Waterville, OH Passed NEXUS Pipeline Ban, Certain to Get Overturned
We’ve written plenty in the past about the PA-based radical anti-drilling group called CELDF–Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (see our CELDF stories here). CELDF seems to have a lot of success in tricking people in Ohio into believing they can pass a so-called Community Bill of Rights to ban fracking, injection wells, etc.–illegal under Ohio state law. When such legislation is passed and then gets challenged, it loses in court. Every time. And when private companies sue for damages, taxpayers end up footing the bill and the CELDF is nowhere to be found (see Anti Group CELDF Won’t Help Grant Twp Pay $1M Judgement). The CELDF went pedaling their pap in Meigs County, OH, to the City of Waterville, and they found fertile ground, getting a “Bill of Rights Charter Amendment” on the ballot yesterday, meant to stop the NEXUS Pipeline from going through town (see PA-Based CELDF Looks for New Dupes in Meigs County, OH). Unfortunately the citizens of Waterville fell for it and voted to approve the ballot initiative. Thing is, as soon as it’s challenged in court (and you can bet your last dollar it will be challenged), it will get overturned, just like every other time these CELDF measures have been challenged. The taxpayers will have to pay to defend their folly…
Read More “Waterville, OH Passed NEXUS Pipeline Ban, Certain to Get Overturned”
In January 2014, MDN brought you the story that due to incessant nagging from the NJ Sierra Club and the NJ League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters the Pinelands Commission, which oversees a stand of scrub pines in South Jersey, nixed a plan for a new natural gas pipeline to bring cheap, clean, abundant Marcellus Shale natural gas to South Jersey for use by residents and to feed an electric plant a local utility wants to convert from burning coal to natgas (see 
The Sierra Club, which may have been founded for good reasons, long ago left the realm of sanity. Sierra Clubbers, as we call them, now live in an alternative universe where clean-burning natural gas and all fossil fuels are from the devil himself. The Clubbers have tried to get multiple LNG (liquefied natural gas) export facilities blocked on the theory that if you cut off the demand you can cut off the supply (i.e. end fracking of new wells). Yeah, crazy. But that’s what they’re trying. Lately they’ve tried to attack and bully both the Dept. of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. With legions of lawyers, they file frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit, hoping if they throw enough legal (ahem) feces against the wall, some it will stick. So far it hasn’t. One of the facilities the Sierra Club continues to fight against is Cove Point LNG in Maryland. They filed an appeal of a Dept. of Energy approval to allow Cove Point to export LNG to non-free trade agreement countries–namely Japan and India. Yep, the Sierra Club doesn’t want us to help out Japan or India. They’d rather have us help Saudi Arabia and Qatar, apparently. After the appeal went nowhere, the Clubbers have no sued in the uber-liberal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Thing is, that very same court recently handed the Sierra Club a defeat in a similar case…
Rex Energy, the little Marcellus/Utica driller that could, swung things around in the third quarter. Yesterday Rex issued its third quarter update and the company is in the black–earning $5.4 million. No, it’s not much in the o&g world, but it’s a whole lot better than losing $95 million as they did in 3Q15. During 3Q16 Rex drilled 1 Marcellus and 3.5 Utica wells, completed several more wells and brought a variety of wells online in both the Marcellus and Utica. Here’s the full update with details on what Rex did in 3Q16…
Oilfield services company Mammoth Energy Services, headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, operates in both the Utica Shale and Permian Basin. Mammoth offers services like “completion and production services, natural sand proppant services, contract land and directional drilling services and remote accommodation services.” Mammoth is a baby company, formed in 2014, but already booking $243 million in revenue for the 12 months ended June 30th. In October, Mammoth announced an initial public offering (IPO) hoping to raise roughly $150 million (see 
In May 2015 the Obama rogue Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with the Obama U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) released a finalized rule clarifying what “Waters of the United States” (WOTUS) means vis a vis what can be regulated under the federal Clean Water Act (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Northeast drillers gear up for winter; natgas prices fall in the northeast; blocking pipelines new anti-fracking ploy; natgas output still going strong in OH; Hilcorp gets 11 new permits in Columbiana County; PA rig count goes up in Oct; LNG layoffs in NEPA; energy companies turn to drones; and more!
MDN first told you about IMG Midstream in August 2014 (see 
While the worldwide Baker Hughes rig count slide back a bit in October, from 934 in September to 920 in October, the rig count in the U.S. once again, for the fourth month in a row, went up. The average U.S. rig count for October was 544, up 35 from the 509 counted in September. However, the rig count was down 247 from the 791 counted in October 2015–so we still have a long ways to go. The Marcellus/Utica rig count was up for the third month running. In October the M/U rig count went up by 4 with 3 additions in PA (now 25 rigs) and 1 in WV (now 10 rigs). OH stayed even running with an average of 14 rigs…
Stone Energy, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (E&P) headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana drills mainly in the Gulf of Mexico but also has a presence in the Marcellus/Utica Shale with 90,000 acres of leases. Last year Stone quit drilling in the northeast and actually shut-in part of their production due to low prices (see 
Black Stone Minerals is one of the largest owners of oil and natural gas mineral rights in the U.S. Black Stone owns mineral interests and royalty interests in over 40 states and 60 onshore basins in the continental U.S–including leases in the Marcellus/Utica region. Black Stone also owns and selectively participates as a non-operating working partner in drilling programs, primarily on its own leased acreage. Black Stone reported its third quarter earnings yesterday. The numbers show the company made $37.5 million in 3Q16 (down a bit from making $53.9 million in 3Q15). However, for the first nine months of 2016 the company is in the black this year, while it was in the red last year at this point. Our point: yet more evidence that drilling and royalties and everything in our industry that was down is now trending up, once again…
Weatherford International is the fourth largest oilfield services company in the world, employing some 44,000 people. They have a branch office in Canonsburg, PA (Pittsburgh area) with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica. By comparison, Weatherford competitor Halliburton is the #2 largest oilfield services company in the world. A strange thing happened to Weatherford in September 2015. The public company floated new shares of stock and new IOUs (i.e., convertible notes) hoping to raise $1 billion in cash. But a few hours after they announced the offering, they withdrew it because “while investor interest was strong for this offering” the price those investors were willing to pay for the new stock and notes was not anywhere near what Weatherford wanted (see 
IHS Markit, an information and analytics company that keeps a close eye on the energy industry, says its analysis shows natural gas production in the U.S. went down “nearly 2%” in October from September. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a big deal. Production levels in South Texas and the Northeast, according to VP Jack Weixel, “fell off a combined 1.3 Bcf/d from September to October.” That is the largest regional month over month decline IHS Markit has seen since it began tracking these numbers. What does it mean? Typically it means higher prices are coming–less supply, the same or increasing demand equals higher prices (classic economics 101 stuff). However, there are so many complex and contributing factors, it’s not as simple as less supply = higher prices. Not anymore! Here’s what IHS Markit is saying…