EQT 4th Driller to Receive “Sustainable Shale Development” Cert
And then there were four. The Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) has fought stiff headwinds from the beginning. The organization was founded by a group of shale industry people and environmentalists reaching across the isle to forge strict standards that both sides can live with. Environmental leftists, like Mamma Teresa Heinz Kerry and her Heniz Endowments, pulled support and have actively worked against the CSSD (see She Speaks! Teresa Heinz Kerry Talks re Endowments Firings, CSSD). Other so-called environmental groups like the William Penn Foundation also bailed. But new supporters stepped into the breach to take their shoes (see CSSD Thrown a Lifeline from Richard King Mellon Foundation). On the industry side, not all that many stepped up to receive the CSSD’s thorough examination. So far three organizations have applied for and received CSSD certification: Chevron, Shell and CONSOL Energy. You can now add EQT, one of the founding sponsors of the organization, to the list. EQT’s own Andrew Place–no longer with EQT, now a Commissioner with the PA Public Utility Commission–was the first/interim Executive Director of the CSSD for the first year. So it’s only fitting that EQT practice what they preach and seek certification…
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As we have long chronicled, a few anti-drilling parents from the Mars School District (Butler County, far western part of the state), backed by a couple of Big Green groups from the other side of the state (THE Delaware Riverkeeper and the Clean Air Council, both based in the Philadelphia area), sued Middlesex Township to stop shale drilling in rural portions of the county. Rex Energy had applied for, was legally permitted for, but wasn’t allowed to drill a series of wells some three-fourths of a mile from the Mars School (for background, see our long list of “Martian” stories 
The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), charged with overseeing the health and use of the Susquehanna River (nation’s 16th largest river), has just issued a new report that examines the activities of the Commission surrounding its management of water use by the natural gas industry from 2008-2013. The report, titled “Water Use Associated with Natural Gas Shale Development: An Assessment of Activities Managed by the Susquehanna River Basin Commission July 2008 through December 2013” (full copy below) concludes that Marcellus drilling has not strained water supplies in the Susquehanna River Basin. The SRBC, unlike the DRBC (Delaware River Basin Commission) has responsibly managed water resources in its region and has not interfered with shale drilling–but rather has worked with drillers to successfully manage water resources. The DRBC, on the other hand, has been paralyzed, both without and within the organization, into blocking shale drilling within its jurisdiction. Here’s a report from the functional SRBC (as opposed to the dysfunctional DRBC)–a quasi-governmental organization that knows what it’s doing…
Yesterday MDN told you the sad news that southwest PA hotel owners have hit a rough patch and some of them are putting their properties on the auction block (see 
Somehow this bit of news escaped us a few weeks ago–perhaps because most of the impacts will happen in Oklahoma. Williams, the midstream giant that is currently being half-heartedly pursued by Energy Transfer Equity in a buyout/merger, is preparing for the eventual merger by laying off 10% of its workforce. Williams says they layoffs are due to “current market forces” and not because of the impending merger. Sorry–we don’t buy it. We suspect the layoffs have a great deal to do with trimming down before the company is eventually sold. Williams employs 6,700 people in North America and in late March they began dumping 10% (~670) of them. Some 100 of those layoffs are happening in the company’s Tulsa, OK headquarters. The others will come from across the country–including here in the Marcellus/Utica region…
This Thursday the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) will take up the matter of approving recently proposed new drilling regulations from the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection. Conventional drillers in PA strong object to the new rules, Aricles 78 and 78a, and sued to stop the IRRC from reviewing them. They lost (see 
Fairmont Brine operates a small wastewater processing plant in Marion County, WV. Last year Antero Resources pulled the rug out from under Fairmont by jilting Fairmont and contracting with a French company to build a new $275 million wastewater treatment plant in WV (see 
In February MDN brought you the good news that Laclede Group (St. Louis-based natural gas utility) wants to build a 60-mile pipeline from St. Louis through southwest Illinois and connect to the Rockies Express (REX) and Panhandle Eastern Pipeline to grab low-cost Marcellus/Utica Shale gas for Midwestern markets (see 
We find nothing (NOTHING!) more repugnant than so-called Christians who used to worship the One True God who have forsaken their vows and instead now worship Mother Earth. They worship the creation instead of the Creator. Such is the case with a group of pastors from the United Church of Christ who will, this coming Sunday, preach sermons that paint fossil fuels as evil and should be “kept in the ground.” We urge parishioners at those churches to stay home this Sunday. In fact, all UCC members should just stay home this Sunday. Perhaps empty offering plates across the denomination will get the attention of the leadership and encourage them to forget this nonsense…
NTE Energy, headquartered in St. Augustine, Florida, builds new natural gas-fired electric plants. Currently the company is building plants in Southwest Ohio, West Texas and North Carolina. Last Friday NTE announced three more new natgas-fired power plant projects–one in Connecticut, one in North Carolina and one in Ohio. There’s no doubt these plants will use shale gas from the Marcellus/Utica to power them–which is good news for producers in the northeast. Here’s the details from NTE…
Three radical environmental groups well-known for lying about fracking and the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania–The Center for Coalfield Justice, the Pennsylvania Chapter of the Sierra Club and the Clean Air Council–are accusing Range Resources of intentionally avoiding “wealthy” neighborhoods and instead targeting low-income neighborhoods when drilling wells. The three groups make the claim that Terry Bossert, Range VP for legislative and regulatory affairs, told a meeting of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute that his company company tries to avoid siting shale gas wells near “big houses” where residents might have the financial resources to challenge drilling. Reps from the radical groups claim they heard him say this at the meeting. Range has responded that the comment was a joke–made in jest. The radical groups say it certainly didn’t seem that way to members of the audience. If the comment was not made in jest, it’s deeply troubling and, frankly, boneheaded. The problem is, the groups doing the accusing have lied so much about fracking and frackers, you simply can’t believe what they say. Is this a case of yet another ginned up lie by Big Green groups, or a case of the “boy who cried wolf” by those groups?…
In March MDN told you about a lawsuit filed by the Pennsylvania Independent Petroleum Producers Association (PIPP) against implementation of new rules and changes to existing rules known as Chapters 78 & 78a (see 
An important case regarding royalties was ruled on in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on April 7th. As with many of these cases, this one is complicated. We’ll do our best to summarize it. A husband and wife leased their property in the 1990s to a company that eventually sold the least to CNX (i.e. CONSOL Energy). The couple later signed another lease with CNX in 2002. Both leases states that CNX will pay the couple one-eighth of the sale price for the gas as a royalty. But more than just the wells on the couple’s land are commingled in a drilling unit, so the way CNX calculate the royalties (as per the lease) is to measure the amount of production at the wellhead and divide accordingly. If the couple’s well produced 20% of the overall volume produced by all the wells in the unit, they get 20% of one-eighth of the sale price. But here’s the thing: the amount of gas that eventually gets sold “down the pipeline” is less than what is produced at the wellhead. As gas travels through pipelines and compressor stations, some of it disappears. The couple’s attorney says because CNX can’t account for 100% of the gas that disappears (maybe more disappears from the neighbor than his client), that CNX is in breach of the lease and owes the couple a royalty based on the gas produced at the wellhead and not based on what is eventually sold “down the pipeline.” A lower court ruled in favor of CNX. Now, the Superior Court of PA has also ruled in favor of CNX and says the clever legal reasoning by the couple’s attorney doesn’t hold water…