PA DEP Report on Emissions Exposes Wolf’s Methane Plan as a Dud
In January 2016 Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and his now-fired Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), John Quigley, introduced an awful four-point plan to supposedly reduce methane emissions by 40% over the next five years (see PA Gov. Wolf’s Plan to Kill Drilling via Methane Emissions Regs). Even though the plan has not (so far) been implemented, due to the negative effects it would have on the drilling industry, the happy news is that air emissions have improved, dramatically, as a recent PA DEP annual report chronicled (see PA DEP Reports: Air Emissions from Shale Industry Improved in 2015). Although methane emissions went up a tiny bit because there’s more drilling and more pipelines than ever, the big news is that methane emissions per unit of production actually went DOWN. But you won’t read that in mainstream news where they trumpet a so-called increase in methane as an excuse to implement Wolf’s dud plan…
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Yet another anti-shale argument falls. You read and hear plenty about a community’s tax base (i.e. property values) going down when/if shale drilling and associated infrastructure, like processing plants, come to town. That’s fake news. Here’s real news: In Doddridge County, WV, prior to the shale revolution visiting the county, the total assessed value for all properties in the county added up to $457.5 million. Seven years later, in 2017, with multiple wells drilled and massive new MarkWest natural gas processing plants built, total assessed value for all properties in Doddridge is now $1.4 BILLION. That’s a three-fold increase in seven years! Most of the increase comes from the oil and gas industry. Quite frankly, there’s no end in sight. Values will continue to rise in Doddridge…
A group of 57 gentry landowners in Virginia and West Virginia, backed by an out-of-state Big Green group, have just sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in an attempt to gut the 80-year old Natural Gas Act that gives FERC the right to grant eminent domain for pipeline projects. Specifically, the colluding landowners oppose Dominion’s $5 billion, 594-mile natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina, and EQT’s $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline project, a 303-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The frivolous lawsuit filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (full copy below) claims the landowners’ property is a “taking” not properly compensated under the U.S. Constitution–even though landowners are paid and they can continue to use their land as they see fit, as long as they don’t put a building overtop the pipeline. Here’s the latest on Big Green’s effort to oppose every square inch of new natural gas pipelines anywhere, including in the Marcellus/Utica…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Dominion handing out another $1M to community groups, apply now; Jana Partners continues to badmouth EQT-Rice deal; FERC gives OK for Cove Point to test LNG facility; PA rig count goes up by 1; former CONSOL exec tapped for federal fuel office; gross gas output climbs; how American fracking ran OPEC’s oil recovery off the rails; Evolution Engineering attracts investor; Western Australia bans fracking; China becomes world’s 3rd largest shale producer; and more!
This morning Carrizo Oil & Gas announced it has sold “substantially all” of its Utica Shale assets, located primarily in Guernsey County, OH, for a grand total of $62 million. The Carrizo website says the company owns 25,900 acres in the Utica. Do the math, and if they sold all 25,900 acres for $62 million it works out to a relatively low $2,394 per acre–essentially a fire sale compared with lease prices in that area which are double that amount. Once upon a time Carrizo had big plans for the Utica. They (wisely) sold off their northern Utica acreage and retained their southern acreage in 2012 (see 
The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has just issued production numbers for the second quarter of 2017. In a pattern that keeps repeating, oil production was down in 2Q17, down 17% from the same quarter in 2016. However, that’s an improvement from 1Q17 when oil production was down 29% from the year before, and 4Q16 when oil production was down 44% from the year before. So oil is down, percentage-wise, but down less than last quarter. The good news continues to be natural gas production, which was up 16% over the same period in 2016. In 1Q17 natgas production was up 13% over the same period in 2016. Eclipse Resources once again dominated with four of the top 5 spots on the natural gas production list, all of those wells drilled in Monroe County. Ascent Resources continued to dominate oil production with 17 of the top 25 most productive wells. Eclipse had the #2 most productive oil well, the first time the record-breaking Purple Hayes (at one time the longest on-shore lateral well in the world) has slipped from it’s #1 spot since it went online in 2016. Below we have the ODNR’s high level overview of the numbers, along with MDN’s own exclusive analysis showing: the top 25 producing gas wells, the top 25 producing oil wells, and then the top 25 gas and oil wells as ranked by average production per day. There is a difference…
A research team from West Virginia University spent the past year studying geologic regions in 50 counties in the Marcellus/Utica Shale region to see if our region would support a proposed $10 billion ethane storage hub. The conclusion was delivered last week at a meeting in Southpointe, PA: Heck yeah! Some 100 geologists, chemical engineers, oil and gas people members of academia gathered to hear about the results. WVU researchers released their findings in a published 181-page report titled “A Geologic Study to Determine the Potential to Create an Appalachian Storage Hub for Natural Gas Liquids” (full copy below). Among the study’s findings: A shale ethane storage hub could help create $36 billion in investment and more than 100,000 permanent jobs. It’s HUGE! Our region currently produces three times the amount of ethane that can be used by the mighty Shell ethane cracker, pointing out the need for more cracker plants. Here’s the exciting news that we need an ethane storage hub, and we need it bad…
The president of the company looking to build the Mountaineer NGL Storage facility in Monroe County, Ohio, near Clarington, along the Ohio River says operating the facility close to the Ohio River is safe and “is not rocket science.” Last week West Virginia University researchers released a report that the Marcellus/Utica region needs an ethane storage hub (see today’s companion story, WVU Appalachia Ethane Storage Hub Final Report – We Need it Bad). Most of the talk has been about a massive, $10 billion ethane storage facility to help feed cracker plants and other petrochemical facilities that will locate in our region. At the meeting last week, David Hooker, president of Energy Storage Ventures which wants to build the Mountaineer NGL Storage facility, made the point that his company is already working on what will likely be multiple NGL storage facilities. MDN has been following the Mountaineer NGL project. At least check in June, Mountaineer still needs customers to sign up, and they need more regulatory approvals from Ohio (see 
On Friday Williams announced a new pipeline project sure to spur controversy in nutty New Jersey. On Friday Williams filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the Rivervale South to Market project. The Rivervale project will expand the mighty Transco pipeline in northern New Jersey to deliver an extra 190 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of low-carbon, clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas to markets in northern NJ and New York City. The project calls for “uprating” a little over 10 miles of pipeline (same pipeline with more pressure and more gas), and adding a half mile of new looping pipeline–which is more than enough to set off the environmental whackadoodles at the NJ Sierra Club. Here’s the good news that more fracked shale gas will be on the way to the NYC metro area in time for the 2019/2020 winter heating season…
Talen Energy was birthed in June 2015–a combination of PPL Energy Supply and certain assets of Riverstone Holdings. The company, headquartered in Allentown, PA, is one of the largest competitive energy and power generation companies in North America. Talen owns or controls 16,000 megawatts of generating capacity in wholesale power markets, primarily in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southwest regions of the U.S. Talen has gotten into converting and building natural gas-fired electric plants, stories we’ve covered over the past few years (see our 
In April 2015 Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) subsidiary filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build 8.2 miles of new looping pipeline in Tioga County, PA and beef up two compressor stations in Bradford County, PA. The $142 million project is called the Susquehanna West Project. It will increase capacity along the 300 Line section of TGP, bumping it up by 145 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d). All of the extra capacity is spoken for by Statoil and the wells they’ve drilled in NEPA. Last September, FERC approved the project (see 
In August MDN brought you the sad news that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled against the Constitution Pipeline and their lawsuit against the Cuomo-corrupted New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (see 
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events.
Environmental radicalism has now fully metastasized at the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The organization is nothing more than a political tool of the environmental far-left (and corrupt Gov. Cuomo), as evidenced in the DEC’s latest outrageous decision to deny federal water crossing permits to a 7.8 mile pipeline to feed an electric power generating plant in Orange County, NY–a plant currently under construction. The reason for the rejection? NOT because of any so-called harms to the environment due to crossing streams–the reason for the permits. No. But because, says the DEC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which evaluated the power plant project, didn’t take into consideration the plant’s potential contribution to mythical man-made global warming. In other words, the DEC just admitted they have denied a WATER permit based on other (political) criteria–not the criteria on which they were legally bound to decide. We predict the DEC will get crushed when this is all over and done. But the problem is, it will take years to litigate. Meanwhile, the Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) Valley Energy Center will complete its construction and go online in early 2018–powered by much-dirtier fuel oil instead of clean-burning natural gas. Congratulations to all of the antis, and the DEC, who oppose the power plant project. You’ll now have even MORE so-called global warming (and air pollution in the region) because of your lunacy…