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    Success Story: Welder Starts Pre-Fab Company in PA Shale Country

    MDN has previously marveled and talked about the amount of money welders can command in the shale industry–upward of $1,000 per day (VERY long, 12-hour days). It’s hard work out in the elements–not for the faint of heart. Today there are fewer welding jobs simply because there’s less drilling going on and therefore less wells that need pipelines connected to them. However, this is a story about a welder who didn’t just settle for welding pipelines and equipment at drill pads. This is the story of a welder who have the guts to start his own pre-fab business in the heart of Pennsylvania shale country–and hit it big. Make no mistake, this is not like hitting the lottery. Starting and running a business is HARD work. But if you have what it takes, it can pay off in spades, as it has for our latest Hero of the Marcellus, welder Bill Emick…
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    Natural Gas is Killing City Trees! Tree Whisperer Tells All

    Here’s one more reason to dump evil, nasty, rotten fossil fuels–like natural gas. It kills trees. Yes, methane is a TREE KILLER. Who knew? In yet another laughable “all fossil fuels are evil” meme from the usual suspects at the Democrat house organ called StateImpact Pennsylvania, we get the latest anti-fossil fuel story about how methane leaks in cities are killing poor, defenseless trees that can’t stand up to that nasty bully, fugitive methane. Seems there’s a good business to be had being a tree whisperer…
    Read More “Natural Gas is Killing City Trees! Tree Whisperer Tells All”

  • Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Nov 30, 2015

    The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: dawn of the Utica era; the tortoise and the flare; Utica Shale Academy gets grant; Q&A with PennEast; EQT hits a gusher, stock takes a plunge; Chesapeake’s doldrums; OPEC still hasn’t killed shale a year later; China’s shale gas problems; and more!
    Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Nov 30, 2015”

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    List of 36 Oil & Gas Companies that Filed for Bankruptcy in 2015

    Whew. Dodged a bullet–this year. Haynes and Boone, LLP is an international corporate law firm with offices in Texas, New York, California, Colorado, Washington, D.C., Shanghai and Mexico City. Their HQ is in Texas. The firm has a sizable Bankruptcy and Energy practices. Unfortunately those two practices are increasingly becoming one, and the firm says they’re adding lawyers to the Bankruptcy practice. Last week Haynes and Boone issued their very first Oil Patch Bankruptcy Monitor (full copy below), a report that details the rising tide of 2015 exploration and production company Chapter 11 filings. The report lists 36 bankruptcies in 2015 totaling about $13 billion in cumulative secured and unsecured debt. With fear and trepidation we reviewed the list–and found that none of the companies listed have major, nor even minor, operations in the Marcellus/Utica. However, that may not remain the case…
    Read More “List of 36 Oil & Gas Companies that Filed for Bankruptcy in 2015”

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    Anti-Frackers Out of Control at Athens Mtg on Wayne Natl Forest

    Correction: We labeled the publication reporting on the BLM meeting in Athens as “the Athens Post.” It is, more correctly, “The Post,” a student newspaper published at Ohio University’s Athens campus. We have yet another glaring example of the outright lies and distortions of not only national, but local liberal media. In this case from the student-run  The Post — a publication of Ohio University – Athens. A “reporter” (leftie stenographer) is repeating propaganda from anti-drilling crazies who attended a recent meeting hosted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service about the plan to begin fracking in the Wayne National Forest. As they usually do, a group of hippie and hippie wannabe nutters turned out to harass people who support drilling. The antis behaved badly–as they always do. They threw things (paper airplanes, namely), they spat on fracking supporters, hollered and chanted and in general, behaved in an aggressive manner. At one point, when it became apparent the meeting was getting out of hand, a U.S. Forest Service officer used his baton to push some of the crazies back. A very short clip, taken out of context, shows it happening–and that became the focus of the story published by The Post. From start to finish the “story” is a lie. These aggressive (we’d call them terrorist) nutters are demanding the Forest Service agent lose his job for doing his job in protecting the peaceful people at the meeting…
    Read More “Anti-Frackers Out of Control at Athens Mtg on Wayne Natl Forest”

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    Susan Sarandon Supports Anti-Pipeline Movement in Massachusetts

    What do Hollywood celebrities do to boost a sagging career? Celebrities who were once “A” list but have sunk to “B” and “C” list status? Celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon found notoriety in supporting the anti-fracking movement. But the problem with “success” when it comes to anti-fracking (a la New York’s ban), is that once you’ve won, what do you do then? You see, antis like Ruffalo and Sarandon always need another bogyman–another “cause” to inject (a) notoriety, and (b) meaning into their otherwise meaningless lives. Like a junkie who needs another fix, these people need to be in the news, their face and name plastered everywhere, or they don’t think anyone “loves” them anymore. It’s a shame what depths they sink to, really. At least Sarandon has talent–Ruffalo has no talent. Sarandon (or more properly, her agent) has (surprise!) found a new cause to promote–time to prop up that sagging career. Sarandon has thrown in her lot with the crazies opposing the Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project–the massive $5 billion expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline system from Pennsylvania into New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and back into Massachusetts where it will end near Boston. Sarandon recently issued a statement through the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, whose director, Leigh Youngblood, has been at the forefront of opposing any new pipelines in the Bay State…
    Read More “Susan Sarandon Supports Anti-Pipeline Movement in Massachusetts”

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    PennEnergy Resources Building Frack Water Pipeline from Ohio River

    PennEnergy Resources, a small but active driller in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale, is working on a plan to pipe water from the Ohio River to its drill sites in Beaver County, PA. PennEnergy is, according to the latest edition of the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook (Vol. 2) one of two active drillers in Beaver County–and the most active at that. The company was founded by energy executives Rich Weber and Greg Muse in 2011. Here’s the low down on piping Ohio River water to be used for fracking…
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    NY Town Supports, Antis Fundraise Against, Waterless Fracking

    MDN editor Jim Willis is often asked, when people learn of his occupation of writing about shale drilling, “What’s up with New York? Will there ever be any drilling in the state?” Jim’s answer is always the same: some day. But likely not until we excrete out of office our current man-child governor, Andy Cuomo. The one potential bright spot for fracking in the Empire State is a plan by a small group of farmers in Tioga County, NY to use waterless fracking technology to drill a test shale well (see NY Landowners File to Frack Horizontal Well w/Waterless Tech). The Snyder Farm Group, as it’s called, has filed an application with the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC)–owned and controlled by Cuomo–so that’s where the application now sits, with nothing happening so far as we can tell. Sooner or later the Snyder Group will have to sue the DEC to move things along. In the meantime, we have two bits of news to share with respect to the Town of Barton waterless fracking proposal. One bit of news is about support for the plan in Tioga County, and the other is about opposition to the plan from the usual suspects who oppose ANYTHING to do with fossil energy, not because it’s somehow inherently dangerous to extract natural gas, but because it IS natural gas. An irrational hatred of carbon molecules (the stuff you breathe out with every breath)…
    Read More “NY Town Supports, Antis Fundraise Against, Waterless Fracking”

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    Prominent Energy Law Firm Closing Down – Lack of Business

    It’s always fun to bust on lawyers–everyone’s favorite pass time, right? “How many lawyers does it take to screw in a light bulb?….” All joking aside, we love lawyers here at MDN. Well, most of them, anyway. Some of our best customers (and biggest supporters) are lawyers. And we love them right back–because you’re nuts if you sign ANYTHING to do with oil and gas without first running it by a qualified attorney. We’ve always said it, and we always will. You need a good lawyer. So it pains us to report that a prominent energy law firm is closing up shop. Burleson LLP, headquartered in Houston, opened an office in Pittsburgh six years ago. Burleson founder and managing partner, Rick Burleson, announced to the firm on Monday that not only is he shutting down the Pittsburgh office, but ALL of the firm’s offices, including HQ in Houston. Why? The slowdown in the oil and gas sector. You don’t lose 233,000 jobs over the course of a year in a single industry without major ramifications for other businesses involved in that industry…
    Read More “Prominent Energy Law Firm Closing Down – Lack of Business”

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    Antis Try Last Desperate Ploy to Stop Cove Point LNG in Court

    Dominion is working fast and furiously on constructing the Cove Point LNG export facility in Maryland. In fact, it’s now half done (see Dominion 3Q15: Progress on Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Cove Point LNG). Even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its blessing on the project, and even though Dominion suffered through something like 70+ federal, state and local permits to begin building, irrational anti-fossil fuel haters are still opposing the project. We told you how some of the most extreme among them endangered fans at an NFL game recently (see Cove Point Protesters Disrupt Monday Night Football Game on TV). Now comes word that several groups of nutters, including Waterkeepers Chesapeake, Potomac Riverkeeper, Lower Susquehanna Riverkeeper and others have filed a “friend of the court” brief in a lawsuit that is trying to get the project stopped cold in its tracks…
    Read More “Antis Try Last Desperate Ploy to Stop Cove Point LNG in Court”

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    Platts Bentek: October NatGas Production Drops 1% from September

    Each month the U.S. Energy Information Administration issues natural gas production figures–but it’s usually two months or more behind. The smart folks at Platts’ Bentek Energy subsidiary provide a much quicker (and accurate) estimate, typically beating the EIA’s estimate by at least a month. For example, Bentek recently issued their estimate of what natgas production for October was in the Lower 48 States. Bentek says October averaged 71.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), a decline of more than 0.5 Bcf/d, or 1%, from September’s production numbers. The EIA won’t even issue September’s “official” production numbers until Nov. 30. Here’s a good preview of what October numbers will show by the time EIA gets around to disclosing them…
    Read More “Platts Bentek: October NatGas Production Drops 1% from September”

  • Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Nov 25, 2015

    The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Binghamton’s fractivist “reporter”; OH Utica permits soar in October; Invenergy electric plant in Jessup; rig count up in PA; New England nutters oppose pipelines; how bad is it for natgas?; and more!
    Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Nov 25, 2015”

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    PA DEP Fines Chesapeake $1.4M for 4-Year Old Landslide

    Make Him an Offer He Can't RefuseWe’ll let you decide whether the recent action by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is in line with being a good regulatory watchdog, or with being a mafia Don, using the power of the government to shake down a drilling company. On Sept. 15, 2011 as Chesapeake Energy was drilling the Stinger 8H well in Aleppo Township (Greene County), PA, in an area known for its landslides–they experienced (yes) a landslide. The landslide created sediment that plugged about one-fourth of a mile of seven “streams” so tiny they don’t have names–essentially drainage ditches. The seven drainage ditches, when they have water in them, flow into a very small creek called Harts Run. In return Harts Run, which crosses the border into West Virginia, eventually empties into a slightly bigger creek called Pennsylvania Fork Fish Creek, which eventually empties into Fish Creek (slightly bigger again), which eventually empties into the Ohio River–on the other side of WV where it borders with Ohio. There is zero chance any of the sediment made it beyond Harts Run, let alone all the way to the Ohio. But still, it’s not a good thing if you’re not “careful” to prevent what the Guvment believes you should be able to prevent. Chesapeake, since that time (over four years ago), has essentially fixed the problem–spending millions to do so. Apparently there’s a little bit of work left to do. The PA DEP comes along and yesterday announced that Chesapeake has agreed to pay the DEP a whopping $1.4 million fine for this four year-old accident, as well as do a bit of tidying up of the drainage ditches. Here’s the kicker–Chessy doesn’t even own that well any more…
    Read More “PA DEP Fines Chesapeake $1.4M for 4-Year Old Landslide”

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    PA County Judge Rules Rex Can Begin Drilling First Martian Well

    My Favorite MartianAs 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 (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 still hasn’t been 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 here). This is the outrage: These very same anti-drillers fought hard to overturn a portion of the 2012 Act 13 law that took zoning of oil and gas out of the hands of local towns and put it in state hands. The zoning portion of Act 13 was overturned by the PA Supreme Court. The antis got what they wanted–except, it seems, they got a little too much of what they wanted. They didn’t factor that in some towns there would be a majority who favor fracking and shale drilling–like in Middlesex. Middlesex ran an extensive series of nine hearings over seven months and eventually adopted zoning ordinances that allow Rex to drill. So the antis sued to stop what they previously sued to achieve. Eventually a group of landowners counter-sued the antis (rightfully so) for denying them access to allow drilling on their own land. That lawsuit is still playing out in the courts. Last Thursday a Butler County judge ruled, once again, that the zoning ordinances adopted by Middlesex are legal and therefore drilling can commence. The antis will appeal the decision and continue to try and block local landowners from legally using their own property as they see fit…
    Read More “PA County Judge Rules Rex Can Begin Drilling First Martian Well”