Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Oct 12, 2015
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: fate of Philly energy hub in hands of next mayor; PA towns get big money from impact fee; RR inspectors missed defect that led to fiery derailment in WV; lifting the ban on crude exports not a slam dunk; Morgan Stanley says low natgas prices through 2020; Puerto Rico changing to natgas; LNG projects ‘dying off’; and more!
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Yesterday Rice Energy announced that the company’s subsidiary, Rice Midstream, has signed a joint venture agreement with competitor Gulfport Energy to develop a pipeline gathering and water delivery system for Gulfport’s Utica Shale drilling program in Ohio’s eastern Belmont County and Monroe County. Rice will be 75% owner and in charge of the jv. Rice and Gulfport plan to invest a combined $640 million into the jv over the next six years. Construction begins immediately and the first gas (and water) will begin to flow through the new system by middle of next year. Here’s the details…
Advanced Power Services announced yesterday they will build a second mega-electric generating plant that taps into and uses Ohio’s Utica Shale. This new plant will generate a whopping 1,100 megawatts of electricity and be located in Columbiana County, OH. Advanced just broke ground in July on a 700-megawatt plant in Carroll County (see 
On Wednesday Pennsylvania Gov. Wolf got his wish to have an up or down vote on his latest high tax budget proposal and it went to down in flames (see 
It’s a miracle! Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf actually did something right–he signed Senate Bill (SB) 875 into law yesterday. You may recall on Tuesday we told you that the PA Senate and House had passed SB875 and sent it on to Wolf for his signature (see 
In January 2014, anti-drilling “researchers” jumped the gun at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia by announcing “preliminary” results of research in which they claim they can show a connection between shale drilling and low birth weights in newborn babies in Pennsylvania (see 
We’ve written plenty over the years about the silly nutters who make up the Sierra Club. It’s a joke of an organization, and that was evident for the world to see earlier this week when U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz questioned the president of the Sierra Club, Aaron Mair, at a Congressional hearing. Using simple, direct and non-bullying questions, Cruz exposed Mair as an empty-headed fraud only capable of regurgitating a few canned responses to Cruz’s questions about man-made global warming. The standard line was to repeat over and over that “97 percent of scientists agree” on man-made global warming. That particular statistic comes from a small, flawed study of hand-picked scientists back in 2013. Mair and others hope by repeating the lie over and over enough times, everyone will believe it. Cruz didn’t fall for it. There is a video (below) that you MUST watch. It exposes Mair as a fool–not able to defend his own statements about global warming. Nearly every question Cruz asked Mair would have to lean back to have his advisers feed him the answers. Mair is an empty suit–nobody home upstairs. Empty-headed. It’s a beautiful example of the entire organization, showing it as nothing more than a political advocacy group, ignorant of real science. Yes, we do revisit the important topic of global warming from time to time because the issue is at the heart of the movement to ban fracking and end the use of all fossil fuels–a dangerously naive and stupid movement supported by organizations like the Sierra Club…
In the end, it was PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s own Democrat Party House members that sunk his latest high tax budget proposal. Nine Dems voted against the Wolf budget, showing bipartisan support for defeating Wolf’s high taxes, including lack of support for a high severance tax. Every single Republican, even the RINOs, voted against Wolf’s unpopular budget proposal. Trying to spin his humiliating defeat as some sort of plus, Wolf said he was “encouraged” that “so many Democrats” actually voted yes for his budget. Talk about chutzpah. Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, has some big cojones–he equated Wolf with a thug trying to mug somebody, taking all of their money at gunpoint. Wow! It’s about time there was some frank talk about the bully Wolf has become in ten short months–and some push-back against it. Time for Republicans to pass a budget and get a few of those Dems to go along and override a Wolf veto. Time to govern without Wolf if he refuses to do his job…
Don’t look now but Utica/Marcellus condensate being produced at a MarkWest Energy processing plant in Cadiz, OH is being exported out of the country via a ship docked on the Hudson River at Perth Amboy, New Jersey–just across the river from Manhattan! The condensate is transported to NJ via railroad in specially designed rail cars. A second ship is being loaded up and will leave with Utica/Marcellus condensate from MarkWest, according to the Reuters story below. The first ship loaded with condensate left Perth Amboy one month ago heading to the Netherlands. No word yet on where the second load is heading, but sources say exporting condensate from Perth Amboy is now set up to become a routine thing, which is fantastic news for drillers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that produce condensate…
Oilfield service giant Baker Hughes released their venerable monthly rotary rig count report yesterday for September 2015. After posting gains in the overall land-based U.S. rig count number for two straight months in July and August, the September numbers dropped like a rock. September U.S. active land-based rigs averaged 848, down 35 from the average of 883 in August and down 18 from July’s average of 866. Rig counts for the Marcellus/Utica also continued to drop, showing another four rigs were idled during September across the combined PA/OH/WV. It’s getting bloody out there…
On Tuesday a Medina County, OH judge ruled that the NEXUS pipeline does have a right to enter private land to survey it for possible routes for the pipeline. The judge said Ohio laws allow private companies to survey land for eventual appropriation (including eminent domain) as long as the company can prove it is an energy or utility company. The judge said the law is quite clear on that point–plain and simple to understand. The judge’s decision didn’t sit too well with the CORNballs of CORN (Coalition to Reroute Nexus pipeline). We’ve written plenty about CORN and their effort to “reroute” the NEXUS (
One of the arguments sometimes trotted out by anti-drillers is that heavy trucks lumbering up and down rural roads will destroy them. And indeed, sometimes it does–when the road is old or not constructed to handle heavy truck traffic. Typically drillers will repair the roads to better-than-new condition–we’ve seen it in some PA counties. But here’s something you don’t often hear: Gulfport Energy is about to spend $8 million on road repairs to roads BEFORE they use them, not after. The repairs will be done over the next six weeks in Belmont County, OH, and it delights Belmont County Commission members. Somebody else footing the bill for rebuilt roads will put a smile on any county commissioner’s face…
Carrizo Oil & Gas CEO S.P. “Chip” Johnson continues to sell off his personal shares of the company’s stock that he leads. On June 1, Johnson sold 24,661 shares of company stock for $1.2 million (see 
The Independent Petroleum Association of American (IPAA) held their San Francisco Oil and Gas Investment Symposium on Monday. Among the speakers was J. Russell Porter, president and CEO of Utica Shale driller Gastar Exploration. Porter gave his thoughts on the Marcellus/Utica, wet and dry gas, and what’s ahead for his company…