Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Nov 29, 2017
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: MSC president says Marcellus/Utica activity heading downstream; OH Utica industry lends a hand with Toys for Tots; the Bakken is getting gassy; shale drillers hold the keys to success for an OPEC production cut; million-barrel hedging signals shale boom here to stay; o&g growth will propel U.S. economy through 2040; Mark Papa says shale hitting “sweet spot” exhaustion; overpricing renewable power is dangerous; Russia’s Gazprom gets big loans from Japan & U.S.; UK government supports shale industry; and more!
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The ultra-radical group from Pennsylvania called the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is devoted to stirring up anarchy and lawlessness, not only in Pennsylvania but elsewhere, like Ohio. CELDF has launched a campaign to amend the Ohio State Constitution. Two CELDF ballot initiatives (full text below) would amend the Constitution to make it legal for local communities to usurp the state’s role in regulating oil and gas. We’ve written plenty about the CELDF, which is behind a number of bizarre lawsuits like the one claiming that an ecosystem is a “person” with rights (see 
Rex Energy, a driller focused mainly on the Marcellus/Utica (headquartered in State College, PA), has had its share of financial challenges. In the past it has swapped out old IOUs for new IOUs, converted debt (IOUs) into equity (shares of stock), sold off assets in other basins–a whole lotta stuff to keep on drilling (
Carrizo Oil & Gas no longer owns any assets in either the Marcellus or Utica Shale. Carrizo, a Houston-based driller, actively drills in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, the Delaware Basin in West Texas, the D-J Basin in Colorado (more on that in a moment), and until mid-year in 2015, they had an active drilling program in the Ohio Utica and Pennsylvania Marcellus. We told you back in May that Carrizo was shopping its Marcellus/Utica assets (see 
If you are unemployed–particularly if you once worked in the coal industry–and you’re interested in getting your foot in the door of a rewarding job in the Marcellus/Utica industry, LISTEN UP! For those who live in southwestern PA and eastern OH, the Washington Greene County Job Training Agency and the Gas Technology Institute have teamed up to provide a FREE 4-week training program just for you (
Monroeville, PA (Allegheny County, suburb of Pittsburgh) is hostile toward the shale industry. In September, Monroeville Council voted to enact a super-restrictive seismic testing ordinance (see 
MDN has closely followed the effort to pass a dreadful bill in Pennsylvania known as House Bill (HB) 1401, which would tack a 3.2% severance tax on top of the existing ~5% impact tax (called a “fee”) already levied on Marcellus drillers, thereby effectively killing any new Marcellus drilling in the state. Last week, just ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, the House debated the bill for two days–then left town “abruptly” without taking any further action (see 
Yesterday Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (liberal Democrat) issued a press release to take credit for/crow about handing out another $1 million of taxpayer money. This time the money is part of the state’s Alternative Fuel Incentive Grants (AFIG) program–a program aimed at replacing gasoline and diesel fuel. At least replacing a little bit of it–a token gesture. The state issued grants totaling more than $1.1 million in their effort to replace fossil fuels as the fuel that powers vehicles. And what “alternative” will replace those nasty fossil fuels? What clean-burning, good-for-the-environment option did PA deign to fund for over $1 million? Was the money used to purchase new electric charging stations for Chevy Volts, Nissan Leafs, and Teslas? Nope. The superior option to replace those nasty fossil fuels is…other fossil fuels! The grants will buy buses that run on propane, and build compressed natural gas (CNG) refueling stations for vehicles that run on CNG. No electric outlets in sight. By using propane and CNG, Wolf says PA will replace “hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel” (meaning gasoline and diesel), making PA’s air cleaner. We think it’s kind of funny that Wolf’s enviro left hates natural gas, yet Wolf calls it clean and green and hands out money to make it more widely available…
There are a number of important pipeline projects, key to moving Marcellus/Utica gas either out of our region, or to places in our region that urgently need it. Some projects we’ve been writing about for years–like the stalled Constitution Pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA into New York State. Others are relatively recent, like the Valley Lateral Pipeline, a short pipeline to feed a power plant being built in Orange County, NY. Some projects like PennEast Pipeline are not yet fully approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and now face an uphill battle in New Jersey where an ultralib just got elected governor–saying he’ll do his best to hassle the project. What we need is a scorecard! What’s the status of all these important projects? Fortunately the sharp writers at E&E News (Energy & Environment Publishing) has just issued such a scorecard, chronicling 10 important, we’d call them vital, pipeline projects in the East: Constitution, Northern Access, Valley Lateral, PennEast, Atlantic Sunrise, NEXUS, Rover, Mountain Valley, Atlantic Coast, and Sabal Trail. Here’s a status report for each project…
We live in a different world here in New York State–MDN’s beloved, lifelong home state. We suppose it’s like living in East Germany just after The Wall was built. Our wall is not physical but political. Even so, it’s just as real. Our state has become something of a socialist/Communist dictatorship. Our Constitutional property rights have been stripped away. Some private companies are actively opposed and frustrated by our governor, who then turns around and doles out taxpayer money to other private companies who are his cronies. We have no shale drilling, and no prospect of it until Cuomo is voted out of office. He’s even taken to stopping pipelines. Fortunately some pipelines, like the Millennium, were built before Cuomo caught the green fever. However, if you try to expand existing pipelines, say by running a 7.8 mile spur to an electric power generating plant that’s almost built, Cuomo will try and stop you. He’s like a hostile war lord in a third-world country. A tinpot dictator. Operating a pipeline in such a climate is not easy. It brings to mind stories of missionaries who put their own lives at risk to travel to hostile lands to bring religion to the heathen–whoops, to the indigenous population. One such pipeline missionary operating in New York is Michelle Hook, director of public relations for the Millennium Pipeline Company. How does Michelle do it, without going crazy?…
Who says you can’t buy a court decision–at least a temporary one? Back in May MDN told you about the antis running the City of Green, Ohio hellbent on stopping the NEXUS Pipeline, all of it (see 
The FBI has been drawn into what was once a civil case in Ohio. EnerVest once owned nearly one million acres in the Ohio Utica Shale. It was unintentional. Most of the acreage came from owning old conventional/vertical oil and gas wells in the state. Belmont County, OH landowner, Matt Crislip, says EnerVest perpetrated a fraud on him by pretending his long inactive/dead conventional well was once again producing. The practice is known as “back-fed”–running gas from a pipeline back to the well, so it appears the well is still producing gas. Why do something crazy like that? So the driller can claim the well is producing and is “held by production”–allowing that driller to turn around and sell the lease to someone else (Ascent Resources, in this case) for “millions” according to Crislip. The result is Crislip didn’t see a penny in new lease-signing bonuses, and he didn’t get the opportunity to negotiate a new royalty rate. EnerVest flatly denies the back-fed charge and said they will defend themselves “vigorously.” So far the FBI has only investigated Crislip’s claim, and no charges have been filed. Yet. Here’s a look at Crislip’s claim and the FBI’s ongoing investigation, which may expand beyond Belmont County…
Energy Solutions Consortium, based in Buffalo, NY, has been trying to build a number of gas-fired electric plant projects in West Virginia for years (see 