Corrupt DEC Bans PA Marcellus Brine in NY, Tightens Other Brine Use
The Andrew Cuomo-corrupted New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), run by NRDC gang member Basil Seggos, has just slammed the door on New York towns using brine from the Pennsylvania Marcellus. Earlier this week the DEC posted new final regulations as part of “strengthening” the state’s solid waste regulations, referred to as Part 360. Brine is another name for produced water. When you drill a hole deep in the ground, well below the water table (which sits at maybe 200 feet down), over time water from the depths (a mile or more down) will come to the surface. This is not wastewater used in fracking (called flowback), but naturally occurring water (brine). It’s called brine because it contains a lot of minerals–far “saltier” than ocean water. There are a number of ways to dispose of all that water coming out of drilled wells for years after they are drilled–dispose of it via an injection wells, recycle it, or in some cases, treat it and use it as a deicer on roadways. Many towns use brine for that purpose. The DEC’s new regulations stipulate that if a town wants to use brine from conventional oil and gas wells, that’s fine (with certain restrictions). But if the brine comes from a Marcellus Shale well–it’s banned. Keep in mind there is virtually no chemical difference between the two. Which leads us to the conclusion that this is one more very intentional swipe at the shale industry by a state that is closed for business…
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Looking to land a job at Shell’s $6 billion ethane cracker plant when it’s up and running in a few years? A new program set up by Shell with the Community College of Beaver County (CCBC) may give you a leg up. CCBC offers a program in process technology that leads to an associate’s degree. As of this spring, 45 people were enrolled. CCBC expects 70 people to enroll this fall. CCBC’s process technology degree is just one part of their effort to train people for advanced manufacturing careers with Shell and other petrochemical companies. CCBC is partnering with businesses, nonprofits, other colleges to form the Tri-State Advanced Manufacturing Consortium which will help prepare students and retrain workers to meet the needs of energy and manufacturing companies throughout the region. More deets on getting trained for a future cracker job…
Sourcewater is a cool company. A lot of water is used, and generated, when it comes to shale drilling. Millions of gallons of water is used to frack shale wells, and over time, millions of gallons of wastewater (flowback and brine) is generated and must be disposed of. Companies have entire departments dedicated to the task. Sourcewater came along a few years ago and created an online marketplace where those who need to buy water, and those who need to sell water, can find each other. How cool is that? The company is a spinout from MIT’s Energy Ventures program. Smart people behind it. Currently Sourcewater services/covers water needs in the Marcellus/Utica (Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia), along with Texas, Oklahoma and Alberta (Canada). Sourcewater is about to grow. The company announced earlier this week that Marubeni Corporation (financial company based in Japan) is making an investment in the company. No numbers were shared. The news caught our attention because (a) Sourcewater operates in the Marcellus/Utica, and (b) Marubeni is the money behind the forthcoming ethane cracker in Belmont County, OH…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Wayne Forest lease sales change lives with nearly $7M to date; WV’s Charlie Burd ‘Man of the Year’; Shell teaches kids about energy jobs; corrupt Cuomo colludes with other governors to fleece residents re climate change; PA’s traitorous Republican Senate rejects House no-severance tax budget; stealth boom in forgotten shale competes with Marcellus/Utica; US LNG exports continue to rise; and more!
It’s always sad when we have to report that a Marcellus/Utica-focused company goes out of existence. Northeast Energy Management, which operated under the name Northeast Energy with headquarters in Indiana, PA, claimed to be “a leader in tophole drilling in the Marcellus/Utica shale” and “a preferred contractor for many of the largest oil and natural gas exploration and production companies.” Perhaps it was, but it is no more. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in U.S. Bankruptcy Court – Western District of Pennsylvania back in January of this year. As of yesterday the court ordered the company’s assets to be liquidated at auction. A live and online auction will take place next week, on Sept. 27, featuring two Schramm drilling rigs, Detroit Diesel engines with pipe handlers, trailer mounted and skid mounted air compressors, boosters, generators, accumulators, trailers and a variety of tractors, pick-up trucks, construction equipment and other drill site related equipment. Here’s the the details about the auction and how you can participate…
From the day the first backhoe began digging in Ohio, it has appeared that Ohio EPA director Craig Butler has had a grudge against Rover Pipeline. We’re not saying Rover hasn’t had its fair share of environmental transgressions that need to be monitored and rectified. But Butler has been on a one-man mission to punish Energy Transfer, the builder, demanding (without legal authority) insanely high “fines” from ET Rover. At first it was $400,000. Then $900,000. Now Butler says ET owes the state $2.3 million! Butler is trying to draw in Ohio’s Attorney General into the confusion in order to shake down Energy Transfer and make them pay. Yesterday Butler held a conference call with the media (MDN wasn’t notified/invited) where he made wild allegations. What seems to have precipitated Butler’s media bender is a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday to allow ET to resume horizontal directional drilling (HDD) in most Ohio locations, after banning it for several months (see 
At a staged media event yesterday, Ohio EPA director Craig Butler had no end of insults for Energy Transfer and their Rover Pipeline project, making wild claims that the company now owes the state $2.3 million in fines (see today’s companion story). However, at the same media event, Butler had faint praise for another project–NEXUS Pipeline. The OEPA issued a federal water permit for the project on Tuesday. NEXUS is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. The project is co-owned by DTE Energy of Detroit and Spectra Energy (now part of Canadian company Enbridge). NEXUS got final approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in August, the first major pipeline to get approved following a newly restored quorum at FERC (see 
Hoping to pressure the Republican legislature to adopt a budget with a new severance tax, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (Democrat) visited two towns in northeast PA yesterday that are in the heart of Marcellus Shale country. One of those towns is the bucolic village of Tunkhannock, in Wyoming County. MDN editor Jim Willis visited Tunkhannock a few months ago to attend an Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline rally (see 
Rich, snobbish homeowners in an “upscale” Philadelphia suburb development are asking an appeals court to stop Sunoco Logistics from building the Mariner East 2 pipeline through the edge of their high-priced development because, they claim, the digging is disturbing the dirt (which is what digging does) and disturbing the dirt is causing lead and arsenic to become dislodged. The lead and arsenic are supposedly in the dirt as a result of pesticides used when the land was an apple orchard. The claim is flat out BS–Barbara Streisand. The Andover Homeowners Association in Thornbury Township (Delaware County) is the same group that a few weeks ago acted like five year-olds by intentionally stepping over a painted line put there to protect them from a ME2 construction zone (see 
In 2012 the North Carolina legislature cleared the way for the state to allow horizontal fracking of shale (see 
Although the primary focus of Marcellus Drilling News has always been on Marcellus and Utica Shale gas (and oil) as found in the northeastern U.S., the Utica Shale also underlies part of Canada’s Quebec province. And from time to time we highlight news concerning the Utica in Canada. There hasn’t been much news to highlight over the years since Quebec has had a moratorium on fracking at least as long as New York’s moratorium (NY’s ban as of today has been 9 years, 1 month and 29 days). But as we reported back in December, something of a minor miracle happened–the Quebec National Assembly voted to pass Bill 106, ostensibly to support Quebec’s “clean power plan” (see 
Every now and again it’s helpful to step back and look at the big picture, in particular with respect to major pipeline projects. These projects have a deep and profound effect on drilling. In fact, the addition of just three pipelines in our region (currently under construction) will fundamentally change the price of gas in the Marcellus/Utica region–and ultimately lead to more drilling. How so? As part of an article on the Seeking Alpha investor’s website, author and investor Callum Turcan wrote about “Why Appalachia Matters” in which he details that three pipeline projects already getting built will provide an extra 6.45 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of capacity to flow our natural gas out of this region to other regions. Some of that capacity is already happening, with a partial startup of Rover Pipeline. When Rover is completed in early 2018, it will flow 3.25 Bcf/d of natural gas out of our region. Massive! In addition, Atlantic Sunrise is now under construction and when it is completed by the middle of 2018, it will flow 1.7 Bcf/d of gas out of the area. Finally, Leach XPress is due to be done by the end of THIS YEAR, and when it is, it will flow an extra 1.5 Bcf/d of gas out of the area. What will be the response? It’s pretty easy to predict that (a) prices for our gas will go up, and when prices go up, (b) drillers will complete wells already drilled but not yet completed (DUCs), and then (c) begin to drill more new wells. Those three pipelines aren’t the only ones that will get built…
Antis in West Virginia who filed an appeal of a permit allowing US Methanol to build a plant in Institute, WV have been rejected by the WV Air Quality Board. Earlier this month US Methanol broke ground in Institute (Kanawha County), WV for its very first methanol production plant (see