Marcellus Drilling News

Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Sunoco Logistics | Washington County

Mariner East Pipeline Uses Eminent Domain Against SWPA Landowners
July 28, 2015July 28, 2015

Confession: We have a tough time with eminent domain cases filed by pipeline companies. We believe property rights are sacrosanct–you don’t tell me what I can and can’t do with my property, and I don’t tell you what you can and can’t do with your property. But then zoning laws enter the picture. And statewide bans on fracking. Etc. What happens if all but a handful of landowners sign up to allow a pipeline? Should an entire project that when built results in a greater “good” for society get nixed because of half a dozen of holdout landowners? Tough tough issues. The latest skirmish comes from Washington County, PA where Sunoco Logistics has filed eminent domain cases against a handful of landowners who won’t allow new construction through their property for the Mariner East Pipeline project. Sunoco has taken them to court and seeks leases on a total of 11 acres…
Read More “Mariner East Pipeline Uses Eminent Domain Against SWPA Landowners”
Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Pipelines | Tennessee Gas Pipeline | UIL Holdings

UIL Invests $80M in Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline
July 28, 2015July 28, 2015

UIL Holdings, a Connecticut-based utility with 725,000 electric and natural gas customers in two states, is investing $80 million in Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) natural gas pipeline project that will stretch from NY to near Boston, MA to bring cheap, abundant and clean-burning natural gas to New England. One of UIL’s subsidiary companies is Berkshire Gas Company, one of NED’s anchor shippers. Berkshire, you may recall, is at capacity now with respect to natural gas supplies they receive from Kinder’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline. Berkshire has put a moratorium on accepting any new hookups for natural gas in Franklin County, MA (see Guts: No New Pipeline in MA? Then No New Natgas for Utility Customers). You may also recall that UIL is the company that offered the City of Philadelphia the best deal it will ever get to sell the city-owned Philadelphia Gas Works utility, a deal ultimately scuttled by the Democrat-controlled–and profoundly corrupt–Philadelphia City Council (see Philly City Council Kills the Phila. Gas Works $1.86B Deal). UIL will get a 2.5% ownership stake in NED in return for it’s $80M investment…
Read More “UIL Invests $80M in Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct Pipeline”
Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide NY | Williams

Cabot Says Constitution Pipeline Construction to Begin this Fall
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

Last Friday during the Cabot Oil & Gas quarterly earnings call update with analysts, Cabot’s CEO Dan Dinges provided an important update on the Constitution Pipeline, a 125-mile pipeline that will stretch from the gas fields of Susquehanna County, PA into New York, to Schoharie County. It is a critically needed pipeline to get Cabot’s natural gas in Susquehanna County to markets throughout the northeast and New England. Although Williams is the lead company building the pipeline, Cabot is the other primary partner in the project. Currently the Constitution is 100% FERC authorized and they have 100% of the rights of way leases signed for the project. The only hold-up is the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation in granting 401 Water Quality Certificates that allows the Constitution to lay pipe through and under swamps, creeks and other bodies of water. According to Dinges, they expect NY to issue those permits any day now…
Read More “Cabot Says Constitution Pipeline Construction to Begin this Fall”
Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies

Cabot O&G 2Q15: Production Up 8%, Net Income Down 109%
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

Last Friday Cabot Oil & Gas released their second quarter 2015 operational and financial update, along with holding a conference call to update financial analysts. Below is the Friday press release/update with the particulars of Cabot’s performance during 2Q15. There’s a lot to love about Cabot, one of our favorite Marcellus drillers. Production in the Marcellus year over year for the second quarter was up 7% from 2014 (total natgas production up 8% for all plays). The company continues to get leaner and meaner when it comes to controlling costs. For the first half of the year in 2015, Cabot has managed to trim the time it takes them to drill a well by four days from the time it took them just last year–meaning a 15% cost savings overall. Cabot, whose operations and drilling program is a fraction of the size of Chesapeake Energy, is worth twice as much as Chesapeake. Cabot’s market capitalization (the amount of stock issued times the price per share) is $10.96 billion as of this morning. Chesapeake’s market cap? $5.51 billion. That must really frost corporate raider Carl Icahn. 🙂 Anywho, Cabot is not immune to the brutally low prices for natural gas they receive in the northeast. In Cabot’s small neck of the woods, prices for natural gas are the lowest in the country. And that means Cabot has, finally, gone into negative earnings territory…
Read More “Cabot O&G 2Q15: Production Up 8%, Net Income Down 109%”
Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies

Cabot CEO Dan Dinges Provides Update for 2Q15 & Balance of 2015
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

Today is Cabot Day on MDN–reporting on their 2Q15 results. We’ve told you about Cabot’s update on the Constitution Pipeline, and we’ve told you about their financial/operating results. In addition, Cabot hosted a quarterly earnings conference call with analysts from big banks/investment firms. Cabot CEO Dan Dinges gave a succinct and good overview of the performance for Cabot over the past three months, along with some “forward looking” predictions about what the company plans for the balance of 2015. Here is a transcript of Dan’s remarks from Friday…
Read More “Cabot CEO Dan Dinges Provides Update for 2Q15 & Balance of 2015”
Energy Companies | EXCO Resources

EXCO 2Q15: Marcellus Production Down 23%; Net Income Down 1,991%
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

EXCO Resources is a driller with operations in four different regions: North Louisiana, East Texas, South Texas, and the Marcellus/Utica region. Today EXCO posted their second quarter 2015 financial and operating results. During the first quarter EXCO sidelined any new Marcellus activity (see EXCO Resources Continues Marcellus Drilling Moratorium in 1Q15). That trend continued in 2Q15–EXCO drilled no new Marcellus wells during the quarter. In fact, MDN told you in May that EXCO is shopping its 150,000 Marcellus Shale acres (see EXCO Looks to “Restructure” (Sell?) 150K Marcellus Acres). Overall the company’s revenues dropped, like other drillers, in 2Q15. Year over year EXCO revenues dropped 49%. Factoring in expenses, EXCO’s net income was a massive loss, dropping 1,991% (they show a net loss for 2Q15 of minus $454.2 million). EXCO’s Marcellus production, because they haven’t drilled any new wells, decreased 23% from 2Q14. Below is the portion of the update dealing with the Marcellus…
Read More “EXCO 2Q15: Marcellus Production Down 23%; Net Income Down 1,991%”
Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation

Multiple Courts Dismiss Shareholder Lawsuits Against Magnum Hunter
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

Here’s one flying under the radar that we didn’t know about–until now. In the spring of 2013 Magnum Hunter Resources (MHR), a driller now focused totally on the Marcellus and Utica Shale region, dismissed it’s accounting firm. Apparently some investors didn’t like that action and accused MHR’s senior management and board of directors of “breaches of fiduciary duties and other matters.” The investors filed lawsuits in seven different courts alleging misconduct. As of June 22, the last of those lawsuits was dismissed. In fact, all of the lawsuits filed have been dismissed and MHR paid out zero dollars to settle. Yes, it cost the company big money to defend themselves, but they held firm and didn’t cave and in the end they were exonerated from any wrongdoing…
Read More “Multiple Courts Dismiss Shareholder Lawsuits Against Magnum Hunter”
Brooke County | Hancock County | Marshall County | Ohio County | Statewide WV | Tyler County | West Virginia

WV Northern Panhandle Production Rockets 3X from 2012 to 2014
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

Natural gas production in the northern panhandle area of West Virginia is rapidly expanding–nearly 3 times in 2014 what it was in 2012, according to West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey statistics. In Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Brooke, Tyler and Hancock counties natural gas production was 123.8 billion cubic feet in 2012. In 2014, that number ballooned to 346.7 Bcf. What about 2015 and beyond? And, who’s doing all that drilling?…
Read More “WV Northern Panhandle Production Rockets 3X from 2012 to 2014”
Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | NEXUS Pipeline | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide OH

Pipeline Case: OH Judge Finds Public Right to Free Flow of Energy
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

There are a number of pipeline battles currently going on. While residents in New England tend to be more unreasonable than most when it comes to pipelines, landowners in other regions also oppose new pipeline construction. Some of their opposition stems from nutty opposition to fossil fuels. But some opposition is legitimate–concerns over where the pipeline will go through a property. Or concerns about lease terms/compensation. One thing that doesn’t hurt anyone is to allow a survey of a property. We would encourage landowners to begin their dialog about a potential pipeline with the surveyors–to make companies aware of your concerns about the routing of a pipeline across your land. But some holdout landowners unreasonably resist even a survey–and they’re consistently losing in Ohio courts. Specifically we’re talking about the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline–a $1.5-$2.0 billion natural gas pipeline that will carry Utica and Marcellus Shale gas spanning 11 counties in Ohio, 3 counties in Michigan, and eventually connect to the Dawn Energy Hub in Canada. We recently told you that in most cases when landowners refuse access to surveyors, they lose (see NEXUS Pipeline Sues for Survey Access, Wins Most of the Time). Below we have news of a court decision from Fulton County, OH in which the judge outlines his reasons for ruling in favor of NEXUS to allow surveys to commence on properties for 15 hold-out landowners. The judge’s ruling is instructive. In it, the judge says the general public has a “right” to expect a “free flow” of energy products…
Read More “Pipeline Case: OH Judge Finds Public Right to Free Flow of Energy”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Group of Bostonians Use Religion to Protest 5-Mile Natgas Pipeline
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

Every now and again it’s important to connect the dots–yet again–for new readers to MDN. Those who have been reading MDN for several years know that the category of what we broadly call anti-drillers don’t oppose natural gas shale drilling and pipelines and injection wells and railroad transloading terminals and…the list goes on…because of the sometimes legitimate issues of noise and truck traffic and lease abuses, etc. Every industry has it’s negatives. But that’s not why these people in their heart of hearts oppose natural gas. They oppose it because it’s a fossil fuel–which is, as we point out, an irrational position to hold. It’s irrational because the very sneakers on their feet they wear in protest marches, the clothes on their bodies, the materials their homes are built from, the cars they drive, the televisions they watch, the cell phones their faces are glued to, are all products made by with with fossil fuels. Plastics = fossil fuels. Plastics are hydrocarbons–you did know that, right? Hydrocarbons are fossil fuels–oil and natural gas etc. Like cancer metastasizes and invades its host, so too does the cancerous philosophy that mankind by burning fossil fuels is killing Mother Earth. So-called global warming is the philosophy–the point of view–that drives and justifies anti-drillers’ irrational opposition to shale energy. The latest example comes from a group of people in Boston (ab)using religion to oppose a 5-mile pipeline. The stated reason for their opposition? “Climate change is the pressing moral issue of our time, and religious leaders must speak out against practices that are destroying the environment”…
Read More “Group of Bostonians Use Religion to Protest 5-Mile Natgas Pipeline”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Will NY Gov Cuomo Ban LPG Fracking Too?
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

A column in the New York Post asks the question of whether or not Gov. Andrew Cuomo will work to block LPG (liquefied petroleum gas, or gelled propane) fracking in the Empire State as he has done with water-based fracking. MDN told you earlier this month about the ingenious plan by Tioga County, NY landowners who have filed for a permit to use LPG fracking in a limited test (see NY Landowners File to Frack Horizontal Well w/Waterless Tech). We also gave you our analysis of how this action paints Cuomo into a corner (see Update on LPG Fracking in New York – What Comes Next?). The NY Post column does a great job exposing the lies of New York’s anti-drillers. They bleat and blat about contaminated water sources–that’s their stated objection to shale drilling. That’s the argument they always lead off with–how shale drilling will contaminate everyone’s water supply within a hundred miles. The argument is 100% false, but for the sake of our discussion, let’s remove water from the process, as LPG fracking does. To drill and frack an LPG well takes zero gallons of water. And yet, NY’s anti-drillers still object. Why? Because they irrationally hate all fossil fuels, including natural gas…
Read More “Will NY Gov Cuomo Ban LPG Fracking Too?”
About MDN | Calendar

Calendar of Events for Jul 27 – Oct 26 (90 Days)
July 27, 2015July 27, 2015

Below are upcoming events for the next three months (90 days). To see the full list of future events, visit this page: //marcellusdrilling.com/calendar/.

NOTE: To have an item included, please email it to: calendar@marcellusdrilling.com.
Read More “Calendar of Events for Jul 27 – Oct 26 (90 Days)”
Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Jul 27, 2015
July 27, 2015July 27, 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: Mon, Jul 27, 2015”
Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Greene County (PA) | Pennsylvania

EQT’s 1st Utica Well Shatters Record – 72.9 MMcf/d IP Rate!
July 24, 2015July 24, 2015

We have plenty of EQT news today, but none of it is (for us) as big as this: EQT finished fracking their very first Utica Shale well in Greene County, PA last week, a well that they call “the most technically challenging well” they’ve ever drilled. But man oh man was it worth it! The EQT Utica well is gargantuan. It is the new reigning #1 champ for any on-shore shale well anywhere in the world that we’re aware of when it comes to production. The EQT Utica well produced a truly astonishing initial production (IP) of 72.9 million cubic feet of natural gas per day (MMcf/d). The previous record-holder was a Range Resources Utica well in Washington County, PA at 59 MMcf/d (see Range Resources Drills #1 Producing Marcellus Shale Well in 1Q15). We’re not quite sure how to convey just how big this news is! EQT flowed their new Utica production right into a pipeline for sale–the well has not been shut in. Once the initial gush settled down, the well is now producing 22 MMcf/d. Stupendous output. EQT is planning to drill their second Utica well in Wetzel County, WV later this year…
Read More “EQT’s 1st Utica Well Shatters Record – 72.9 MMcf/d IP Rate!”
Energy Companies | EQT Corp

EQT 2Q15: Production Sales Up 34%, Production Rev. Down 146%
July 24, 2015July 24, 2015

Yesterday EQT became one of the first Marcellus/Utica producers (what we call “drillers”) to turn in their second quarter operating and financial results. They are a big and important player in the northeast and their results are instructive. The EQT update shows that it’s not only oilfield services companies like Halliburton and Baker Hughes that are being negatively affected by the low commodity price of natural gas and oil (see Tough Times: Baker Hughes Net Income Drops 153% in 1 Year). While EQT’s production year over year for 2Q15 was up an impressive 34%, because the hedges that were protecting the price they received have expired, EQT received a 40% lower price for their gas second quarter this year over last year–meaning revenue for natgas production in 2Q15 for EQT fell 146% (from $144.6 million in 2Q14 to minus $66.9 million in 2Q15)…
Read More “EQT 2Q15: Production Sales Up 34%, Production Rev. Down 146%”
Energy Companies | Energy Services | EQT Corp | Equitrans/EQT Midstream

EQT Midstream 2Q15: Lots of Pipeline Projects Still Coming
July 24, 2015July 24, 2015

While EQT Midstream numbers were included in today’s MDN story about EQT’s second quarter financial and operating results, the company also issued a second, separate update for EQT Midstream. We include a portion of that update below because it outlines the many pipeline projects the company is actively pursuing with their investment dollars. Those projects include building the new Allegheny Valley Connector; expanding existing gathering systems, including the Jupiter and Northern WV Marcellus Gathering systems; investment in the Ohio Valley Connector; investment in the Antero Resources east side expansion project; building the Mountain Valley Pipeline; and a new project announced yesterday–a new natural gas header pipeline for Range Resources (see today’s story on the Range announcement)…
Read More “EQT Midstream 2Q15: Lots of Pipeline Projects Still Coming”