Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Sep 27, 2017
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: PA rig count steady; battle for the pipelines – the Agency strikes back; fracking an “answer to prayer” in OH; Manchin tells WV to stay in state for energy jobs; Shell cracker plant already spurring local development, loans; NC Senators urge FERC to approve Atlantic Coast Pipe; natgas boom has led to cleaner air; Farmer’s Almanac winter forecast bullish for natgas prices; Tesla’s high-priced electric cars can’t compete with fracking; fracking proof that “God…loves us,” says Sec. Interior; and more!
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Last week MDN told you that Community College of Beaver County (CCBC) is operating a program in process technology that leads to an associate’s degree as preparation for a job at Shell’s $6 billion ethane cracker plant, being built now in Beaver County (see 
Every now and again it’s fun to take a look at a “Top 10” list. Here’s one for you. How about a Top 10 List for drillers in southwestern PA, in Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Clarion, Fayette, Greene, Indiana, Lawrence, Washington, and Westmoreland counties. This Top 10 list ranks drillers by how many shale well permits they’ve been granted. The list is extracted from a Top 40 list prepared by the (must read) Pittsburgh Business Times. Can you guess which 10 drillers are in the Top 10? How about the Top 1? It may come as no surprise that Range Resources, the very first company to drill a Marcellus Shale well (in 2004), has received the most permits to drill in SWPA. Here’s the full Top 10 list, with some interesting extra details…
As enormously productive as the Marcellus/Utica wells are, did you know that the best wells only recover perhaps 20% of the available gas trapped in shale rocks? Often it’s more like 10%, or 5% recovery. The National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in Morgantown, WV is trying to change those numbers. In a research program NETL calls “mastering the subsurface,” researchers are learning what happens at the smallest level of fracturing shale–so they can improve recovery rates using new processes and materials. In addition to improving recovery, they’re also looking for ways to cut down on water use. Since there’s a fair bit of water already trapped in shale, NETL is experimenting with carbon dioxide foam, as a way of using less water. (Don’t tell Al Gore. He HATES carbon dioxide, calling it a “pollutant” and saying it causes Mom Earth to toast). NETL is also using natural gas itself to frack rock. A lot of very important research is happening at NETL–research that may one day change the way we frack…
Flowback (water that comes back out of the well after fracking) and produced water (naturally occurring water from the depths that comes out the well for months and years after it’s drilled) have long been a “problem” drillers have to deal with. The choices are to: (1) haul it away to an injection well, (2) haul it to a centralized recycling facility, or (3) recycle it on location and reuse it for more drilling/fracking. That third option is really the brass ring for drillers. If only there were an economical way to recycle the water on location and reuse it. Researchers at Rice University (in Texas) believe they have made a breakthrough in option #3. Using a ceramic membrane with microscale pores, Rice researchers have found a way to clean flowback and produced water, removing 90% of hydrocarbons, bacteria and particulates in a single pass through the filter. The Rice discovery is aimed particularly at flowback–the 10-15% of fluid pumped down the hole to frack a well. Rice researchers published their research online, today, in Nature magazine’s open-access Scientific Reports. We have a copy of the paper, titled “Superhydrophilic Functionalization of Microfiltration Ceramic Membranes Enables Separation of Hydrocarbons from Frac and Produced Water,” below…
We came across an interesting press release from a law firm that won an extraordinary settlement for its client against Talisman Energy–a $100 million award. What’s interesting is that the plaintiff that sued Talisman is one of Talisman’s joint venture partners–not landowners. Matrix Petroleum invested in a deal with Talisman as a “non-operating” partner. That is, Matrix put up money, but Talisman did all the drilling and selling of the oil and gas they extracted. Matrix says over a period of five years that Talisman intentionally cooked the books–failing to accurately report how much oil was produced, thereby shorting Matrix on their share of the profits. The jury agreed and awarded Matrix the money they should have gotten if Talisman had not cooked the books. Ouch. All of this happened in Texas–the drilling and the trial. So what does it have to do with the Marcellus/Utica? Perhaps nothing. But we do recall reporting that last year Talisman took on a non-operating joint venture partner in the Marcellus from Thailand–Banpu (see 
“Loss of circulation” sounds like a terminal condition–and perhaps it is, in a human body. But that phrase applied to drilling underground to install pipelines holds a different meaning. Loss of circulation is the technical term used when drilling fluid migrates out of the hole being drilled, and into (eeks) groundwater. Thing is, drilling fluid used to drill for pipelines is non-toxic–the primary component being bentonite clay. Bentonite is the same thing used to make kitty litter, cosmetics and toothpaste. So a little bentonite clay escaping into a water supply is not a big deal–unless it’s a LOT of bentonite escaping. Then it can foul a water supply, at least until the clay settles and the water clears again. A former geologist working for the Texas Railroad Commission (the government body in charge of regulating oil and gas in Texas) has written a thoughtful column in the Harrisburg Patriot-News to talk about loss of circulation that has happened in several locations while drilling for the Mariner East 2 pipeline in PA. The former geologist knows a thing or two about drilling, about benonite, and about spilling a little mud here and there. He provides some much needed perspective on the issue–a counterbalance to the wild speculations and false claims made by anti-fossil fuelers…
PennEast Pipeline has just achieved yet another milestone on its way to getting built. At a meeting last Thursday, the Board of Supervisors for Kidder Township (Carbon County, PA) voted 5-0 in favor of issuing a permit to PennEast to site the one-and-only compressor station the 120-mile pipeline will need. Proving yet again that most Pennsylvanians are in favor of this project, contrary to the mainstream/leftist media drumbeat against it. PennEast is a $1 billion primarily 36-inch pipeline from Dallas (Luzerne County), PA to Transco’s pipeline interconnection near Pennington (Mercer County), NJ. The company expects final Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval any week now. There are still a few hurdles left–mostly in New Jersey. But those hurdles are certainly surmountable. The radical Sierra Club and THE Delaware Riverkeeper are adamantly opposed and continue to try and throw up legal (and regulatory) roadblocks. No matter. This important pipeline will get built–and this compressor station approval is one more bit of evidence that it will get built…
Twin Eagle Resource Management, headquartered in Houston, TX, bills itself as a provider of wholesale energy and midstream services throughout North America. Twin Eagle also serves the upstream (drilling market) via a number of transloading facilities to ship and store frac sand. Currently Twin has five facilities, serving: Central Eagle Ford (Elmendorf, TX), South Eagle Ford (Laredo, TX), Powder River Basin (Douglas, WY), Permian Basin (Big Spring, TX), and DJ Basin (Evans, CO). You can now add a sixth facility–a frac sand transloading facility in Bridgeport, WV, to service the Marcellus/Utica region. Last week Twin Eagle Sand Logistics (Twin Eagle subsidiary) announced a deal to buy an existing frac sand terminal in Bridgeport from Process Transloading Bridgeport. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Transloading” is a simple concept. It means you ship the sand in via railroad, or barge, unload it, store it, and then load it onto trucks which haul it to well pads where it gets used to frack shale wells. Let’s give a hearty welcome to the latest entrant into the Marcellus/Utica supply chain! Here are the particulars of the Bridgeport facility…
Terry Pegula is an interesting guy. He’s a billionaire who owns both the Buffalo Sabres (NHL hockey team) and the Buffalo Bills (NFL football team). Pegula is the owner of East Resources, once a big driller (and holder of acreage) in the Marcellus Shale. Pegula sold off East’s Marcellus assets and used the money, in part, to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014, which gave rise to MDN calling the team “the Marcellus Bills”–since it was Marcellus money that kept the team in Buffalo, instead of moving to another market (see 
The Marcellus industry is closely watching three pieces of legislation sitting in the Pennsylvania legislature, bills that the industry fervently hopes do not pass. One of the bills is House Bill (HB) 557, introduced by Rep. Garth Everett, which would amend/fix the Oil and Gas Lease Act to ensure landowners get a minimum royalty of 12.5%, regardless of post-production deductions (see 
NEXUS Pipeline, a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada, is about ready to begin construction–any time. NEXUS got final approval for the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in August, the first major pipeline to get approved following a newly restored quorum at FERC (see 
MAX Environmental has operated the Bulger hazardous waste landfill in Smith Township (Washington County), PA since 1958. One of the primary customers for the landfill over the past 10 years has been the Marcellus industry–dumping drill cuttings (leftover dirt and rock from drilling) at the landfill. Earlier this year, MAX sold itself to Altus Capital Partners–a private equity investment firm–for an undisclosed amount (see