Statewide WV

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Just What are Natural Gas Liquids Anyway?
January 31, 2012January 31, 2012

Increasingly, you will read on MDN and in press accounts about natural gas liquids (NGLs), and how major energy companies are now focused on drilling in the “liquids-rich” portion of the Marcellus and Utica Shales. The geography of where NGLs are found is typically western Pennsylvania, the West Virginia panhandle and eastern Ohio. But, just what are NGLs anyway? A helpful article on The Motley Fool website provides an excellent summary:

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Processing Plants | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Gov. Tomblin Proposes 25-Year Tax Break for Cracker Plant
January 17, 2012March 24, 2012

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has sent proposed new legislation to lawmakers asking for a 25-year break from business property taxes for any company investing at least $2 billion to build an ethane cracker plant in the state. There is a bidding war going on among West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania to attract the plant, a facility that processes ethane from shale gas drilling into ethylene, a raw material used to make plastics.

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Forced Pooling | Industrywide Issues | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Legislator Offers Forced Pooling for Higher Severance Tax
January 6, 2012January 6, 2012

In December of 2011, West Virginia passed new Marcellus Shale drilling laws raising certain fees and putting new requirements in place (see this MDN story). The drilling industry, while saying it was not a perfect law, in the end supported it. But there was on thing the new law did not address that the industry wants to see: forced pooling. That issue is once again being discussed for possible action in the legislature this year.

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Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Processing Plants | Shell | Statewide OH | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Ohio Offers Shell Cracker Plant $1.4B in Tax Incentives
January 2, 2012January 2, 2012

Competition to attract an ethane cracker plant is heating up. West Virginia has made no bones that they intend to be the winners of the investment that will be made to build an ethane cracker plant to be built by Shell. The plant will cost upward of $2 billion and will create thousands of jobs to build the plant, operate the plant, and just as importantly, in the industries that will locate near the plant once it’s operational. It’s an economic jackpot worth $5 billion or more, and those who are in the game to attract it are in it to win.

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Industrywide Issues | Roads | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Road Improvements Paid for by Shale Gas Drillers
January 2, 2012January 2, 2012

Pennsylvania’s rural roads are seeing upgrades because of gas drilling activity. When drilling comes to a municipality or county, and with it an increase in truck traffic, drillers step up to the plate and repair the roads that they use. Most of the time roads are left in better shape than before drilling began.

West Virginia is now starting to see the same improvements with their roads:

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Officials Say Rail Access Key in Attracting Cracker Plant
December 21, 2011December 21, 2011

According to West Virginia officials, one of the keys to attracting an ethane cracker plant to the state is the humble railroad. In locations where there is only a single railroad line, costs are higher, so officials are discussing ways of introducing more rail competition at potential locations in the state should one of those locations be selected as the location for an ethane cracker. Options include building a short-line railroad and either rehabilitating or building new railroad bridges.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Regulation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Lawsuit on the Horizon for WV’s New Marcellus Law?
December 20, 2011December 20, 2011

Please see an important update at the end of this article.

West Virginia’s new Marcellus drilling law is not yet a week old (see this MDN story for a summary of what’s in the new law), and already some who are unhappy with the law are talking lawsuit. The Charleston, WV Rotary Club hosted a luncheon at the Civic Center on Monday with a panel discussion presenting four different viewpoints on the new law. None of the four, who included those who favor drilling and those who don’t, were happy with the final version. But one in particular, Dave McMahon, a Charleston public interest lawyer, is threatening to sue over the new law.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Has New Marcellus Drilling Law in Record Time
December 15, 2011December 15, 2011

$horizontal hydraulic fracturing$ A new Marcellus drilling law (highlights of the law listed below) passed in a special session of the West Virginia legislature and has been signed by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin into law. Yesterday, the WV House of Delegates voted 92-5 and the Senate voted 33-0 to pass the measure, known as the “Horizontal Well Act,” which was immediately signed by the governor.

Although it only took the WV legislature four days in a special session to pass the measure, in reality, it has taken most of this year to draft, tweak and alter the language of the bill to prepare it ahead of the special session.

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Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Shell | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Shell, One Other Company Close to Cracker Plant Announcement
December 7, 2011December 7, 2011

According to officials in West Virginia, who are super-serious about attracting at least one ethane cracker plant to their state, Shell and one other company will announce site selections for their plants in January of 2012. West Virginia fully intends that at least one of those two plants will be inside their borders, and they are pulling out all of the stops to ensure it happens. In fact, according to WV Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s chief of staff, it’s the newly-elected governor’s “No. 1 goal.”

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Chesapeake Energy | Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Enterprise Products Partners | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Is Chesapeake’s Ethane Pipeline Deal a Negotiating Tactic?
November 10, 2011November 10, 2011

Last week, MDN reported that officials in West Virginia were angry with Chesapeake Energy over their decision to sign a contract to ship ethane out of the Marcellus region for processing in the Gulf Coast (see this MDN story). Specifically, state Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette said the deal may jeopardize the state’s chances of attracting a cracker plant—a facility that processes ethane into ethylene, the raw material used to make plastics. The chief complaint was that Chesapeake has been part of negotiations to bring such a plant to the region but at the same time were silent about their impending deal with Enterprise Products Partners to lease a pipeline to move ethane out of the area.

Chesapeake has responded to the criticism and says its deal with Enterprise has been “misunderstood.” A recent statement from Chesapeake seems to indicate the deal to ship ethane via pipeline is a negotiating tactic to get the best price for their ethane. Other industry sources are sticking up for Chesapeake and say the deal is certainly not a “cracker killer.”

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Chesapeake Energy | Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Enterprise Products Partners | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pipelines | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Officials Angry with Chesapeake Over Ethane Pipeline Deal
November 7, 2011November 7, 2011

State officials in West Virginia are angry with Chesapeake Energy over the announcement that Chesapeake has signed a deal to ship ethane out of the Marcellus region via pipeline to the Gulf Coast for processing. A quick petrochemical lesson: Some of what comes out of the ground when drilling for natural gas is the chemical compound ethane—especially found in “wet gas” areas of the Marcellus like West Virginia. Ethane can be processed into ethylene, which is the raw material used to make plastics.

West Virginia and Pennsylvania have been heavily courting Shell and at least one other unnamed company to build a “cracker plant” to process the ethane (crack it) into ethylene. Building a cracker plant in the region would attract thousands of jobs and billions of initial investment, and billions in revenue from associated plastics industries that would sprout up around the plant. It’s like winning the biggest imaginable lottery jackpot when it comes to jobs, money and tax revenue.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Official: No Cases of Water Contamination from Fracking
November 3, 2011November 3, 2011

$frack here frack now$ The top oil and gas regulator in West Virginia said at a conference on Wednesday that he has not seen any confirmed cases of groundwater contamination from fracking in West Virginia.

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Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

US Sen. Joe Manchin (D) Supports Drilling, Criticizes Obama
October 28, 2011October 28, 2011

It seems lately that it’s a rare Democrat who goes on the record to support shale gas drilling, so when it happens, MDN is happy to mention it. U.S. Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia, former governor of that state who won a special election to fill the seat of Robert Byrd, said the following at a recent symposium on natural gas:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WVU Prof: Methane in Water Supplies is Not from Fracking
October 12, 2011October 12, 2011

Dr. Shikha Sharma, an assistant professor at West Virginia University and the lead researcher of a new WVU study looking at the source of methane found in water supplies (see this MDN story), says those who think that hydraulic fracturing is the cause of methane found in their water supply may be wrong. And she can prove it—scientifically.

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Magnum Hunter | MarkWest Energy | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Magnum Hunter & MarkWest Do Deal to Process WV Shale Gas
October 6, 2011October 6, 2011

Pipeline company Magnum Hunter Resources has signed a deal with natural gas processor MarkWest Liberty to deliver and process “liquids-rich” Marcellus Shale gas from northwest West Virginia. As part of the deal, a Magnum Hunter subsidiary (Eureka Hunter) is selling an under-construction gas processing plant to MarkWest. What it all means is that Magnum Hunter and MarkWest are joining forces to handle a large capacity of shale gas that needs processing in northwest WV.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Statewide WV | West Virginia

New WVU Study Looks at Methane in Water Supplies
October 6, 2011October 6, 2011

A new research study is on the way in West Virginia that tackles the question of “Is there methane in the water supply? And if so, how did it get there?” One of the charges often leveled at shale gas drilling is that it causes a migration of methane (natural gas) into water supplies. Perhaps the most famous case in recent years is that of Dimock, Pennsylvania (see MDN stories about Dimock).

A researcher from West Virginia University is conducting a new study by sampling and analyzing water samples in the Monongahela River watershed to determine if there’s methane in local water supplies, with an eye to determining how it got there if it is there.

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