Read More “WV Surface Rights Group Wants State to Enforce Plugging Old Wells”
In January the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave permission to TransCanada’s Columbia Pipeline group to start up a portion of the Mountaineer XPress Pipeline in West Virginia (see FERC OK’s Mountaineer XPress Pipe to Start Up in WV). Yesterday FERC gave Columbia permission to start up a wee bit more of the project.
Read More “FERC Says More of Mountaineer XPress Pipeline OK to Start Up”
US Methanol broke ground in September 2017 in Institute (Kanawha County), WV to build its very first methanol production plant (see US Methanol Breaks Ground on First Plant in West Virginia). Methanol plants convert natural gas into methanol, used as a chemical feedstock (raw material) to create other things, like gasoline, antifreeze, plastic bottles–even LED and LCD screens. Methanol plants use a LOT of natural gas, hence our interest.
Read More “Methanol Plants Huge Users of Marcellus/Utica Gas”
Here’s something we didn’t know: In West Virginia there’s a regulation on the books, put there decades ago (pre-shale), that stipulates wells targeting “deep” formations including the Utica Shale must be at least 3,000 feet apart.
Read More “Bill to Encourage More Utica Wells Advances in WV Legislature”
Yesterday MDN began our lead story about a big fine for Antero Resources by saying, “This has to be a record-high amount for a fine plus remediation work, at least in the Marcellus/Utica.” We humbly admit we were wrong. In checking our records, we found that in a similar case from 2014, Trans Energy paid even more, quite a bit more. We researched what this whole business is about, why Antero and others were fined, interviewing a top Antero official, and we now have a far better understanding of what happened and why.
Read More “The Real Story of Antero’s $11M Clean Water Act Violations”
In 2013 some 10,000 West Virginia landowners/rights owners filed a class action lawsuit against EQT over their practice of post-production deductions from royalty checks. The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial last November, but at the last minute, it didn’t. Word leaked that EQT had settled out of court (see EQT Avoids Trial, Settles WV Class Action re Royalty Deductions). Since that time we haven’t heard a peep–until this morning when EQT announced the terms of a “tentative” settlement.
Read More “EQT Settles WV Class Action Royalty Lawsuit for $53.5M”
A partisan left-wing group calling itself the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy along with another partisan left-wing group called the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) released a report last week that claims WV’s shale industry has “fallen short” in delivering on economic promises, and the way to fix it is to boost the severance tax from 5% to 10%! Yeah, they’re out of their collectivist minds.
Read More “New “Report” Attacks WV Shale, Advocates 10% Severance Tax”
This has to be a record-high amount for a fine plus remediation work, at least in the Marcellus/Utica. Antero Resources has cut a deal with three government entities–the U.S. Dept. of Justice, federal Environmental Protection Agency, and West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection–to pay a $3.15 million fine and spend another $8 million to mitigate and restore 32 sites in West Virginia.
NOTE: MDN posted an important followup to this story after speaking with Antero, providing more context and background, here: The Real Story of Antero’s $11M Clean Water Act Violations.
Read More “Antero to Pay $11M in Fines/Restoration for Clean Water Violations”
Let’s be honest. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (Democrat) is a swamp dweller–an establishment guy who, when it really counts, votes with his own sleazy party against the best wishes of the United States (he’s done it multiple times). However, Manchin is one of the better Democrats in Congress when it comes to energy issues.
Read More “WV Sen. Manchin Supports Marcellus/Utica, Rejects “Green New Deal””
The West Virginia House Energy Committee passed a bill yesterday that appears to be picking up steam and possibly headed for approval by both the House and Senate. It’s an interesting bill that allows local natural gas utilities to pay drillers to drill new gas wells in areas where there is not a reliably sufficient supply of gas.
Read More “WV Bill Would Let Utilities Pay Producers to Drill New Gas Wells”
Here’s an interesting twist on the theme of drillers shorting leaseholders out of royalty money. Usually such cases involve drillers claiming post-production deductions from landowner royalty checks. This time the landowner/rightsholder is Columbia Gas Transmission (pipeline company owned by midstream giant TransCanada), and the claim is that Southwestern Energy (driller) is not paying royalties for gas produced but not actually sold.
Read More “Columbia Sues Southwestern Energy for Shorting Royalties in WV”
MDN previously reported on efforts in both Ohio and Pennsylvania to plug orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells (all of them conventional/vertical wells), which present a health and safety issue. It’s all too easy to hit one of these old wells when drilling a new horizontal shale well. In WV, a new effort to plug old wells is causing concern for some–that the effort to plug old wells may inflict economic damage on WV counties. Huh?!
Read More “Plugging Orphan O&G Wells May Economically Hurt WV Counties”
We didn’t think it would take long for the oil and gas industry to push back against efforts to raise the state’s severance tax from 5% to 6% and use the “extra” money to fix secondary roads in the state (see WV Republican Senator Wants 6% Severance Tax to Fix Roads). What we didn’t know about (until now) is that a second such bill was introduced in the House by a Democrat, the second bill raising the severance tax by 50% to 7.5%! Talk about nuts!!
Read More “O&G Opposes Plan to Raise WV Severance Tax to Fix Roads”
Why do politicians never seem to grasp the obvious? Distressingly, we’re now reading that a West Virginia State Senator, Randy Smith (Republican, Tucker County), wants to add another 1% to the already-high 5% natural gas and oil severance tax, in order to use the money to fix back roads across the Mountain State.
Read More “WV Republican Senator Wants 6% Severance Tax to Fix Roads”
Westmoreland Gas, headquartered in Bridgeport, WV, was founded in August 2018 by two industry veterans, one with close ties to Mountain V Oil & Gas. According to a press release issued two days ago, Westmoreland closed on oil and gas assets in WV on Dec. 31, essentially launching the company.
Read More “Is Westmoreland Gas Really Mountain V Oil & Gas Renamed?”