Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Oct 10, 2016
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Southwestern’s Fayetteville assets can’t keep up with Marcellus; Northeast natgas to Gulf Coast export markets; Waterville, OH tries to keep NEXUS out; jobs and dollars follow ethane to Philly; North Dakota protesters “hostile, armed”; diorder in OPEC ranks; and more!
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A delegation from the China Petroleum and Petrochemical Energy Institute (CPPEI) recently visited Clearfield County, PA. The reason for the visit was to scout out potential locations and business opportunities related to PA’s abundant supplies of cheap Marcellus Shale gas. Seven Chinese entrepreneurs came representing companies in the petrochemical/energy industries. The Clearfield economic development agency, called Clearly Ahead Development, coordinated the visit. It was the second such visit in the past year. It certainly couldn’t hurt have some of our money, spent in huge volumes on Chinese imports, come back to the U.S….
Since April of 2014, MDN has written about and monitored a new project to build a $615 million electrical generating plant in Marshall County, WV that will burn Marcellus Shale gas (see 
Gulfport Energy is an Oklahoma City-based independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (“driller”) with its main operations in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio and along the Louisiana Gulf Coast. In August MDN ran an article looking at the top 5 drillers in the Utica Shale (see 
On Wednesday Chesapeake Energy issued an announcement to crow about “significant improvements in its capital structure following recent transactions.” The improvements came as a result of Chessy striking a deal to get $1.25 billion in cash from selling unsecure (nothing to back it) convertible notes–i.e. IOUs. Chesapeake handed people a piece of paper saying they would pay them back in the future, and those people gave the company cash. A LOT of cash. [Note to self: Maybe you’re in the wrong business?] The “convertible” part of the IOUs issued states that if by some miracle Chesapeake can get their stock price up 130% in three years over what it is today, Chesapeake has the right to convert the IOUs (debt) into shares of stock (equity). As of June 30 Chesapeake’s debt was $8.7 billion…
Midstream giant Williams continues to be whipsawed by corporate raiders and pressure from investors to start performing better financially. The evidence for that bold statement comes from observing what’s happening with the board of directors. Following an aborted merger with Energy Transfer Equity, six of Williams’ board members tried to engineer a palace coup to depose current CEO Alan Armstrong. The coup failed and the board members quit in July (see 
NOAA–the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration–contains some of the biggest kool-aid drinking man-made global warming fanatics on the planet. So we found it interesting that the mighty NOAA has just released new research that finds yes, so-called “fugitive” methane that escapes into the atmosphere is up–way up. And yes, oil and gas drilling contributes WAY MORE to the fugitive methane problem “than previously thought.” And yes, methane leaks from fossil fuel development represents something like 20-25% of of the total “problem.” But then those same researchers, in little teeny tiny type add this: “However, the findings also confirm other work by NOAA scientists that conclude fossil fuel facilities are not directly responsible for the increased rate of global atmospheric methane emissions measured in the atmosphere since 2007.” That is, while the shale revolution has grown exponentially over the past 10 years, and while the rate of fugitive methane has grown during that same period–the growth has NOT come from oil and gas development. Instead, it’s coming from rice paddies and cow farts/burps…
The Obama Administration has once again made a naked power grab–violating the Constitution in the process. On Monday the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued an Interim Final Rule (“IFR”) to implement the agency’s “expanded authority to address unsafe pipeline conditions or practices that pose an imminent hazard to life, property, or the environment.” That is, if PHMSA bureaucrats decide something is important enough, or may imminently “harm the public”–they can just dispense with all other laws and regulations which require hearings and public notices, wave the regulatory wand and make a decision. No input. No consultation. No following the law. PHMSA is doing this as a result of a new law signed by President Obama in June, called the PIPES Act, which grants the DOT Secretary godlike powers to issue emergency orders when he/she thinks there’s a danger to the public…
As we do every month, MDN tracks how many rigs oilfield services company Patterson-UTI Energy reports operating–as a proxy for when/if the drop in rig counts for the Marcellus/Utica will turn around. Patterson operates a number of rigs in the northeast, as well as other areas of the continental United States (and Canada). Month by month Paterson’s rig count has declined over the past year plus–until June (see 
Twice in the past week MDN has either heard (in person) or read the statement that “regulations aren’t killing coal, natural gas is.” One of those times MDN heard it at the Benposium East event held in New York City last Wednesday. The other instance was President Obama talking about natural gas at talk on the South Lawn of the White House (see 
More analysis continues to roll in on Rice Energy’s plan to buy Vantage Energy for $2.7 billion (see 
In June Dominion began building Virginia’s largest natural gas-fired electric plant in Greensville County (see 
Warren Resources, a small driller that drilled and brought online their first two Marcellus Shale wells last year, is based in Houston and operates in California, Colorado, Wyoming and Pennsylvania. In February MDN told you that Warren missed an important $7.5 million payment, the first ominous signal of what was to come (see