• | |

    PA Game Commission Keeps on Leasing, Not Subject to Wolf’s Ban

    In a companion story today, MDN brings you news that anti-drillers are taking a case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that could potentially require the state to consider “environmental rights” when considering whether or not to allow drilling on state-owned land. That is, a requirement that drilling be banned on state-owned land. One state agency that owns state land–the Pennsylvania Game Commission–continues to lease land for drilling even though there is currently an executive order by Gov. Tom Wolf that prohibits drilling in state-owned parks and forests. The Game Commission is outside of the executive branch and therefore autonomous and continues to lease land. Here’s an update on who drills the most on and under Game Commission land, and the latest leases (signing bonus and royalties) the Game Commission most recently negotiated…
    Read More “PA Game Commission Keeps on Leasing, Not Subject to Wolf’s Ban”

  • | | | |

    PA Supreme Court to Hear Case on Banning Drilling on State Lands

    Pennsylvania’s Democrat Supreme Court will take up the issue of whether or not private property rights still exist in the Keystone State. That’s the clear legal issue before the court over whether or not the State of Pennsylvania can continue to allow oil and gas drilling on state lands and use the revenues it receives as part of the general fund. Lower courts have all ruled that yes, the state can legally lease its own property, and allow drilling under public land for which it doesn’t, in some cases, own the mineral rights. But radical environmentalists are attempting to abuse the state’s highest court–now packed with liberal Democrats–to achieve what they can’t achieve by any other means. They’re hoping the high court will find a new cockamamie “right” to protect the environment that trumps public and even private property rights in the process. That is, they’re hoping the Supremes will rule that the state MUST ban drilling on state-owned land, in order to protect Mother Earth…
    Read More “PA Supreme Court to Hear Case on Banning Drilling on State Lands”

  • | |

    How a Louisiana LNG Export Facility is Connected to the Marcellus/Utica

    An article about Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass Liquefaction Project (LNG export plant) in remote Louisiana caught our attention for a couple of reasons. First, the plant will make its first shipment of LNG in January. Some of the natural gas the hungry Sabine Pass facility will use will (eventually) come from the Marcellus/Utica, via pipeline. That makes the Sabine Pass plant story an important story for our region. Second, the plant is a picture of/preview for what is coming to other regions where such facilities are built–like Cove Point, Maryland where Dominion is currently building (about half done) the Cove Point LNG export facility. Sabine Pass is a massive economic and job creation engine for Louisiana’s south coast. So too will Cove Point be for Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay area…
    Read More “How a Louisiana LNG Export Facility is Connected to the Marcellus/Utica”

  • | | |

    State Official Calls Shale Impact “Profound” on PA Agriculture

    Recently the Pennsylvania Agriculture Department Executive Deputy Secretary, Michael Smith, addressed the Natural Gas Task Force for the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania (CCAP) in Hershey. He had some interesting things to say about shale development in the state. Among them: Shale’s impact on agriculture in the state will be “profound” and “transformative.” Did he mean that in a good way, or a bad way? Yes…
    Read More “State Official Calls Shale Impact “Profound” on PA Agriculture”

  • | | |

    Antis Ramp Up to Discredit EPA Study that Found Fracking is Safe

    It was certainly a major blow to radical environmentalists when, after studying fracking for more than four years (reviewing some 950 studies, including conducting several original studies of its own), the federal Environmental Protection Agency announced what everyone already knew: fracking is safe (see EPA Draft Report Says Fracking Doesn’t Pollute Groundwater Supplies). Science is science and facts are facts. The announcement took the wind out of the sails for anti-fossil fuel nutters who thought they could convince everyone to return to the stone ages and eliminate the use of fossil fuels. However, science has been corrupted and politicized–just witness the global warming debate. Radical environmentalists knowing they can never convince the hoi polloi, the great unwashed, the people they consider idiots, to go along with their holier-than-thou energy plans to eliminate fossil fuels, if fracking is perceived as anything but evil–are fighting back. Here’s the plan. Get the EPA to discredit its own study. That process is now underway. In October the usual radical suspects showed up at EPA HQ to demand they turn their backs on their own study (see Anti Groups Try to Convince EPA They Got it Wrong with Water Study). Apparently they got through to at least a few sympathetic “scientists” who are members of the EPA’s own Scientific Advisory Board…
    Read More “Antis Ramp Up to Discredit EPA Study that Found Fracking is Safe”

  • | | | | |

    Guernsey County, OH a Microcosm for Shale Economics in Northeast

    Have we entered the oil and gas apocalypse? If you’re one of some 230,000 oilfield workers out of a job in the past year, you may think so (who can blame them?). The reality is, however, that although rig counts are down (way down), permits issued are down, and in general drilling of new wells is down–drilling IS still happening. Businesses in the supply chain–those servicing the upstream and midstream sectors–are still making money. Not as much money, but we haven’t entered the apocalypse–not yet anyway. Example: Cambridge (Guernsey County), Ohio, where drilling happens less these days–but drilling still happens and local businesses like restaurants make more money than they did prior to the Marcellus/Utica fracking miracle…
    Read More “Guernsey County, OH a Microcosm for Shale Economics in Northeast”

  • | | |

    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…
    Read More “Success Story: Welder Starts Pre-Fab Company in PA Shale Country”

  • | | | |

    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”

  • |

    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”

  • | | |

    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”

  • | | | | |

    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”

  • | | |

    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…
    Read More “PennEnergy Resources Building Frack Water Pipeline from Ohio River”

  • | | | | |

    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”

  • | | | |

    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”