Shell Launches Open Season for PA-WV-OH Falcon Ethane Pipeline
In February MDN brought you exclusive news that Shell had begun approaching landowners in Beaver County to get them to sign easements for two ethane pipelines to feed the mighty cracker plant they plan to build in the county (see Exclusive: Shell Leasing Land for 2 Pipelines to PA Cracker Plant). At that time Shell had still not fully committed to building the cracker–something they finally did in June (see Breaking: Shell Pulls the Trigger, PA Ethane Cracker is a Go!). NGI’s Shale Daily broke a story in August that shed new light on the project–news that Shell is working on a 94-mile ethane “pipeline system” with two “legs” to feed the cracker, confirming the tip we received in February (see Shell Working on 94-Mile Ethane Pipeline to Feed PA Cracker). As NGI reported at that time, the new ethane pipeline system has a name: the Falcon Ethane Pipeline System. Yesterday Shell launched a binding open season for the Falcon pipeline, complete with an official map and all sorts of details…
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The 2017 Northeast Oil & Gas Awards has received a boatload of nominations for the upcoming awards ceremony in Pittsburgh next March. LOTS of nominations. The folks at the Oil & Gas Awards will be contacting each nominee to see if they want to participate this year. Below is the entire list of nominees. Note: there is still time to nominate your company! The deadline is Dec. 14th. Below we have a list of everyone nominated so far, and the list of categories for which your company can be nominated…
At last year’s Utica Summit III event held in Stark, OH, Tom Gellrich of consulting firm TopLine Analytics, a company that “closely follows ethane markets,” said he thinks the first ethane cracker to get built will be the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. He was right. Shell announced their official decision to move forward earlier this year. At that same event Gellrich said he thinks the Marcellus/Utica region will see three, possibly four, ethane crackers built (see 
The Baker Hughes rig count, watched closely by those in the industry (the benchmark used across the world) has been trending up in the U.S. since July. BH released their venerable count for September on Friday and once again the counts have gone up–very good news indeed. BH is reporting an average of 509 active rigs in the U.S., up 28 from August. MDN performs its own rig count for the Marcellus/Utica, using BH’s numbers for Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The Marcellus/Utica rig count was up for the second month running. In September the M/U rig count jumped up by 7. The biggest gainer was Pennsylvania, up by 5. West Virginia was up by 2, and Ohio stayed even…
Drilco, a small West Virginia drilling company, is looking to land 23 investors who are willing to plunk down a $1.3 million each (for a cumulative $30 million) to help the company drill more wells. According to the Drilco prospectus (below), Drilco wants to fund their 2016 1H Drilling Program with $30 million to drill 10 vertical and 10 horizontal wells throughout five crude oil and natural gas producing zones. The formations Drilco is targeting include: the Big Lime formation, the Big Injun Sandstone, Berea Sandstone, and Upper Devonian Shale and the Marcellus Shale. The ten vertical wells will be completed using multi-stage frac methods through the use of lateral jet perforating and bridge plug completion. Each of the ten vertical wells and ten horizontal wells will be drilled on various leaseholds held by Drilco in West Virginia. Please note: MDN has permission to share the prospectus below (called a private placement memorandum). MDN does not endorse the offering (nor do we not not endorse it). We simply bring it to you to highlight what one small driller is doing to raise money to keep on drilling, and to point out there may be more drilling on the way in the seven counties where Drilco currently has some 15,000 acres under lease…
Yesterday MDN reported the story that Dominion Transmission has decided to lock out union members from working at their jobs in Dominion installations over a contract dispute (see 
In June MDN told you about an economic development group of business and government leaders from Ohio and West Virginia (the Mid-Ohio Valley) called Shale Crescent (see 
In August 2015, MDN told you that one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, Antero Resources, floated the idea of building a $275 million state-of-the-art frack wastewater treatment plant in Doddridge County, WV (see 
A West Virginia University engineering prof has just been awarded $110,000 to study methane aromatization. What’s that? It’s the process of turning methane, or natural gas, into “higher value products” like benzene and hydrogen. It’s not as easy as it may sound. If the good prof is successful, it may open up new markets in the northeast for our overabundant natural gas supplies. Here’s the lowdown…
Last week MDN was the first to share the news that the California-based US Methanol is building at least two, rumored up to five, methanol plants in the Mountain State (see 
All the way back in February MDN brought you exclusive news that Shell had begun approaching landowners in Beaver County to get them to sign easements for two ethane pipelines to feed the mighty cracker plant they plan to build in the county (see 
We’d never heard this before, but apparently the Marcellus/Utica has been known for some time as the “Beast of the East.” Fitting! However, our region has gone from “Beast of the East” to “Beast on a Leash.” Very true. Low prices have suppressed new drilling projects. But according to experts on a recent webinar held by S&P Global Platts, new Marcellus/Utica drilling “is imminent.” Now that’s REALLY good news! Here’s some other things said on the webinar…
Methanol plants convert natural gas into methanol, used as a chemical feedstock (or raw material) to create other things, like gasoline, antifreeze and more. More commonly you may call it a gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant. Methanol plants have the capacity to create a big demand for natural gas and sop up some of the oversupply we have in the Marcellus/Utica. In May we told you about Primus Green Energy’s plan to build a 160 metric tons per day (MT/day) methanol plant for Tauber Oil somewhere in the Marcellus (see 
In July MDN told you about exciting new publicly-financed research at West Virginia University that finds waste from Marcellus/Utica drilling (“frack waste”) is not radioactive or hazardous (see