OH Commission Sides with ODNR Boss to Keep Injection Well Closed
UPDATE: This is slightly old news–from August. The article we quoted from was run yesterday, but the events actually happened in August. We understand that the case has now been appealed to Common Pleas Court.
The Ohio Oil and Gas Commission, the five-member advisory council that’s part of the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) set up to hear appeals from any person claiming to be aggrieved or adversely affected by an order issued by the ODNR’s oil & gas division, upheld a decision by the ODNR to suspend operations at a Trumbull County injection well. The injection well is owned by American Water Management Services and following low-level earthquake a year ago, the ODNR’s Rick Simmers shut two injection wells down (see ODNR Temporarily Shuts Down Injection Wells After Low-Level Quake). Since that time, the ODNR allowed one of the two to reopen, but not the other (see ODNR Clears Trumbull Co. Injection Well in August Quake). The ODNR continues to “investigate” (i.e. drag its feet) so finally AWMS got tired and appealed the decision to the body that hears such appeals. Although supposedly independent, the Oil and Gas Commission works for the ODNR, so it’s no surprise they supported the ODNR in their decision to keep the second well closed…
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Last week MDN told you that Ohio’s RINO legislators continue to work on raising the Utica Shale severance tax in the state “behind closed doors” (see 
It’s strange, but true. Sometimes a single article that quotes a single financial expert/leader can dramatically affect a company’s stock price. Such is the case with CONSOL Energy. Last week an article in the Wall Street Journal quoted a hedge fund manager (investor playing with big piles of money) who said, in essence, he continues to bet that CONSOL’s stock will continue to drop in value, called a “short position” (for background on understanding short selling, see our article 
Gulfport Energy recently announced they have awarded $35,000 in grants for 10 projects in four Ohio counties, including projects benefiting local citizens in Guernsey and Belmont counties (Utica Shale country). The grants in varying amounts were given to schools, labor unions and colleges–for educational programs. One of the grants, for $5,000, will be used to purchase Google Chromebooks for 150 middle school students. Google’s Chrome OS is the official operating system for MDN (we LOVE it). Nice to see Gulfport blessing local schools and organizations in the regions where they operate…
Weatherford International is the fourth largest oilfield services company in the world, employing some 44,000 people. They have a branch office in Canonsburg, PA (Pittsburgh area) with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica. By comparison, Weatherford competitor Halliburton is the #2 largest oilfield services company in the world. A strange thing happened to Weatherford on Monday. The public company floated new shares of stock and new IOUs (i.e., convertible notes) hoping to raise $1 billion in cash. But a few hours after they announced the offering, they withdrew it because “while investor interest was strong for this offering” (so said the company), the price those investors were willing to pay for the new stock and notes was not anywhere near what Weatherford wanted. After withdrawing the offering, Weatherford’s stock tanked. Last Thursday Weatherford’s stock (WFT) traded as high as $11.15 per share. Yesterday it closed at $8.87 per share, down 20% from Thursday’s high…
MDN spotted an interesting report released yesterday by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. The report evaluates the change in GDP by metropolitan areas across the county. What the heck is GDP? It is gross domestic product (GDP), one of the primary indicators used to gauge the health of a region’s economy. GDP represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period. Think of it as the size of the economy in a given metropolitan (or state or country) region. What is interesting about the report to MDN is that it mentions shale energy and the Marcellus in particular as one reasons why certain areas of the country expanded. When you look at the map (below) we want you to note two things: (1) Most of the metro areas/regions in upstate NY are shrinking, rapidly; and (2) those areas in northeast and southwest PA, eastern OH and northern WV that have Marcellus/Utica drilling are expanding, rapidly. It is no accident. The Marcellus/Utica is a huge economic engine…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: job cuts continue in the Marcellus; NY town mulls supporting waterless fracking; NY energy prices go down thx to shale; MA energy prices go down thx to shale; secretive Rogersville Shale; Hillary disses XL pipeline; Leo DiCaprio dissess all fossil fuels; many myths about fracking; Obama enviro policies making blacks poorer; OPEC says they’re winning against US shale; and more!
In December 2013 MDN told you about the Cornerstone Pipeline project–a pipeline that will stretch nearly 50 miles from the MarkWest cryogenic processing plant in Cadiz, OH northwest connecting to M3’s fractionator plant in Scio and M3’s cryogenic processing plant in Leesville along the way as it terminates and connects to Marathon Oil’s refinery in Canton, OH (see 
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This is disappointing. For over a year utility and electric generating giant NRG had planned to convert a coal-fired electric generating plan in Avon Lake (Lorain County), OH to burn Utica Shale gas instead. NRG’s plan includes building a $40 million, 20-mile pipeline to feed the Avon plant. That pipeline was finally approved in June (see 
Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest midstream company of them all? As it turns out–it’s MarkWest Energy, the premier midstream company in the Marcellus/Utica! EnergyPoint Research has just published the results from its 2015 Oil & Gas Midstream Services Customer Satisfaction Survey, and MarkWest Energy received the top rating–for the fourth consecutive time. Other northeast midstreamers rating tops in at least one category include Crestwood Midstream and Williams…
Halliburton, the second largest oilfield services company in the world and a major presence in northeast drilling, performed a self audit of their 80,000+ employees and found that just over 1,000 (1.4%) of their employees were eligible for overtime but didn’t receive it. Some of those workers are in Pennsylvania Marcellus–39 of them in fact, who are owed a collective $800,000 in back wages. Halliburton turned themselves in to the U.S. Dept. of Labor, admitting the mistake and offering to make it right. The company reached an agreement with the DOL to pay $18,293,557 to 1,016 employees nationwide for uncompensated overtime, one of the biggest such cases “in recent years” according to the DOL…
In early September MDN told you that the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Utilities (DPU) approved long-term contracts for three utilities–Berkshire Gas, National Grid and Columbia Gas–to buy natural gas supplies from Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline–if it gets built (see 
A truck driver hauling coiled tubing (pipe) used for fracking had an unfortunate run-in with a railroad overpass in Columbiana County, OH. The railroad bridge running over State Route 558 in Fairfield Township is just 13 feet high. The coiled tubing on the back of the truck was higher, and the driver didn’t realize it. So when he went under the overpass, it literally pulled it off and dumped it across the highway. Oops…
Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) is a trade organization representing some of the largest manufacturing companies on the planet–manufacturing plants that buy a lot of natural gas. The IECA is picking a fight with interstate pipeline companies by claiming the pipelines, which are quasi public utilities, are overcharging for the delivery of gas flowing through them. The IECA wants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to step in and conduct rigorous reviews of the rates being charged…