Potter County, PA’s First Utica Well Fracked & Flowing
An MDN reader recently alerted us to a little-known fact: JKLM Energy has successfully drilled and is flowing gas from Potter County, PA’s first Utica Shale well. JKLM is owned by Terry Pegula, the guy who sold most of his Marcellus assets and used the money to buy the Buffalo Bills (see Buffalo Bills Stay in Buffalo, Thanks to $1.4B of Marcellus Money and Buffalo “Marcellus” Bills – Team Sold to Fracker for $1.4B). Pegula’s former company is East Resources. JKLM is Pegula’s way of keeping his finger in the Marcellus/Utica pie. We reported in Feb. 2015 that JKLM had signed a lease deal in Potter County (see Potter County, PA Hospital Leases Land to JKLM for Utica Drilling). There was an unfortunate incident during the drilling process (see JKLM Energy Accident Contaminates 5 PA Water Wells with Soap and PA DEP Issues Notice of Violation to JKLM Energy for Spilled Soap). But that got cleared up earlier this year (see DEP Gives All Clear for JKLM-Contaminated Water Wells in PA). Now, the first-ever Utica well in Potter County is flowing gas, and has been since January. Here’s the details…
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Chesapeake Energy, the second largest natural gas driller in the U.S. (behind Exxon Mobil) and one of the largest in the Marcellus/Utica, has been on a roller coaster for the past few years. Corporate raider Carl Icahn bought himself a big slice of the company, and along with another corporate raider/Chesapeake investor, Mason Hawkins, they tossed CEO Aubrey McClendon out the door. The two then installed their own guy, Doug Lawler, who proceeded to slash jobs and sell assets–all in a bid to prop up the company’s stock price so these two corporate raiders can make a buck on their investment. We call it disgusting. Others call it business as usual. The result? Chesapeake’s stock tanked and there were rumors of an impending bankruptcy (see 
As we reported in March, EV Energy Partners (EVEP)–an upstream master limited partnership (MLP) created by EnerVest that holds enormous acreage in the Ohio Utica Shale play–is in survival mode (see 
It’s good to know that “research” can still be purchased at the once-great Duke University. For years now the radical Park Park Foundation has been buying its research from a few select professors at a few select universities. One of the scientists for sale is Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: FERC gives Millennium Pipe favorable review; well services co lays off 63 in Pittsburgh; western PA Utica production goes up; Mass. judge grants Kinder Morgan hollow victory in NED pipeline case; PHMSA agrees to extra 30 days to review new regs; energy deals elusive; and more!
This is the tale of landowners who negotiated a lease without consulting a qualified oil and gas attorney, and later regretted the decision. In 2008 the owners of a small hunting and fishing camp in Tioga County, PA negotiated and signed a lease with East Resources, which was later sold to SWEPI (i.e. the shale drilling arm of Shell). The lease, so the landowners thought, guaranteed that 11 wells would be drilled on the 240-acre property, and that a pipeline would be used to flow gas only from those wells. The landowners got a nice signing bonus–$287,000. They also got $164,000 for a pipeline right-of-way. But only one well was ever drilled–and it’s capped. And there is a pipeline–flowing other people’s gas through it. The landowners sued and a district court judge ruled last week that the landowners don’t have a case for their “shattered dreams” as they thought they did. It all comes down to a poorly worded lease and signing a lease without running it by a lawyer first…
Pittsburgh, PA has two major newspapers–the Post-Gazette and the Tribune-Review. We’re talking general interest newspapers. There’s also the Pittsburgh Business Times, a great paper but niche and focused on business only. Of the two general interest newspapers, the Post-Gazette is obviously owned and operated by liberal Democrats. They tilt somewhere left of Vlad Putin on the editorial page. The Tribune-Review, however, is a balanced paper and not beholden to the Democrat machine in PA the way their rival is. There’s no better way to illustrate that then the Post-Gazette’s love and adoration of current Dem Gov. Tom Wolf and his proposed punitive taxes the Marcellus Shale industry. The Post-Gazette LOVES Wolf’s idea for a severance tax and berates the gas industry for not “doing its part.” The Tribune-Review, on the other hand, takes a more balanced approach. In a recent editorial, the Tribune-Review points out Wolf’s latest severance tax proposal, if passed, would be the highest in the nation. They also point out Wolf’s income tax increase and minimum wage proposal would decimate the state economically…
The PennEast Pipeline, a $1 billion, 118-mile pipeline from Luzerne County, PA to Mercer County, NJ, continues to bend over backwards, forwards and into yoga knots in order to accommodate the wishes of various special interest groups. The latest in that effort is PennEast’s invitation to several New Jersey municipalities and non-profit groups to provide feedback on PennEast’s open space initiative. Part of the PennEast route will traverse 15 acres of encumbered “Green Acres” parcels–open spaces meant to stay open and not be developed. PennEast plans to lay their pipe four feet down, cover it up, and the green/open spaces will remain green and open, forever. In fact, according to PennEast, when the pipeline installation is done and dusted, there will be “significantly more open space” than there is today. Look for THE Delaware Riverkeeper (Maya van Rossum) and other radical leftists to demagogue this latest effort by PennEast to be a good neighbor…
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Blank Rome is a big, important energy law firm. The firm went on our radar in 2013 when then-Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection Mike Krancer resigned his post to rejoin his old law firm, Blank Rome (see