WVU Effusive Over “Green” Drilling Fluid Used in Test Wells
In July MDN told you about exciting new publicly-financed research at West Virginia University that finds waste from Marcellus/Utica drilling (“frack waste”) is not radioactive or hazardous (see Independent Research @ WVU Concludes Frack Waste is Safe). Anti fossil fuel nutters would have you believe frack waste is an environmental holocaust–but such is proven to not the case. It’s been our observation that when Big Green groups don’t finance (i.e. purchase) research, you get honest, real science results. Like the results coming out of WVU’s 5-year study (financed by the U.S. Dept. of Energy). WVU, along with partner Ohio State University, is in the midst of drilling two Marcellus wells near Morgantown, WV. They are testing and measuring all sorts of things–air, noise, light and water and frack waste (see Drilling for WVU/OSU’s $11M Study Gets Underway in Morgantown). One of the key areas researchers are testing is the use of “green” drilling fluid–fluids that are environment and human friendly, even if they get accidentally released. According to WVU researchers, their experimentation will lead to Marcellus industry adopting greener drilling fluids…
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Last week we pointed out the inconsistency of Donald Trump in his public comments during an interview in Denver on frack bans. Trump said he believes local municipalities and even states should be able to ban fracking if they don’t want it–even though he personally supports fracking (see 
Since we’re taking Donald Trump to task over his wrong-headed thinking on local frack bans, we’d like to be an equal opportunity basher. Hillary Clinton’s position on fracking is far worse than The Donald’s position. If Hill has her way, she’ll end the practice. Oh, not with an Executive Order banning fracking, as Crazy Bernie promised he would do if he got elected. No, Hill is promising to enact new regulations (either via Congress or via Executive Orders) so strict, that “By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.” Her words. Although Hillary is a known and proven liar, we happen to believe those words coming from her mouth. First up for Hill, “fix” the so-called “Halliburton loophole.” In 2005 Congress passed new environmental standards for the Safe Drinking Water Act (managed by the out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency) and chose not to include the oil and gas industry in those standards because the EPA has no right to regulate the oil & gas industry–only the states can regulate the o&g industry under the U.S. Constitution. The proper recognition of not expanding the EPA’s authority (illegally) somehow has been twisted into a “loophole” for the industry, and Halliburton’s name was applied to the loophole in an attempt to smear then-Vice President Dick Cheney, who was previously the CEO of Halliburton. Hillary has resurrected the same old Democrat lie and smear campaign from years gone by. She says if she becomes Prez (God forbid), she’ll jam the EPA right up the o&g industry’s….operations….as far as she can…
Last week MDN highlighted a survey from Evercore ISI looking at attitudes and behaviors of displaced workers in the oil and gas industry (see 
Kudos to EQT for being a good corporate citizen. EQT, through its charitable subsidiary the EQT Foundation, doled out $1.3 million to 43 non-profit organizations located in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky during the first half of 2016. During one of the worst downturns in the oil and gas industry in a generation. The Foundation, established in 2003, has donated a cumulative $37 million since it was founded. Astonishing! Here is a partial list of the very-worthy organizations receiving money in 1H16…
Events related to drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling.
Just prior to going on trial for committing felonies while in office, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane (Democrat) needed something, ANYTHING, to distract the press from focusing on her own crimes. Since she took office in January 2013, Kane has targeted the Marcellus industry. One of the first high profile cases she manufactured (out of nothing) was to accuse XTO Energy of committing a crime in an accidental spill of a few thousand gallons of frack wastewater–an accident in Lycoming County, PA that happened years before she took office and didn’t have any long-term effects (see 
Chesapeake Energy, the second largest natural gas producer in the United States (thanks to co-founder Aubrey McClendon), issued its second quarter 2016 update yesterday. Depending on which media source you read, the update shows a company in full recovery, to a company that’s doomed. A few facts from the update: Chessy lost (on paper) $1.8 billion in 2Q16. Which is huge. But it’s much better than the $4.1 billion they lost in 2Q15–so we do see progress. Chesapeake’s debt reduction program continues. So far this year they’ve paid down another $1 billion in debt. Another good sign. As for drilling, Chesapeake currently operates 10 rigs–three each in the Eagle Ford, Haynesville and Mid-Continent plays, and one in the Utica. They’re not operating any rigs in the Marcellus at present. The company says it plans to spend close to $1.8 billion this year on drilling and will drill another 100 wells by the end of the year. Here’s the update from the biggest shale driller on the planet…
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 
National Fuel Gas Company covers the full span of the oil and gas business–from upstream (with its wholly-owned drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources), to the midstream (with wholly-owned subsidiary Empire Pipeline) to downstream (NFG’s natural gas utility service to 740,000 customers in NY and PA). Big company. Diverse operations. Yesterday NFG issued what they call their third quarter update (everyone else’s second quarter update), covering April through June. According to NFG’s CEO Ronald Tanski, Seneca’s Marcellus production grew by an impressive 25% year over year, due to increased takeaway capacity on NFG’s pipelines and on improved gas prices in Appalachia. NFG’s pipeline business is doing very well–making more this year than last. The one part of the business that (surprisingly) lost money was the utility business. Here’s the full run-down for NFG and its various divisions…
Carrizo Oil & Gas, a Houston-based driller, actively drills in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas, the Delaware Basin in West Texas, the Niobrara Formation in Colorado, and until mid-year in 2015, they did have an active drilling program in the Ohio Utica and Pennsylvania Marcellus. No more. They haven’t drilled in Appalachia since 3Q15. According to Carrizo’s latest quarterly update for 2Q16, that (sad) state of affairs continues…
CONE Midstream, a joint venture between CONSOL Energy and Noble Energy (get it? CO from CONSOL and NE from Noble Energy) was formed in summer 2014 (see 
Summit Midstream has a small but growing presence in the Marcellus/Utica region largely through purchasing pipeline systems from other companies, including Mountaineer Midstream, Summit’s Marcellus-area pipeline system in Doddridge County, WV. The company released its second quarter 2016 update yesterday, and unfortunately the numbers don’t look so hot. Whereas CONE Midstream, a much smaller, totally focused on the Marcellus/Utica pipeline company stayed about even with net income in 2Q16 (see Cone Midstream Continues to Impress – 2Q16 Update), Summit did not. In 2Q15 Summit lost $2.4 million. In 2Q16 they lost $50.6 million–or 21 times what they lost a year ago. However, $38 million of that loss was an impairment charge (meaning its a paper loss, not actual money out the door loss). Since Summit operates in a number of plays, including the Marcellus and Utica, we’ve selected out portions of the update below that mostly deal with the northeast…
MDN is pleased to announce a regular feature on Scranton radio station 94.3 FM “The Talker.” Each Saturday the station airs the Shale Gas News show, co-hosted by MDN friend Bill desRosiers (of Cabot Oil & Gas). Bill recently asked Jim to supply a weekly segment recounting the top stories read on MDN. That is, MDN is becoming the official news source for Shale Gas News! To kick things off, Jim compiled a list of the Top 10 most read stories on MDN for the first six months of 2016. It’s an interesting list, as you’ll see. It may or may not surprise you to learn that 4 of the top 10 stories relate to Shell’s planned ethane cracker plant, a $3 billion+ project that will create thousands of jobs and inject something like $20 billion in the state’s economy. The Shell cracker is a really big deal! Without further ado, let’s count them down like Letterman used to…