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    Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline Makes Major Strides

    Some very good news for the $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline–a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. Dominion, the main sponsor of the project, reports they have agreements for 96% of the capacity along the 1.5 billion cubic feet per day pipeline. Not only that, but 90% of the landowners along the pipeline’s proposed route have granted Dominion survey access, and some 500 landowners (representing 18% of all landowners) have already signed contracts to allow the pipeline. The antis are desperately trying to stop this project–and they’re failing…
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    US NatGas Production Hits Record High in February – 73.3 Bcf/d

    Something historic has happened. Natural gas production in the lower 48 states hit the highest-ever production levels. Which may seem strange since the U.S. Energy Information Administration has been telling us month after month about decreases in natgas production in the seven major shale plays they track. Bentek Energy, the analytics reporting unit of Platts, closely tracks production and has been since 2005. When you include all sources of natgas production (offshore, conventional onshore, etc.), the U.S. hit a record high in February of 73.3 billion cubic feet per day of production. February usually sees a decrease in production–so why the increase this year? The Marcellus/Utica is the big reason. But the reason behind the reason is that because the winter months were warmer than usual, it led to less “freeze-offs” or wells freezing up and stopping production due to cold temps. With fewer freeze-offs, more gas flowed, and a new record was hit…
    Read More “US NatGas Production Hits Record High in February – 73.3 Bcf/d”

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    Rex Energy Extends & Sweetens Offer to Refi Outstanding IOUs

    Earlier this month Rex Energy offered to refinance its notes (i.e. IOUs) so the notes expire later, meaning they don’t have to cough up cash sooner to pay off the debt (see Rex Energy Offers to Refinance Outstanding IOUs). It pushes repayment out further, after (presumably) the market has turned and Rex is once again making a profit. Apparently Rex isn’t having much luck convincing its note holders to go for the deal–so they’ve decided to extend the time and sweeten the deal…
    Read More “Rex Energy Extends & Sweetens Offer to Refi Outstanding IOUs”

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    Shale Companies Keep Giving to PA Charities, Even During Downturn

    Shale companies in Pennsylvania have been hammered hard. The prices they get for natural gas in PA are already among the lowest in the country (in the world!); they’ve cut back their budgets by 50-80% on average; they’ve laid off thousands of employees. In fact, things right now are fairly bleak in Marcellus-land. And yet….and yet these same companies continue to fund charities and non-profits at the same level they previously funded them when times were good. Which amazes and disappoints anti-drillers, both at the same time…
    Read More “Shale Companies Keep Giving to PA Charities, Even During Downturn”

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    Who Pays for Abandoned O&G Wells in PA?

    Pennsylvania state officials estimate there are as many as 200,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the state–the vast majority of them conventional wells drilled over 50 years ago. Most of them are not mapped or known. Some of them are hazards for shale drillers who stumble across them when drilling new wells. If you drill horizontally and clip an old/abandoned well, it becomes like an elevator pumping fluids and gas to the surface. Not good. Everyone is committed to finding and marking and capping these old wells–the question is, how do you pay for it? The shale industry says it’s not fair to put the economic burden solely on the shoulders of the Marcellus industry. The PA Environment Protection Agency (DEP) Abandoned and Orphan Well program attempts to find an owner of the well first, before committing public money to plug it. However, there’s a second way to get public money to plug an old well…
    Read More “Who Pays for Abandoned O&G Wells in PA?”

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    Oil Company Uses IBM’s Watson to Beat Anti-Frackers on Twitter

    We found this story fascinating. A “big oil company” was tired of being trashed by anti fossil fuelers–especially in social media circles. So they’re fighting back by using insights gleaned from IBM’s Watson super computer. Watson is able to analyze millions of tweets (messages on the Twitter social media platform) to determine which messages are likely to be popular, or “go viral” in the parlance of social media. And that foreknowledge lets the oil company respond to, and in some cases preempt it, with its own messaging on Twitter…
    Read More “Oil Company Uses IBM’s Watson to Beat Anti-Frackers on Twitter”

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    U of California Carbon Crazies Fret over Burning NatGas

    The carbon nutjobs at the University of California are on the horns of a dilemma. They want to be “carbon neutral” by 2025. They can get plenty of high cost electricity from solar and wind producers–no problem. But four of its 10 campuses and one of its five medical centers run on big cogeneration plants, which produce electricity and use the excess heat to supply campus heating and cooling. And the plants are powered by (gasp) natural gas. What is a carbon-allergic nutter to do? They can’t just shut down those facilities! Or can they? We don’t put it beyond these idiots to consider such a scenario–so deluded are they with global warming flummery. Of course they overlook an even bigger source of carbon production on their campuses–all of those vile, nasty humans running around exhaling carbon dioxide with every breath. If they eliminate the humans, they can then eliminate the power plants. Problem solved!…
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  • Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Mar 23, 2016

    The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Appalachia pumps up the volume; natgas price differentials in the Marcellus; Belmont County Ohio’s #1 drilling hot spot; OH unitization bill stuck in the Senate; OH court decision affects drillers, landowners; Peoples Natural Gas pulling construction in-house; natgas change in WV speeds coal’s demise; Stone Energy heading for default in 2016?; Trump energy adviser promotes natgas; and more!
    Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Mar 23, 2016”

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    EnerVest Likes Clinton Sandstone “Utica-lite” Oil Wells in OH

    like buttonOnce upon a time the Clinton Sandstone layer was the most drilled rock layer in Ohio. Then the Utica/Point Pleasant came along and it seemed as if everybody forgot about the Clinton. Previously the Clinton was drilled vertically, or conventional-only. But what if you drilled the Clinton horizontally, like you do in the Utica? You might get a “Utica-lite” well, as we commented a year ago (see Ohio Clinton Sandstone Horiz Wells on the Increase – Utica-Lite?). Last year MDN told you that EnverVest, among others, was experimenting with horizontal drilling in the Clinton Sandstone. According to drillers who are experimenting in the Clinton, drilling a horizontal Clinton well is anywhere from 3-10 times more expensive than a conventional well, but it produces anywhere from 7 to 20 times more oil, which is typically what they’re drilling for in the Clinton. EnerVest has drilled seven horizontal Clinton wells and is extracting 1,100 barrels of oil per day from those seven wells. Here’s more details shared by EnevVest at a recent OOGA meeting about their Clinton Sandstone efforts…
    Read More “EnerVest Likes Clinton Sandstone “Utica-lite” Oil Wells in OH”

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    Radical Democrats Invoke God + Sham Science to Bash PA NatGas

    Just about nothing makes us more angry than when self-righteous “religious” leaders prance in front of cameras to denounce extracting and burning fossil fuels, like natural gas, as immoral or unethical. They are the height of hypocrisy–because they left them homes and churches heated with natural gas, wearing clothes made from fibers that come from petrochemicals (oil and natural gas), driving vehicles powered by fossil fuels, speaking into microphones with plastics in them and standing at a podium made from a material derived from petrochemicals–to denounce it all. Yet they use it every single day themselves. They claim to have God on their side. Repugnant. The Rev. Dr. Leah Schade (United in Christ Lutheran Church in Lewisburg, PA) and a group of 50 or so other hypocrites recently held an interfaith rally in Harrisburg to call on Gov. Tom Wolf to stop all drilling for gas and oil in the state–because it’s “immoral.” Too bad Rev. Shade lost her way and quit worshiping God and instead now worships nature. Her twisted philosophy is what happens when you quit worshiping the Creator and instead worship the creation…
    Read More “Radical Democrats Invoke God + Sham Science to Bash PA NatGas”

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    OH Antis Circulate Petitions for Bans Already Tossed by Courts

    The Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) is a radical environmental group backed with Big Green money that exists to fleece local towns into adopting bans on fracking and pipelines. Last year we carried an expose of the group (see PA’s CELDF Unmasked as Troublemakers in Ohio Utica Shale). Much of their community agitating work is done in Ohio. Time after time their so-called “community bill of rights” initiatives are shot down by Ohio courts. The latest instance (and there have been many) was earlier this month when the U.S. 8th District Court of Appeals overturned the CELDF-created bill of rights law passed in the Cleveland suburb of Broadview Heights (see Mad Moms Hopping Mad Over Court Decision re Broadview Heights, OH). You would think towns would learn that a) these initiatives invariably are challenged and thrown out by the courts, and b) if the initiatives interfere with a local business that sues the town, the CELDF is nowhere to be found (see Anti Group CELDF Won’t Help Grant Twp Pay $1M Judgement). But there’s plenty of insane people–like those circulating petitions in Medina and Portage counties to get a CELDF-backed bill of rights initiative on the local ballot. The very same initiative already shot down by Ohio courts in other locations…
    Read More “OH Antis Circulate Petitions for Bans Already Tossed by Courts”

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    Massive Power Grab Proposed by Obama DOT: Regulate Gathering Lines

    Last week the Obama Dept. of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) released a breathtaking expansion of federal power over the individual states. It is yet another in a long line of power grabs by the federal government under the reign of Our Dear Leader. The PHMSA is charged with overseeing the safety of the nation’s interstate pipelines. Until now, local gathering pipelines–the small lines that run to individual oil and gas wells–has been properly regulated by the individual states in which they reside. In some cases states, like Pennsylvania, don’t regulate gathering lines–a situation the state is attempting to rectify (see NEPA State Senator Introduces Bill to Regulate Rural Pipelines). Regardless–it’s not the proper role of the federal government to usurp a state’s rights to regulate the oil and gas industry, which is what this latest move attempts to do. Last week the PHMSA released a draft of new regulations (i.e. unlegislated laws) to regulate natural gas pipelines–both interstate and local, gathering lines (full copy of the 549-page draft in included below). According to the legal beagles at top oil and gas firm Babst Calland, “PHMSA is proposing to change the definition of an onshore gas gathering line, to partially repeal the longstanding exemption for rural gathering lines, and to extend the federal reporting requirements to all gas gathering lines (whether regulated or not).” Our opinion: whether they say they are regulating gathering lines or not, by requiring reporting, the PHMSA is defacto regulating those lines…
    Read More “Massive Power Grab Proposed by Obama DOT: Regulate Gathering Lines”

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    Single Investor Buys ~$56M of Rice Energy Stock in 1Q16

    Investors constantly sink money into, and pull money out of, oil and gas companies. Managers of those companies also buy and sell stock in their own companies. From time to time we highlight such cases–but lately, we only highlight it if it’s a really big investment. This is one of those really big investments. Billionaire Steven Cohen, founder of Point72 Asset Management, has snapped up 5.6 million shares of Rice Energy during the first almost three months of this year–so far. Rice’s stock currently trades at $12.69 per share. Over the past three months the price per share has varied from a low of $8.48/share to a high of $13.08/share. Let’s pick a number and say Cohen paid an average of $10 per share for his 5.6 million shares. That means he ponied up something on the order of $56 million–a sizable chunk of ownership in the company…
    Read More “Single Investor Buys ~$56M of Rice Energy Stock in 1Q16”

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    Dominion Files Application to Move Marcellus Gas to Charleston, SC

    According to their own documents and timelines, Dominion Carolina Gas Transmission is behind a few months, but they finally just filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a 55-mile pipeline project called the Transco to Charleston Project. As the name implies, it will be a short pipeline to connect the Transco pipeline, which is in the process of reversing flows to bring Marcellus and Utica Shale gas south, to send that gas to the Charleston, SC area. The projected in-service date is November 2017…
    Read More “Dominion Files Application to Move Marcellus Gas to Charleston, SC”

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    2 NEPA Members of Pipeline Task Force Want to Know, What’s Next?

    In May 2015 Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and his underling Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary John Quigley created a “Task Force on Pipeline Infrastructure Development” (see Disaster on the Horizon: PA Gov Wolf Creates Pipeline Task Force). The stated purpose of the group was “to identify best practices for pipeline siting, permitting and safety.” We won’t recount all of the twists and turns–of how the Task Force was packed with government employees beholden to Wolf, etc. Along the way antis tried to protest and derail the meetings held by the Task Force (see PA DEP Sec. Quigley Calls Pipeline Protesters “Badly Misinformed”). The final meeting was held and the final report was released all 658 pages of it with 184 recommendations (see PA Pipeline Task Force Report: 658 Pages, 184 “Recommendations”). Two members of the task force from northeast PA are now asking the question, “What happens next?” We have the answer: NOTHING…
    Read More “2 NEPA Members of Pipeline Task Force Want to Know, What’s Next?”

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    Consulting Firm IHS Merges with UK Firm to Avoid High US Taxes

    When a US company like IHS, one of the biggest and best data analytics and consulting firms in the oil and gas (among other) spaces merges itself with a foreign company–in this case a UK company–to avoid paying higher taxes in the US, you know something is wrong. Yesterday IHS announced they will merge with the UK-based Markit, another data analytics firm. We love the Brits and we’re sure Markit is a fine company–but it distresses us to see companies moving offshore because of Obama’s tax policies. But there you have it–that’s just what has happened. It’s called an “inversion deal”–where a U.S. company combines with a foreign company and moves operations overseas to avoid higher tax liabilities in the U.S. The $13 billion deal involves no cash–only swapping ownership in each other’s stock. The combined company will have revenues of $3.3 billion…
    Read More “Consulting Firm IHS Merges with UK Firm to Avoid High US Taxes”