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Marcellus Drilling News
  • American Energy Partners | Ascent Resources | EMG | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation

    Ascent Resources/EMG Sues Aubrey McClendon’s Law Firm for Fraud

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    bad bloodEverybody’s suing everybody. That about sums up the mess created (sadly) by none other than Aubrey McClendon. The subsidiary businesses that were once part of McClendon’s new company, American Energy Partners (AEP), continue to run away from Aubrey as fast as they can. On Monday, Ascent Resources, once called American Energy Appalachia Holdings but separated from the AEP mothership in June (see Big McClendon News: Sells 35K Utica Acres, Creates New Company), sued the law firm representing Aubrey in the “stolen data” case brought by Chesapeake Energy. Yes it’s complicated and it’s a mess. We’ll attempt to sort this all out so it’s understandable…
    Read More “Ascent Resources/EMG Sues Aubrey McClendon’s Law Firm for Fraud”

  • Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pike County | Research | Wayne County

    William Penn/Delaware Riverkeeper $320K “Study” Slams Fracking

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    oldest professionIf you’re a Big Green group, like THE Delaware Riverkeeper, you have millions of dollars to a) launch lawsuits against the natural gas industry, and b) buy yourself research studies that support your twisted viewpoints. It is the latter that happened yesterday. CNA, a not-for-profit organization once called the Center for Naval Analyses, sells itself to the highest bidder (the oldest profession in the world). Most recently they sold themselves to THE Delaware Riverkeeper (we certainly hope they used protection). CNA and THE Delaware Riverkeeper held a press briefing yesterday to release a “study” by CNA titled “The Potential Environmental Impacts of Fracking in the Delaware River Basin” (full copy below). What did the “researchers” at CNA, which is based in Arlington, VA just outside the DC orbit, find? If the moratorium is lifted and shale drilling is allowed in the Delaware River Basin–essentially Wayne and Pike counties in Pennsylvania–CNA says it will lead to “land cover disturbance” in “core forest areas”, extreme water withdrawals from poor little creeks and streams, nasty wastewater polluting everything, erosion everywhere, multiple compressor stations and untold ill health impacts for 75,000 people who live close to all of this mess. See what $320,444 (the actual cost of this study) can buy you? We hope it felt good for Riverkeeper…
    Read More “William Penn/Delaware Riverkeeper $320K “Study” Slams Fracking”

  • Commodity Price | Energy Companies | EV Energy Partners | Industrywide Issues

    EVEP’s John Walker: NatGas Demand & Prices Heading Higher in 2016

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    EV Energy Partners (EVEP) is a master limited partnership, or MLP, which distributes profits to “unit holders” instead of plowing profits into more projects. They like to invest in mature, already drilled wells and pipeline companies–things that act like an annuity throwing off profit with very little risk. Over the years EVEP amassed a huge amount of acreage in Ohio–before the Utica was known–mostly for conventional (vertical only) wells. That acreage is held by production and can also be drilled for unconventional/Utica Shale wells. Since 2009 EVEP has been trying to sell some/most of their Utica acreage. Seems like every year we hear “this is the year” from EVEP. Will 2015 be that year? Possibly. EVEP Chairman John Walker, in wide-ranging remarks during a quarterly earnings analyst conference call on Monday hints that new deals are coming, both third party and “drop down” deals where they sell things to themselves on paper. Most interesting to MDN were Walker’s remarks that he believes demand for natural gas will begin to really take off in 2016, and along with it, prices will go higher (more demand than supply)…
    Read More “EVEP’s John Walker: NatGas Demand & Prices Heading Higher in 2016”

  • Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA

    PennEast Pipeline Launches Public Relations Counteroffensive

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    PennEast Pipeline, the $1 billion, 114-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania (in Luzerne County) to southeastern PA and New Jersey (terminating in Mercer County, NJ), continues to fight for its life. Lies are constantly spread in mainstream media about PennEast by Big Green groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper and nutty Sierra Clubbers, and their smaller siblings including Stop the PennEast Pipeline and Berks Gas Truth. As we previously reported, one or more antis have crossed the line into criminal behavior (see FBI Investigates Death Threats Against PennEast Pipeline Workers). So PennEast continues to fight the lies and smears with its own public relations efforts, including a meeting with the editorial board of the reliably anti-drilling Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice and the following article/letter issued yesterday by PennEast Chairman Peter Terranova…
    Read More “PennEast Pipeline Launches Public Relations Counteroffensive”

  • Industrywide Issues | Research

    August EIA DPR: NatGas Production Declines in All 7 Shale Plays

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    The great slowdown in natural gas production continues in the United States. On Monday the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued the latest monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), predicting shale oil and gas production by shale play for the seven major commercially active plays in the U.S. For the first time since the EIA began issuing the DPR all seven plays show a month over month decrease in the amount of natural gas being produced. Last month the Utica Shale play stood alone as the only play that increased natgas volumes month over month (see July EIA DPR – Utica Stands Alone with Higher Natgas Production). This month, even the Utica has gone negative–dropping 3 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) in production over the previous month…
    Read More “August EIA DPR: NatGas Production Declines in All 7 Shale Plays”

  • Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Lancaster County | Pennsylvania

    Lancaster Coal Burning Electric Plant Adding Marcellus NatGas

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    We often hear about, and report on, new electric generating plants being built that will use Marcellus (or Utica) Shale gas. Panda Power, Invenergy and others are building plants around Pennsylvania to take advantage of cheap, abundant and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas. What you don’t hear often, but is equally as important, are existing coal plants converting to burn natural gas. The “much-maligned” Brunner Island coal-fired power plant on the edge of Lancaster County, PA is one such plant. Brunner Island will keep its coal burning operation at the plant–for now. They are, however, spending $100 million to add natural gas burners to help drive the plant’s three electric generators. This is an accelerating trend with electric generating plants across the country, particularly in the northeast…
    Read More “Lancaster Coal Burning Electric Plant Adding Marcellus NatGas”

  • Energy Services | Huntingdon County (PA) | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA | Sunoco Logistics | Washington County

    Sunoco Files Eminent Domain Cases in PA Courts for Mariner East 2

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    Two days ago MDN told you that Sunoco Logistics Partners had settled, out of court, cases in Harrison and Jefferson counties (Ohio) that will allow the company to build a pair of new pipelines called Mariner East 2 through the area (see Sunoco Settles Case with OH Landowners to Allow Mariner East 2). As we said at the time, Sunoco still faces stiff opposition in other places–particularly in Pennsylvania where the bulk of the pipeline will be built. And sure enough, a new article has popped up about Sunoco LP taking landowners in Washington and Huntingdon counties (PA) to court using eminent domain to gain access to their properties. The problem is, the issue of whether or not Mariner East is a public utility with the right to invoke eminent domain is still an unsettled issue and likely headed to the PA Supreme Court…
    Read More “Sunoco Files Eminent Domain Cases in PA Courts for Mariner East 2”

  • Housing | Industrywide Issues

    Extra Couple $ Million? Buy a Trailer Park in the Marcellus/Utica

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    From time to time MDN highlights the investments made by the publicly traded company UMH Properties, a New Jersey-based real estate investment company that buys up trailer parks (see our list of stories here). They’ve paid millions of dollars to buy trailer parks in the northeast. Why? Because those parks are located in the Marcellus/Utica Shale region. That is their stated reason. UMH says in their quarterly earnings call with investors and analysts that the Marcellus and Utica continue to drive their development decisions. We don’t know why, but we find this fascinating. Here are excerpts from the UMH conference call with analysts last week…
    Read More “Extra Couple $ Million? Buy a Trailer Park in the Marcellus/Utica”

  • Best of the Rest

    Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Aug 12, 2015

    August 12, 2015August 12, 2015

    The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
    Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Aug 12, 2015”

  • Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Pipelines | Transco

    Holy Potatoes & Finnish Immigrants – Latest Tactic to Stop Pipeline

    August 11, 2015August 11, 2015

    holy potatoesEver hear the phrase, “diggin’ deep”? That’s what anti-drillers are doing in New Hampshire with their opposition to a pipeline slated to come through their area in Hillsborough County. As plans for Kinder Morgan’s $6 billion Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project that will stretch from Pennsylvania through New York into Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and back into Massachusetts near Boston progress, more and more articles appear in newspapers, like the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, attempting to convince people the pipeline is from Satan himself. In fact, according to the latest article, NED may just be from Satan! The Ledger-Transcript claims the pipeline, if it follows the same route as already-built high voltage electric lines, would cut through a hay field that (151 years ago) used to be a potato field and is the site of a miracle of importance to Seventh-Day Adventists…
    Read More “Holy Potatoes & Finnish Immigrants – Latest Tactic to Stop Pipeline”

  • Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Eureka Midstream

    Magnum Hunter About to Close 2 Deals Worth $1 Billion Cash

    August 11, 2015August 11, 2015

    Last Friday Magnum Hunter Resources CEO Gary Evans along with other top MHR executives held a quarterly earnings call. On that call we learned some very important information. According to Evans, MHR is very close to raking in around $1 billion in cash from two initiatives: a joint venture on their Utica Shale acreage, and the sale of MHR’s ownership in their midstream subsidiary Eureka Hunter. Here is what Evans said about the two initiatives, their timing, and potential partners/buyers…
    Read More “Magnum Hunter About to Close 2 Deals Worth $1 Billion Cash”

  • Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies

    Magnum Hunter to Restart Marcellus/Utica Drilling Later This Year

    August 11, 2015August 11, 2015

    MDN reports in a related story today that Magnum Hunter Resources (MHR) is “this close” to closing two separate deals that will bring in around 1 billion big ones. What do they plan to do with all that money? About half of it–somewhere around $550 million of it, will be used to restart MHR’s drilling program in the Utica and Marcellus. When? Sometime in the late third to mid-fourth quarter of this year, says MHR CEO Gary Evans. Along with his comments on timing for MHR to restart their currently stalled drilling program, Evans gave the following inside information on how much (or how little) you can contract a drilling rig for these days in the Marcellus/Utica region. Used to be it cost $24,000 a day for a rig to drill your wells. But that was last year. Now?…
    Read More “Magnum Hunter to Restart Marcellus/Utica Drilling Later This Year”

  • Allegheny County | Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Shell

    Shell Lays Off 6,500 Worldwide – But Where?

    August 11, 2015August 11, 2015

    Shell recently announced that the company would reduce spending by $7 billion in 2015–a 20% cut from 2014 spending levels. Ouch. Even more painful, Shell said they are cutting more than 6,500 jobs globally (they employ 94,000) in preparation for a long period of low oil prices. How will Shell’s announcement affect their northeast drilling program (SWEPI) and the planned ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA? We don’t know. There are rumors circulating about Shell’s Pittsburgh office–but since we can’t verify those rumors, we won’t repeat them. As for the ethane cracker plant, there’s never a shortage of rumors that say it will, and won’t, get built. Here’s what is known…
    Read More “Shell Lays Off 6,500 Worldwide – But Where?”

  • Commodity Price | Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues

    A Basic Guide to Understanding “Impairments” for Marcellus/Utica

    August 11, 2015August 11, 2015

    There is precisely one reporter at the usually anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Anya Litvak, who writes objectively about the Marcellus/Utica and the oil and gas industry in general. Anya used to write for the Pittsburgh Business Times until the Post-Gazette snagged her away a few years ago. It’s our opinion that the Post-Gazette keeps Anya hidden under a bushel where her light doesn’t shine nearly as brightly as it used to. Anya has just written an excellent article about something MDN recently noticed when reviewing quarterly earnings updates–this business of “impairments” or writing down the value of o&g assets on paper. As we’ve noted for a number of the quarterly updates we have reported on for the second quarter, many (most) drillers are reevaluating their acreage in the Marcellus/Utica and, according to specified formulas tied to the price of natural gas and oil, determining those assets (leases and operating wells) are not worth as much now as they were just a few months or years ago–something called an impairment…
    Read More “A Basic Guide to Understanding “Impairments” for Marcellus/Utica”

  • Electrical Generation | Guest Post | Industrywide Issues

    The Rotten Core of Obama’s Clean Power Plan: Global Warming Myth

    August 11, 2015August 11, 2015

    The uber-arrogant Barack H. Obama and his bullying Environmental Protection Agency have given us an untenable Clean Power Plan that a) guts the rest of the coal industry, and b) sets its sights on gutting the natural gas industry, for power generation, too (see Obama Stabs Natural Gas Electric Plants in Clean Power Plan). The core tenant/religious belief perpetrated by Obama is the myth that mankind’s burning of fossil fuels, with an increase in carbon dioxide, is leading to a catastrophic warming of the earth’s atmosphere. There is no credible scientific proof for such a theory–it’s only a theory. But that doesn’t stop Obama and his minions from using it as an excuse to shut down legal and legitimate businesses that use fossil fuels to generate electricity. Since global warming jiggery-pokery is central to Obama’s Clean Power Plan, we thought it would be instructive to show you the headlines from six years, in the run-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The headlines then, as now, blare that we have “just five years left” before it’s “too late”. We’re now six years later without the beseeched onerous policies and guess what: We’re no worse off today than we were then. The planet didn’t get warmer (and hasn’t for 18 years now). In fact, the global warming meme has been circulating for 100 years (see Global Warming Meme has Been Around Nearly 100 Years). Today we bring you a guest blogger that illustrates the falseness of global warmers’ claims by comparing their predictions from six years ago (that didn’t come true) with their predictions now…
    Read More “The Rotten Core of Obama’s Clean Power Plan: Global Warming Myth”

  • Industrywide Issues | Regulation

    Paul Driessan: Obama’s Clean Power Plan Will Kill Us, Literally

    August 11, 2015August 11, 2015

    Paul Driessen, senior policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) which sponsors the All Pain No Gain petition against global-warming hype, and a senior policy adviser to the Congress of Racial Equality and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death, has penned a brilliant analysis of the Obama Clean Power Plan released last week. In black and white numbers, Driessen lays out how, if Obama’s plan is implemented, electricity rates will skyrocket. And when they do, everything we make, grow, ship, eat and do will also skyrocket in cost. The end result: “It will impair our livelihoods, living standards, liberties and life spans.” This is not hyperbole, folks. Driessen speaks the truth. Give his column a read below…
    Read More “Paul Driessan: Obama’s Clean Power Plan Will Kill Us, Literally”

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