Bradford County | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA
Bradford Votes to Hire PR Firm, Targets PA Lawmakers re Royalties
As we predicted yesterday, Bradford County, PA commissioners have voted to hire a public relations firm to create a video to force the issue of passing House Bill (HB) 1391, a bill ensuring PA’s landowners will receive a 12.5% royalty check regardless of post-production costs (see Civil War: Bradford PA Escalates Fight with MSC re Royalty Bill). The commissioners did indeed vote yesterday, budgeting $15,000 for the project–money that will ironically come from royalty payments received by the town. The commissioners explained a bit more about their proposed publicity campaign to force Harrisburg to take notice of their plight…
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Two months ago when Baker Hughes released their venerable rig count numbers, we cracked a smile that things are beginning to turn around with an increase in U.S. rig counts (see 
David Hill is a geologist and a driller located in Ohio (David R. Hill Inc.). At a recent Coffee and Commerce meeting sponsored by the Cambridge Area Chamber of Commerce, Hill offered his insights into when oil drilling may return to Guernsey County and eastern Ohio. As MDN recently reported, much of the focus on drilling in the Utica has lately turned to dry gas, or methane only (see 
CONSOL Energy, which was once upon a time a coal company, is thanking its lucky stars it transitioned to being a mostly-natural gas drilling company instead. Yesterday the company’s stock hit a 52-week high. The reason? Because of CONSOL’s Marcellus/Utica drilling program. In a Zacks analyst note (below), we get an update on the aggressive moves CONSOL has been making in leasing new acreage. The company has now amassed 436,000 acres in the Marcellus and a whopping 622,000 acres in the Utica Shale. Here’s that update…
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The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Cuomo’s legacy: Upstate NY’s death rattle; Ohio rigs steady at 17; PA unaffected by Williams consolidation; what, exactly, IS a cracker?; Total takes full control of Barnett Shale in TX; Apache hits 3B barrel oil find in TX; US methanol projects in trouble from falling gas prices; Canada faces “worst year on record” for oil drilling; and more!
Yesterday MDN reported that Wilmot Township, located in one of the most-drilled counties in Pennsylvania (Bradford County) has taken the unusual step of demanding that drillers (in particular Chesapeake Energy) stop flowing natural gas from drilled wells unless/until they start paying landowners a minimum 12.5% royalty for the gas produced (see 
Yesterday MDN reported the story that Dominion Transmission has decided to lock out union members from working at their jobs in Dominion installations over a contract dispute (see 
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Over the years, MarkWest Energy, now a part of MPLX, has built a number of natural gas processing plants in Wetzel County, WV, collectively called the Mobley plant. In September 2014 MarkWest signed a contract with paving and construction company J.F. Allen to design and build a retaining wall so MarkWest could then build the Mobley V plant (in Smithfield). MarkWest says, in a lawsuit they’ve filed against J.F. Allen and other subcontractors, that they didn’t do the job right and it resulted in long delays and millions of dollars in extra costs for MarkWest. Which MarkWest is now trying to recover, requesting a jury trial…
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