Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, Jul 29, 2016
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Northeast natgas production vs. takeaway capacity; the ugly side of pipeline politics; more pipeline opposition in New England; pipeline opposition in NJ; M&A activity picked up in 2Q16; why oil prices are heading into the $30s again; National Oilwell Varco not ready to call the bottom of the market just yet; one nation, fueled by natgas (with liberty and justice for all); and more!
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On Monday MDN brought you the news that Halcon Resources, a Utica Shale driller that “guessed wrong” by leasing 140,000 Utica Shale acres in the northern part of the play (in Ohio) and currently doesn’t drill on any of that acreage, had gotten buy-in from most of the people to whom it owes $1.8 billion to turn that debt into ownership in the company (see 
Last August MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by a group of left coast radicalized children who want to force the federal government to become communist and “force action” on mythical climate change (see 
We’re not sure how important (or not) this news is, but it’s certainly worth reporting. Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced it will “consider” a motion for an evidentiary hearing on PennEast Pipeline’s application about whether or not the pipeline is needed in New Jersey. Last month radicals at the Eastern Environmental Law Clinic (EELC) on behalf of enviro-Nazis at the New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJ Conservation) and Stony Brook – Millstone Watershed Association (SBMWA), filed a motion requesting FERC conduct a hearing to assess whether there evidence of public need in New Jersey for the proposed PennEast Pipeline. Yesterday FERC said they’ll consider a hearing–FERC has not (yet) said it would actually conduct such a hearing. Here’s the news as sent to us from the radicals…
National Fuel Gas (NFG), the Buffalo-based utility giant with both a drilling subsidiary (Seneca Resources) and a midstream/pipeline subsidiary (Empire Pipeline) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March 2015 for a pipeline project they call Northern Access 2016 (later renamed to simply Northern Access Project, dropping the “2016” part). The $455 million project includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton (see 
Each 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). After more than a year, Patterson’s June report finally showed a small turnaround (see 
Constellation, a subsidiary company of Exelon Corporation, announced a deal yesterday with ConEdison Solutions (a subsidiary of New York’s Consolidated Edison) to buy ConEdison Solutions’ retail electricity and natural gas business. The deal means more than 560,000 commercial, industrial, public sector and residential customers across 12 Northeastern, mid-Atlantic, and Midwestern states, Texas, and the District of Columbia will become part of the Constellation family. Interestingly, ConEdison said it is selling its (regulated) electricity and natural gas business to focus on its (deregulated) renewable energy, sustainability services and energy efficiency business. Why is this Marcellus news? We see it as a potential new market for Marcellus/Utica Shale gas. Below is the announcement, along with some analysis of what’s really going (the motivation) with this deal…
Range Resources, one of the largest (and the very first) Marcellus Shale drillers, issued their second quarter 2016 update yesterday. While there was plenty of good news Range highlighted at the beginning of the release–Marcellus production was up 16% year over year at 1.379 billion cubic feet per day, costs were down 8%, total debt as low as it’s been since 2012–there was no getting over the 800-pound gorilla in the room: Range lost $225 million for the quarter in 2Q16, versus losing $119 million in 2Q15. One of the things Range seems most jazzed about is buying Memorial Resource Development Corp. and drilling in Louisiana instead of the Marcellus (see 
The parade of quarterly updates continues. Yesterday CONSOL Energy, once one of the largest coal companies in the U.S., now one of the largest independent drillers in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, issued their update. And in interesting one it is. After having idled its rigs, CONSOL reports they will begin a “modest” drilling program once again in August. However, the strategy is shifting. CONSOL plans to drill eight new Utica wells (in Monroe County, OH) and only two new Marcellus wells (in Washington County, PA). CONSOL will own 100% of the Utica wells but only has a 50% working interest in the Marcellus wells–which may be the biggest reason why they are focusing on the Utica for now. Also in the update: CONSOL’s natgas production jumped 32% in 2Q16 over 2Q15. The big financial news is that CONSOL lost $470 million in 2Q16, but that’s an improvement over 2Q15 when the company lost $603 million. Revenue dropped almost in half–from $545 million in 2Q15 to $286 million in 2Q16. Yesterday’s comprehensive update contains breakdowns of production by shale play, details on a 10-well “plugless” completion, and much more. We’ve also tracked down and embedded CONSOL’s latest PowerPoint presentation…
In September 2014, PSEG (Public Service Enterprise Group) Power–New Jersey’s largest utility company–became the fifth company to become a partner in the much-needed PennEast Pipeline, the $1 billion pipeline project that would flow cheap, abundant and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from northeast Pennsylvania all the way to Trenton, New Jersey (see 
The lawless Attorney General in New York, Eric Schneiderman, and his philosophical twin in Massachusetts, AG Maura Healey, are refusing to obey a subpoena issued by Congress for copies of their communication records that would show the two (along with other AGs) have been unethically (perhaps illegally) colluding with Big Green groups in targeting Exxon Mobil over the issue of so-called global warming. As MDN previously reported, Schneiderman, Healey and several other far-left radicals made fantastical claims that Exxon “knew” that burning their evil, filthy, nasty oil and natural gas is causing Mom Earth to warm up, so the AGs served subpoenas to Exxon to turn over every piece of communication the company has ever had. Why? So the AGs could try to build a case against Exxon’s expression of free speech (see