Statewide WV

Aither Chemicals | Energy Services | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Aither Chemicals Still Wants to Build a Cracker Plant in WV
November 19, 2012November 19, 2012

Still more talk about an ethane cracker plant for West Virginia—this time from perennial ethane promoter Aither Chemicals. At last week’s Developing Unconventional Gas (DUG) East conference in Pittsburgh, Aither’s CFO said his company could build a new ethane cracker for a fraction of the cost Shell is proposing for their cracker in Monaca, PA. Another speaker expressed doubts that Shell will actually build their announced cracker plant in Monaca:

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Energy Companies | Statewide WV | Stone Energy | West Virginia

Stone Energy 3Q12: Income Down, Revenue Up, Marcellus Expands
November 7, 2012November 7, 2012

Stone Energy reported third quarter results yesterday. The company’s 3Q12 net income was down about half of what it was in 3Q11 (to $23.7 million), but overall revenue was higher—$226.7 million in 3Q12 vs. $209.3 million for 3Q11. The company reports drilling a total of 59 horizontal wells in the Marcellus Shale so far, 17 of them this year (in West Virginia). Of the 59 wells, 35 of them are currently producing.

Highlights from the Stone 3Q12 report:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide NY | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | Supply Chain | West Virginia

ShaleNavigator Cloud-Based Mapping Service Continues Expansion [Free]
November 5, 2012November 5, 2012

MDN friend and “partner in crime” Ed Camp (from ShaleNavigator) released a press release on Friday to call attention to some of the latest and greatest features he’s added to the ShaleNavigator service—the web’s premier cloud-based shale mapping system. Ed’s ShaleNavigator maps are the basis for the MDN Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook series (see here for more info on the Databook).

We’re happy to bring you Ed’s latest press release, along with his offer of a free 7-day trial:

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Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide OH | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Both Major & Minor NatGas Pipelines Go Unmapped in WV & OH?!
November 5, 2012November 6, 2012

According to a former oil and gas inspector with the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection, West Virginia and Ohio fail to map and keep track of where both major interstate and minor regional and gathering natural gas pipelines are built. Over time, according to this former official, people will forget. It also means there’s no regular inspection of pipelines for corrosion and leaks.

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Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Sandy’s Affect on Drillers in the Marcellus & Utica Shale
October 31, 2012October 31, 2012

Although Hurricane turned Super Storm Sandy gave New York City, Delaware and New Jersey a big, black eye (and we grieve for their losses), further inland Marcellus and Utica Shale drillers prepared for and appear to have avoided any major impacts from the storm. Some production was and still is shut in to avoid potential problems, but given the storm is now mostly gone from the Marcellus and Utica Shale region, shut in production should quickly come back online.

Here’s a Sandy report from four of the largest drillers in the Marcellus:

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Antero Resources | Doddridge County | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide WV | West Virginia

MarkWest Opens Sherwood I Wet Gas Processing Facility in WV
October 31, 2012October 31, 2012

MarkWest, a huge midstream (pipeline & processing facilities) company and Antero Resources, a Marcellus Shale driller, inked a deal in May 2012 for MarkWest to gather and process Antero’s wet gas, or natural gas liquids in West Virginia (see this MDN story).

MarkWest announced today the first phase of that deal is now online with the commencement of operations at the Sherwood I facility in Doddridge County, WV. The Sherwood I facility has the capacity to process 200 million cubic feet per day of wet gas. MarkWest is building Sherwood II now, which would add an additional 200 Mmcf/d of capacity. Eventually a third Sherwood facility may be built for a total capacity of 600 Mmcf/d.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Sandy’s Effect on Marcellus/Utica Shale Drilling & Production
October 30, 2012October 30, 2012

It seems the entire country watched with morbid fascination as Hurricane-now-Super Storm Sandy slammed into the northeast yesterday. The exceptionally large and powerful storm—some 1,000 miles across—lingers over what is essentially the Marcellus and Utica Shale region of the U.S. As of early Tuesday more than 5 million people are without power due to storm damage. New York was heavily hit with the highest storm surge to hit Manhattan in over 200 years, flooding subway tunnels and covering some city streets. The New York Stock Exchange is closed for two consecutive days for the first time since 1888. Truly history in the making.

How will Sandy affect drilling, production and refining in the Marcellus? Reports came in yesterday that refineries were shutting down in advance of the storm. Production coming from the field likely will not be affected all that much, but drilling is another matter. Some drilling operators reported they would lay down rig masts until the storm passes.

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Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | M&A | Ohio | Statewide OH | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Magnum Hunter Buys Virco for $106.7M with 51,500 Net Acres
October 25, 2012October 25, 2012

Magnum Hunter announced this morning they’ve purchased 100% of privately-held Viking International Resources, Inc. (“Virco”) for $106.7 million using a stock swap and cash. The deal means Magnum Hunter will get an additional 51,500 net acres in the Marcellus and Utica Shale in West Virginia and Ohio, pushing their total acreage to something just over 166,000 acres throughout the Appalachian region. Management already has it’s eye on the new acreage and has identified 74 new drilling locations in the Marcellus and 31 new locations in the Utica Shale.

Details on the transaction and what it means:

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Industrywide Issues | Statewide WV | Taxation | West Virginia

WV Tax Dept. Will Not Tax Well Pad Sites for Landowners
October 23, 2012October 23, 2012

The West Virginia Tax Department has decided they will not assess a property tax value to well pad sites for landowners. Officials were concerned that by assessing a value for a well pad site it would cause the landowner, who may not even own the mineral rights, to be classified in a higher tax bracket. This is good news for West Virginia landowners.

How the decision to not assess well pad sites was made:

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Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Shale Marcellus Drilling & Production – By the Numbers
October 19, 2012October 19, 2012

A fantastic article in the West Virginia The State Journal takes a close look at natural gas production numbers from shale gas drilling in the state. It’s the kind of article MDN wishes it had written! In their review of the numbers, The State Journal asks a teaser question in the opening: Which county has produced the most shale gas in the state? You might guess Wetzel or Marshall counties. But you would be wrong. The county producing the most shale gas (to date, since shale gas drilling began in Dec. 2007), is Harrison County.

Here’s a few interesting highlights from this “mother load of information” article:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Surprising Data on Rig Counts for Dry vs Wet Gas Drilling
October 15, 2012October 15, 2012

Seeking Alpha blogger Richard Zeits, whom we’ve highlighted before on MDN, is back with a new analysis of the latest Baker Hughes rig count. You need rigs to drill the holes—so the rig count is a good indicator of whether new drilling is going up, down or staying constant.

In Zeits’ extensive analysis (well worth your time to read and digest), he draws some conclusions about wet gas (natural gas liquids) versus dry gas (methane only) drilling as evidenced by the Baker Hughes numbers. His conclusions may surprise you, as it did us:

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Lease & Royalty Payments | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Lease Bonus Payments for Marcellus & Utica Reach New Highs
October 12, 2012October 12, 2012

Because the sale price of domestically produced oil and natural gas has gone down over the past year, royalties for landowners have gone down as well. However, the bonus payments landowners receive when signing a new lease agreement have gone up—way up in the Marcellus and Utica Shale.

A newly released survey (embedded below) from Farmers National Co., a real estate management company for property owners, shows a dramatic increase for bonus deals in West Virginia (up 1.75 times), in Pennsylvania (more than doubling, up 2.3 times), but most dramatically, in Ohio (up nearly 13 times from a year ago). The largest reported lease signing bonus in Ohio for 3Q12 was a whopping $8,200 per acre.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | New York | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide MD | Statewide NY | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide VA | Statewide WV | Utica Shale | Virginia | West Virginia

USGS Releases Official Estimate of Oil & Gas in Utica Shale
October 5, 2012October 5, 2012

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has just released their first official assessment (i.e. estimate) of how much recoverable natural gas, oil and gas liquids is located in the Utica Shale throughout Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and Virginia (a full copy of the USGS assessment is embedded below).

The USGS estimates the Utica is #3 in size behind the Marcellus (#1) and Green River Basin (#2) for volume of recoverable natural gas in the U.S. Here are the numbers from the USGS, along with and a brief introduction to their first-ever assessment of the Utica:

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia | Williams

Williams Official Gives WV Huge Compliment, Disses PA
October 5, 2012October 5, 2012

At a Chamber of Commerce dinner in Marshall County, WV held last night, Darrell Bull, the general manager of Williams Ohio Valley Midstream (a division of midstream giant Williams) paid a huge compliment to West Virginia and dissed Pennsylvania.

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Important Case in WV Supreme Court This Week
September 24, 2012September 24, 2012

An important case for surface rights owners goes before the West Virginia Supreme Court on Tuesday. The court will hear a case to determine whether or not surface landowners—those without the rights to minerals in the ground—have the right to appeal oil and gas drilling permits that allow companies to erect drilling sites on their land. As with most legal matters, this one gets complicated:

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Statewide WV | Upshur County | West Virginia

Tangible Evidence of the Change from Dry to Wet Gas Drilling
September 19, 2012September 19, 2012

For some time there have been rumblings of how drilling activity is moving from “dry gas” (methane only) to “wet gas” (methane plus natural gas liquids like ethane, pentane and butane) areas. It seemed you couldn’t read a quarterly financial update from an energy company that didn’t mention such a move. And while slowdowns were apparent in some isolated areas, frankly, the actions just didn’t seem to match the words.

Here’s a bit of news that provides tangible evidence of the change from dry to wet gas drilling. Great Plains Oilfield Rentals, a company that employs 120 people in and around Buckhannon in Upshur County, WV (center of the state), is moving—to the upper panhandle area of West Virginia. Why? Wet gas drilling.

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