SGICC Launches 6th Shale Gas Innovation Contest, $60K in Prizes
As we do each year, we take great pleasure and pride to let you know that Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation and Commercialization Center (SGICC) has launched yet another Shale Gas Innovation Contest. In fact, this is the 6th annual such contest. The Shale Gas Innovation Contest awards a $20,000 prize to three companies ($60,000 purse) for the “best shale energy-oriented innovations, new product ideas, or service concepts that are either in the development stage or recently launched.” Here’s the details on who your company can participate…
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Events related to drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling.
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Rice Energy files to get into home gas delivery game; OH legislature wants to keep freeze on so-called clean energy mandates; FirstEnergy contemplates filing for bankruptcy; PA court re-issues block on some shale drilling regs; mall near Shell cracker gets sold; ND the biggest loser in Obama ruling against pipeline; shale is back, part ii; Trump EPA pick good “at breaking down worthless organizations”; and more!
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) unveiled new regulations to clamp down on methane emissions and other other air pollution that allegedly comes from shale drilling sites. The onerous new regulations, not in effect yet (to be published “soon”) are prompted by bullying from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, an agency which is about to get gutted (see 
Last week MDN brought you news about Kinder Morgan’s Broad Run Expansion Project will expand transportation capacity of natural gas on the existing Tennessee Gas Pipeline system. Antis tried to stop the project, but FERC rejected their pleas (see 
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) recently commissioned a survey of residents in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia–so-called “battleground” states that can swing either Democrat or Republican come election-time. The survey found that an average of 80% of the respondents support energy infrastructure spending, by both government and private companies. Which is remarkable. When was the last time you heard of 80% of the American electorate agreeing on anything? This survey takes the wind out of the sails of the “keep it in the ground” movement of fossil fuel haters, like those opposing pipeline projects like NEXUS, Rover, PennEast, Atlantic Coast, Atlantic Sunrise, Mountain Valley, et cetera et cetera. Here’s the results of the NAM survey…
The Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, commonly known as the Commonwealth Foundation or CF, is Pennsylvania’s free-market think tank. CF’s mission is simple: Transform free-market ideas into public policies so all Pennsylvanians can flourish. In a recent post on the CF blog site, the organization makes the strong case that although PA’s levy on shale drillers in the state is called an impact “fee”–it’s actually a tax. Quoting the Independent Fiscal Office (IFO), the CF post says, “the current impact fee is equivalent to a 6.9% severance tax–higher than severance taxes in Louisiana, Wyoming, and West Virginia.” Here’s what CF has to say about PA’s severance TAX…
In 2015 the federal Environmental Protection Agency, after spending four years to evaluate 950 studies on hydraulic fracturing, conducted nine of their own original studies, and came to the conclusion that there is no “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water” from fracking (see 
For some time we’ve tracked the progress of an LNG export plant planned for the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, the Bear Head LNG project. Of all the Canadian LNG export projects, Bear Head seems to have the most momentum. The project has received most (if not all) of the necessary permits it needs to proceed. But it’s not been without its bumps along the way (see 
Antero Resources, one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus, is going shopping for cash. In September Antero’s midstream (i.e. pipeline) subsidiary went shopping for cash and got $650 million (see 
Richard Zeits is an oil and gas, commodities, and long/short equity research analyst. He writes on the Seeking Alpha website and is, without a doubt, the best writer we read on o&g matters on the SA website. So when we spotted an article he’s written about Chesapeake Energy, that its “distress risk” (i.e. bankruptcy) is now “remote”–we took notice. It wasn’t long ago that many were betting the company would declare bankruptcy (see 
Gulfport Energy reports they have just snagged another 12,600 net undeveloped Utica acres located dry gas window of northern Monroe County, Ohio for $87 million. When you run the math, that works out to be $6,905 per acre–far less than the recent $10,000/acre prices we’ve seen. Half of the acreage is “held by production,” meaning wells have either been drilled or are already producing. Analysts figure the land, which is located next to land already leased by Gulfport, will yield something like 105 new wells for the company. Gulfport is head over heels in love with the Utica and plans, as we noted in November, to run an average of six drilling rigs in the Utica in 2017 (see 
It’s certainly not THE highest, but it is certainly one of the highest fines we’ve seen assessed by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). Yesterday the DEP fined Rice Energy $3.5 million “for multiple violations of environmental laws at 10 well sites and 6 pipeline locations.” The violations, spanning “several years,” occurred at sites in Washington and Greene counties. Here’s the details…