Marcellus Drilling News

Energy Services | Patterson-UTI

Patterson-UTI Rig Counts Drop More than 14% in 1Q15
April 7, 2015April 7, 2015

How much is drilling slowing down across all U.S. shale plays? This little statistic may illustrate it. Patterson-UTI operates (leases out) drilling rigs for shale and conventional drilling. They are one of the biggest rig firms in the Marcellus/Utica. If you were to average the first three months of the year–January through March–Patterson-UTI operated an average of 165 rigs in the U.S. and 8 rigs in Canada. But if you looked at just the month of March, Patterson UTI operated an average of 142 rigs in the U.S. and 4 rigs in Canada. That’s a pretty steep drop in numbers over the course of just a few months–more than 14%…
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Industrywide Issues | Research | Reserves (Proved and Unproved)

EIA: Marcellus Biggest US Gas Field, Eagle Ford Biggest Oil Field
April 7, 2015April 7, 2015

Last week our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, published an update to their U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves research. The update/report, titled “Top 100 U.S. Oil and Gas Fields” (full copy below) shows the 100 largest U.S. oil and gas fields by their estimated 2013 proved reserves. That’s the top 100 oil fields, and a second list for the top 100 gas fields–based on 2013 estimates for reserves. It probably won’t surprise you to learn the #1 gas field in the U.S. is the Marcellus. It may (or may not) surprise you to learn the #1 oil field in the U.S. in 2013 was the Eagle Ford (again, based on reserves). It likely will surprise you, as it did us, to not find the Utica/Point Pleasant anywhere in either list! But then we remembered that the Utica was just getting under way in 2013. Still, not even in the top 100? Seems a bit off to us…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

EPA Expanding CWA (Again), Applies to Shale Drillers re Wastewater
April 7, 2015April 7, 2015

We have mixed emotions about a new rule proposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that further extends the Clean Water Act behemoth by applying it (yet again) to regulating the oil and gas industry. The new rule, titled “Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Oil and Gas Extraction Point Source Category” (document number EPA-HQ-OW-2014-0598, full copy below) would prevent untreated frack wastewater from being treated by municipal sewer and water treatment plants. The entire rule is created because once upon a time this sort of thing did happen in Pennsylvania, before then PA DEP Secretary Michael Krancer put a stop to it in 2012 (see PA DEP, Marcellus Shale Coalition Admit Drilling Wastewater Likely Contaminating Drinking Water). The EPA thinks because PA used to do it, there’s nothing to say they might not fall into their old, bad habits and do it again “someday,” so the EPA wants to put a new unvoted-on law in place to prevent it…
Read More “EPA Expanding CWA (Again), Applies to Shale Drillers re Wastewater”
Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

Nonpartisan Brookings Research Finds Huge Benefits from Fracking
April 7, 2015April 7, 2015

The nonpartisan Washington, DC-based think tank the Brookings Institution recently published a detailed paper on the enormous benefits of shale gas to American society as a whole. Titled “Welfare and Distributional Implications of Shale Gas” (full copy below), the research paper finds that the average American household that burns gas now saves $200 per year on the cost of that gas, a cumulative economic impact of adding $13 billion more in disposable income into the economy. In fact, as of 2013, Brookings finds the “fracking revolution” as they call it, has improved the economic well-being of consumers a staggering $74 billion per year. All because of the miracle of fracking…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Cuyahoga County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Ohio | Regulation

Broadview Heights, OH Moms: Don’t Frack With Us
April 7, 2015April 7, 2015

Three weeks ago anti-drillers in the Cleveland suburb of Broadview Heights were handed a crushing defeat in which a County Common Pleas Court judge struck down a so-called community “bill of rights”–the only “right” of which was to deny legitimate oil and gas drillers the ability to conduct business. We pointed out what sore losers anti-drillers are (see OH Antis Handed Crushing Defeat in Broadview Hghts Home Rule Case). The immediate reaction from the small group of antis in Broadview Heights was to engage in borderline sedition–calling the government and the courts illegitimate. They’ve appeared to dial back that rhetoric just a tad (perhaps their lawyer told them to pipe down), but they’re still PO’d (personally offended). Last night Mothers Against Drilling In Our Neighborhood (MADION) held a rally to spout and vent…
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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Apr 7, 2015
April 7, 2015April 7, 2015

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Belmont County | Energy Companies | Forced Pooling | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Ohio | XTO

XTO Threatens Belmont County, OH Landowner with Forced Pooling
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Belmont County landowner Curtis Wallner doesn’t know what the term “nuisance oil” means in the contract XTO Energy is offering him to lease his 26 acres. The contract says Wallner will receive an eye-popping $8,000 per acre in signing bonus money, plus 20% royalties, MINUS revenue for “non-commercial nuisance oil.” Because XTO can’t or won’t explain it or remove it from the contract, Wallner won’t sign (can’t say that we blame him). So XTO is threatening him that they’ll take his gas anyway via forced pooling… Read More “XTO Threatens Belmont County, OH Landowner with Forced Pooling”
Brooke County | Economic Impact | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Regulation | West Virginia

Brooke County, WV Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant Plan Advances
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

A month ago MDN brought you the big news that the father and son team building a $615 million, 549 megawatt electrical generating plant near Moundsville, WV that will be powered by Marcellus Shale gas are planning to build three more of them–all in West Virginia (see Big News: 3 More Marcellus-Powered Electric Plants Coming to WV). Two of the three new plants will, if built, be located in Brooke County, WV. Last month the Brooke County Commission signed two memorandums of understanding with Energy Solutions Consortium (father and son Andrew and Matthew Dorn) to agree to a plan to let the Dorns build the plants and then sell them to the county, leasing them back to run them–a plan called a PILOT plan, or “payment in lieu of taxes.” The plan allows the Dorns to avoid paying prohibitively high property taxes on the plants while still generating a big, fat payment to the county and local school district. Last week the local board of education and town council also signed on to the plan, an important next step in making the project a reality…
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Electrical Generation | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | UGI Energy Services

UGI to Feed Jessup, PA Electric Plant with Marcellus Shale Gas
April 6, 2015October 17, 2015

As MDN has previously chronicled, Chicago-based Invenergy hopes to build what will be the largest (to date) electric generating plant in the state of Pennsylvania powered by natural gas (see Public Hearing on NEPA Proposed Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant). Invenergy hopes to build the 1300-megawatt plant (incorrectly listed as 1500 megawatts in the excerpt below) in the borough of Jessup (Lackawanna County), near Scranton. The project has it’s opponents, some of whom make some outrageous claims (see Gas-Powered Electric Plant to be Built “on Thousands of People”). There’s been some important progress with this project. UGI, the local electric and gas utility company, has just announced they will upgrade 19 miles of pipeline and build 3 miles of new pipeline to feed the proposed plant with yummy, cheap, clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas…
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Allegheny County | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania

Funny! NY Fractivist Steingraber Says Fracking is a “Feminist Issue”
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Bet you didn’t know that fracking is a “feminist issue” did you? Why? Well, we suppose because it’s mostly men who do the fracking. Men are the frackers and presumably women (meaning Mother Earth) are the fracked. Almost sounds like rape, doesn’t it? That’s exactly how it’s intended to sound by the likes of the bizarre and getting more so by the day Sandra Steingraber, the so-called “scholar in residence” at Ithaca College. Although Steingraber is on staff at IC, she doesn’t actually teach anything. She’s paid to parade around to events like today’s lecture at the University of Pittsburgh, titled “Fracking is a Feminist Issue: Women Confronting Fossil Fuels and Petrochemicals in an Age of Climate Emergency.” Honest to God you can’t make this stuff up. Words just really can’t convey the lunacy of liberals like Steingraber when they go completely off the rails as she has so obviously done. Rather than try to tell you how idiotic this is, we’ll just share with you the exact words they use to describe tonight’s “lecture”…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues

Texas Fractivist Says Fracking Equals Rape, Earthworks Agrees
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

If you’re walking down the street in Texas and you see a drilling rig, you darned well better RUN, because that rig may RAPE you. So says Texas anti-drilling activist Sharon Wilson. Wilson’s tweet and statements on the raping of Texans by oil and gas drillers was just too juicy for the odious “environmental” group Earthworks, so they picked it up and re-tweeted it, adding their own endorsement of her words. Wilson went off the rails and lost her cool when the Texas legislature voted to advance House Bill (HB) 40, a bill that would vest more regulatory oversight with the state rather than allowing local town boards to try and regulate drilling on their own. So-called “home rule” is the gold standard for anti-drillers like Wilson. She can go on a perpetual, never-ending tour of local town board meetings to proclaim her lies about fracking and drilling. If home rule is snatched away, why, she’ll have nothing to do!…
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Air Quality | Industrywide Issues | Research

Study Finds “Fugitive Methane” from Local Utilities Down 36-70%
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Every now and again we revisit the manhunt for that vile villain and fugitive from justice–Fugitive Methane (FM for short). FM loves to escape into the atmosphere where, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, it is “a particularly powerful climate warmer – 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe.” Never mind that the biggest source of FM in the U.S. is cows burping (see Biggest Producer of “Fugitive” Methane is… Cows?!), and never mind the reason for expensive and costly EPA rules to prevent so-called FM in the oil and gas industry is to prop up renewables (see Real Reason for EPA Methane Rules: Prop Up Expensive Renewables). The manhunt for FM in the energy industry continues. We have some disturbing news–for global warming nutters that is. FM coming from LDCs (local distribution companies, or your local gas utility) is, according to a study just published in the peer reviewed journal Environmental Science and Technology, 36% to 70% LOWER than FM levels from the early 1990s, the last time such measurements were made. The kicker? The Environmental Defense Fund was part of the research team studying it and publishing these findings, along with lead researchers from Washington State University. You can be sure this study will get zero pickup from biased mainstream media…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Virginia

Researcher Uses Official UVA Email to Oppose Dominion Pipeline
April 6, 2015April 8, 2015

UPDATE 4/7/15: Rick Webb provided a response to this MDN article, which we’ve included below.

The $5 billion, 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline project is scheduled to pass from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina bringing cheap, abundant Marcellus and Utica Shale gas to the southeast (see Dominion Commits to Major New Marcellus/Utica Pipeline Project). Many Democrats support the project, including Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe. But not all Dems support it. As with all proposed pipeline projects in the northeast/mid-Atlantic area, there are fossil fuel haters (global warmists) who oppose it simply because it’s a fossil fuel. One of those organizations is The Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition, a group set up and run by a retired University of Virginia environmental scientist Rick Webb. Although Rick retired last year, he continues to participate in supporting several research projects at UVA, including the Shenandoah Watershed Study (SWAS) and the Virginia Trout Streams Sensitivity Study (VTSSS). Rick recently sent MDN (and other media outlets) an email from his official UVA email account to promote his anti-Atlantic Coast Pipeline group. We wonder if UVA supports Rick’s anti-pipeline activities and knows that he is using his UVA email account (with an implied connection that UVA supports what he’s doing) to denigrate Dominion?…
Read More “Researcher Uses Official UVA Email to Oppose Dominion Pipeline”
Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies

Chesapeake’s Chairman Buys 1 Million Shares – What Does it Mean?
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Back in 2012 as the palace coup was getting under way at Chesapeake Energy, five new board members were installed by corporate raiders Carl Ichan and Mason Hawkins (the two biggest stockholders in the company). At that time, Ichan and Hawkins selected Archie Dunham, then 73 years old, as the new chairman of the board (see Chesapeake Energy’s Board Changes, Archie Dunham New Chairman). Dunham is the retired chairman of ConocoPhillips. He was previously chairman, president and chief executive officer of Conoco Inc. from 1999-2002, after being elected president and CEO in 1996. To his credit, Dunham has stuck around at Chessy. He’s obviously drinking the Doug Lawler (current CEO of Chesapeake) Kool Aid and believes mass firings and selling everything but the kitchen sink will turn the company into a money maker. He believes so much he just spent $13,980,000 of his own money to buy 1 million shares of stock, upping his stake in the company to 2.6 million shares. Dunham thinks the stock is at its rock bottom right now and has no place else to go but up. Is Dunham crazy like a fox? Or is he just plain crazy?…
Read More “Chesapeake’s Chairman Buys 1 Million Shares – What Does it Mean?”
Buckeye Partners | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Michigan | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide MI | Statewide OH

Buckeye Partners Expanding MI/OH Refined Products Pipeline East
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Buckeye Partners, headquartered not in Ohio but in Houston, TX, launched an open season for an expansion of a pipeline that we somehow missed, on January 30. Called the Michigan/Ohio Pipeline Expansion Project, the expanded pipeline project is for flowing “refined petroleum products” (things like gasoline, kerosene and heating oil) and will run from Woodhaven and Detroit, Michigan, and from Toledo and Lima, Ohio, to destination points in both Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. Buckeye reports the open season is now closed and was successful and they plan to move forward with expansion plans, slated to be complete by the second half of 2016. Does the expansion include building any new pipeline?…
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Broome County | Industrywide Issues | New York | Research | Statewide NY

PA Health Expert to Address NY “Study” on Fracking Health Impacts
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

In December, Dr. Theodore Them, MD, MS, PhD, MPH was a guest on the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) Good News Table Talk Radio program (see PA Public Health Expert Destroys NY Health Study, Frack Ban). We are excited to announce Dr. Them is returning for another session this coming Sunday evening at 7 pm on Binghamton radio station WNBF 1290 (listen online here). Dr. Them has reviewed the so-called health review peddled by New York State Acting Health Commission Howard Zucker and will share his findings about the MANY shortcomings in Zucker’s “review”…
Read More “PA Health Expert to Address NY “Study” on Fracking Health Impacts”