Landowners Go to Harrisburg to Pressure Lawmakers on Royalty Bill
Pennsylvania landowners are, as we recently pointed out, in a civil war with the Marcellus industry over the issue of royalties (see Deep Dive: PA Royalties Civil War Between Landowners & Drillers). Landowners want House Bill (HB) 1391 passed–a bill guaranteeing landowners will receive a minimum 12.5% royalty payment regardless of post-production costs. Drillers, being represented by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, are pushing back by saying landowners must live under the contracts they’ve signed. It’s complicated–read our previous articles about it here. With a short time left in this legislative session, landowners continue to press their case with lawmakers. The latest in the skirmish is that landowners have set up a table in the Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg to lobby (i.e. pressure) lawmakers into taking action on the bill…
Read More “Landowners Go to Harrisburg to Pressure Lawmakers on Royalty Bill”
Cheniere Energy operates the only liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in the United States–currently. There are others planned, like the Cove Point, Maryland facility currently under construction. We keep tabs on Cheniere, even though it’s located in Louisiana, because the pipelines that serve it either are or soon will have Marcellus/Utica natural gas flowing through them–to the Cheniere plant. It’s potentially a very important market for our natural gas. We’ve had plenty of Cheniere news lately. Earlier this week we told you about a major restructuring at the top of the company, and the news that Train 2 at the plant is about ready to rock and roll (see 
Welcome to Pittsburgh! MDN editor Jim Willis always enjoys the City of Bridges. Today begins Shale Insight. If you’re attending (and a number of MDN subscribers do attend), please stop by Booth 208 and say hello. There will be a number of top notch speakers both today and tomorrow. The person grabbing most of the headlines is Donald Trump, who will speak tomorrow. However, there are many other noteworthy speakers on the agenda. Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources is one of them. Gary Heminger, CEO of Marathon Petroleum is another. Other standouts for MDN: Stacey Olson, the new president of Chevron Appalachia; Gladys Brown, chairwoman of the PA Public Utility Commission; Keith Burdette, Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Commerce; Camera Bartolotta, PA Senator; and Alex Epstein, author of the book, “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” (great book, Jim has read it). For the list of speakers and a full agenda, visit: 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Utica Shale rigs drop by 2; Maine regulators seek proposals for LNG storage; rigs not ever going over 800 again says Raymond James; global natgas prices will key off Henry Hub; wind generation and price volatility in natgas; new acoustic service from Halliburton; oil at $70? not a chance!; electronic LNG auction starting up in October; and more!
Anti-coal, anti-natural gas, anti-oil, anti-logic…the radicals who make up the Sierra Club are anti-everything. They can’t even stand themselves! Self-loathing seems to be a requirement for membership. The Allegheny sub-group of the Sierra Club is planning to protest in front of the David L Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh this coming Thursday morning. Why? Because presidential candidate Donald Trump is scheduled to speak and they HATE HIS GUTS. They also hate frackers and those who support them, like your humble editor. There’s no better unifier on the left than hatred. MDN will be on location at the event and if we get a chance we’ll snap a picture or two of the nutters out front protesting. Meanwhile, here’s the Sierra Club game plan for Thursday…
As MDN previously reported, Range Resources, the very first driller in the Marcellus Shale (in 2004) and one of the largest Marcellus drillers, has decided to take advantage of the down market and branch out into another shale play (see 
Drilco, a small West Virginia drilling company, is looking to land 23 investors who are willing to plunk down a $1.3 million each (for a cumulative $30 million) to help the company drill more wells. According to the Drilco prospectus (below), Drilco wants to fund their 2016 1H Drilling Program with $30 million to drill 10 vertical and 10 horizontal wells throughout five crude oil and natural gas producing zones. The formations Drilco is targeting include: the Big Lime formation, the Big Injun Sandstone, Berea Sandstone, and Upper Devonian Shale and the Marcellus Shale. The ten vertical wells will be completed using multi-stage frac methods through the use of lateral jet perforating and bridge plug completion. Each of the ten vertical wells and ten horizontal wells will be drilled on various leaseholds held by Drilco in West Virginia. Please note: MDN has permission to share the prospectus below (called a private placement memorandum). MDN does not endorse the offering (nor do we not not endorse it). We simply bring it to you to highlight what one small driller is doing to raise money to keep on drilling, and to point out there may be more drilling on the way in the seven counties where Drilco currently has some 15,000 acres under lease…
After firing Cheniere Energy’s CEO and co-founder last December, Charif Souki, corporate raider Carl Icahn then installed his own puppet to run the LNG exporting company (see 
The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a European run and influence group of 29 countries that fervently believe the sky is falling, and that Mom Earth is toasting. Yep, global warmists. According to the IEA, the group is “an autonomous organisation which works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 29 member countries and beyond. The IEA has four main areas of focus: energy security, economic development, environmental awareness and engagement worldwide.” Er, ah, right. That makes it plain as day. Anyhow, the socialist IEA has no problem charging a king’s ransom for the reports they periodically issue. Last November the IEA issued their annual World Energy Outlook, predicting the world will see $80/barrel oil by 2020 (see 
You did know that it’s not only the Obama EPA that routinely overreaches by issuing draconian regulations, right? Other Obama agencies, like the Dept. of Labor (DOL), are also guilty of draconian overreach. On May 18, 2016, the DOL published new changes that affect who is and who is not exempt from charging overtime. With the wave of the DOL’s magic wand they doubled the minimum salary necessary for white collar jobs to be “exempt” from overtime. That is, if you now earn a salary below $47,476 annually (or $913 per week), and if you work more than 40 hours a week, it doesn’t matter what your job is–you will be owed overtime for any hours over 40. Which may sound just dandy. Except if your company can’t afford to pay it, you’re about to get laid off, fired or otherwise put out to pasture. Tell me again how much Obama loves me. Employers have until December 1st to figure out what the heck to do, and how to comply, with these draconian new regulations. The legal beagles at law firm K&L Gates have put together a handy guide to help…
Gas-to-liquids (GTL) plants often convert natural gas into methanol. Methanol is one of the most commonly used substances in the chemical industry–used to produce antifreeze, fuels, solvents and many types of plastics. Converting methane (or natural gas) into methanol has been around for a while–but converting it at room temperature, using far less energy, is new. Scientists at KU Leuven and Stanford University have figured out how to do it. And it’s a really big deal…
From time to time exploration and production companies (aka “drillers” or “producers”) decide to sell leases for acreage they don’t plan to drill on or under. Typically when a new play is discovered there is a bit of a land rush as drillers begin leasing. In the Marcellus, a driller may decide to concentrate on a specific county in the state, as Cabot Oil & Gas did with Susquehanna County in northeastern PA. Cabot happened to hit the jackpot with some of the most productive gas wells on the planet. Other times, when the leasing is done and drilling has begun drillers begin to figure out where they want to spend their money. It takes a lot of money to drill a Marcellus well–on the order of $7 million. Eventually drillers find there are isolated tracts of acreage they’ve leased that don’t fit with their future plans, so they either horse trade and swap, or perhaps put the acreage leases up for public auction. Such is the case with Shell’s SWEPI subsidiary. They recently posted three largish tracts of leased acreage up for auction–two in Tioga County, PA and one in Potter County, PA. Here’s a description of the land SWEPI is trying to dump…