Sign Letter to PA Gov. Wolf re Support Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline
Pennsylvania residents: It’s time to (once again) show your support for the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project, a $3 billion, 198-mile project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. It is a much-needed pipeline to move more Marcellus gas south, to new markets. In the past MDN has asked you to sign letters going to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and to the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). And you, our dear readers, have been the most responsive audience to get behind the effort to support this project. Thank you! We’re coming to you again with a new request. Please electronically sign a letter that will go to PA Gov. Tom Wolf, requesting his support for the project. Wolf’s active support of the project will go a long way toward ensuring it gets built. All you need to do is fill out your name and a few details and click the “Sign” button–it literally takes less than 60 seconds. Please take a moment and do it right now by clicking this button:
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Utica rigs drop by 2; PA AG Kane resigns; DEP holds Mariner East 2 hearing in Harrisburg; Dakota pipeline reveals split in Democrat Party; big oil tries to frack again; DOE Sec. Moniz loves fracking – good for the environment; LNG exports impacting US natgas supplies; and more!
We’ve sat through our fair share of public hearings and open houses for pipelines–from Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) hearings to state agency hearings to open houses sponsored by midstream companies (see 
Last December Pennsylvania’s felony-indicted Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, brought a lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy, Anadarko and Williams accusing them of, among other things, royalty fraud (see 
All the way back in February MDN brought you exclusive news that Shell had begun approaching landowners in Beaver County to get them to sign easements for two ethane pipelines to feed the mighty cracker plant they plan to build in the county (see 
Yesterday Chesapeake Energy, the secon largest natural gas producer in the United States (and the largest Marcellus producer, by far) issued three press releases. The first release said the company is working to obtain a five-year bank loan for a staggering $1 billion. The second two releases outlined what they will do with that money: pay off older IOUs. We also spotted commentary on the company’s $1B plan. One analyst predicts Chesapeake is heading for a pre-packaged bankruptcy, similar to what other o&g companies have done, and this massive loan/debt repayment is proof. Another analyst says Chessy CEO Doug Lawler is brilliant and that this move will strengthen Chessy’s stock in the long-term and make the company more solvent. Which one is right? They both can’t be right…
Yesterday MDN’s favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued our favorite monthly report–the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). The DPR is the EIA’s best guess, based on expert data crunchers, as to how much each of the U.S.’s seven major shale plays will produce for both oil and natural gas in the coming month. The EIA projects natural gas production cumulatively across all shale plays will once again fall in September–the seventh consecutive month it will have fallen. However, as was the case in last month’s report, the Utica stands alone and against the trend by showing an increase in production month over month. Last month the EIA predicted the Utica would increase production by 5 million cubic feet per day, or MMcf/d (see 
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has certain minimum standards if a company wants to continue trading stocks on the exchange: The company’s stock price must be trading for at least $1 per share, and the company’s market capitalization must be at least $50 million. Market cap is pretty easy to calculate: it’s the number of outstanding shares times the per-share price. If you have 50 million shares of stock and the price is trading for $1/share, you’re there. You meet the NYSE’s requirements. Various companies with operations in the Marcellus/Utica have fallen short and have been warned by the NYSE that unless they get their act together, they would be de-listed. Some turned it around (see 
The big news in the midstream world over the past year was the attempted merger/takeover of Williams by Energy Transfer Equity. That deal finally fell apart in June (see 
“Everyone” thought that with low prices for oil and gas, and companies not able to turn a profit and heading into bankruptcy, that there would be a flurry of mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas industry. “Everyone” was wrong. According to the just-released “Oil & Gas Mergers and Acquisitions Report – Mid-year 2016” from powerhouse consulting firm Deloitte (full copy below), M&A activity in the o&g industry is at its lowest point in years. The number of deals in the first half of 2016 was 198, an “extremely low” number compared to what it has been in past years. Where were the highest number of M&As? The number one shale play where deals were done was the Permian Basin–an extremely oil-rich shale layer in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The number two shale play where deals were done was, yep, the Marcellus Shale. Here’s the low down…
There is a new development in the case of an illegal ban on injection wells passed by Highland Township in Elk County, PA. In 2013 the radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) convinced ignoramuses in Highland Township to pass a so-called Community Bill of Rights. Seneca Resources, a driller with leases and an active drilling program in Elk, had planned to drill an injection well on their own property to dispose of their own flowback and produced water. The CELDF-inspired ordinance Highland Twp prevented it, and Seneca threatened to sue the town (see 
Brooke County, WV makes it four for four in denying Statoil’s request to refund tax overpayments made by the company. Statoil, based in Norway, is a big player in the West Virginia Marcellus Shale. Statoil paid property taxes to Brooke, Marshall, Ohio and Wetzel counties (all in WV) in 2015 and later found, during an audit/review, that they had overpaid those counties. They overpaid Brooke by $1.8 million, Ohio by $2.9 million, Wetzel by $1.6 million and Marshall by $342,000. We previously reported on Marshall’s refusal to refund the money (see