Stone Energy has been slapped with a fine of $177,500 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for violating the Clean Water Act and dumping dirt and stone into a couple of creeks (without a permit) in Wetzel County, WV during well pad and roadway construction related to Marcellus Shale drilling. Here’s the details from the EPA…
Read More “Stone Energy Fined $177K by EPA for Fouling WV Creeks”
West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s office has announced that the Governor and first lady, along with Keith Burdette, Secretary of the West Virginia Dept. of Commerce and several other officials, are going on a road trip to Brazil to babysit, er advance the ball on the ethane cracker plant planned for the Parkersburg, WV area by Brazilian company Odebrecht and its sister company Braskem. The trade delegation will discuss “next steps” with their counterparts–to ensure everything is on track. It’s also a nice little junket/vacation to get the Guv (a Democrat) out of town after his state essentially turned Republican underneath his feet in Tuesday’s election…
Read More “WV Gov. Tomblin Leads Trade Mission to Brazil re Cracker Plant”
The mother’s milk of academe is grant money–and West Virginia University is happy to announce a new grant related to the Marcellus Shale. The U.S. Dept. of Energy is forking over $11 million to WVU and Ohio State University for a five-year project to study “baseline measurements, subsurface development and environmental monitoring” in the Marcellus and Utica Shale. The money will be used for research and to establish a first-of-its-kind Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory–a field site and dedicated research laboratory to be located at the Morgantown (WV) Industrial Park…
Read More “WVU/OSU Get $11M Grant to Study Shale Energy Best Practices”
Amidst the flurry of news about third quarter updates, we almost overlooked one important piece of news about Marcellus/Utica driller Antero Resources. As you may recall, Antero floated an initial public offering (IPO) of stock last year hoping to raise $1.4 billion. They got $1.57 billion (see Antero’s IPO Fetches $1.57B, Company Valued at $11B!). Just a few weeks ago Antero announced they were spinning off their midstream operation into its own company and floating an IPO for that new entity–hoping to raise nearly $1 billion more (see Antero Resources Launches Midstream IPO, Seeks $1B+). We’re happy to report–mission accomplished. Antero reported earlier this week they sold 40 million “units” (think shares of stock) for $25 each, which is higher than they were hoping–bringing in $1 billion…
Read More “Antero Midstream IPO Hauls in $1B, Stock Trading High”
EnLink Midstream, the merger of the old Crosstex Energy and Devon Energy midstream division, has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. So it was with interested we noticed the company is raising more cash by floating notes (pieces of paper, debts to be repaid at a future date) with the goal of getting $400 million to use in expanding their operations…
Read More “EnLink Midstream Floats Notes, Hopes to Raise $400M for Expansion”
PDC Energy, an independent exploration and production company that produces, develops, acquires and explores for crude oil, natural gas and NGLs with primary operations in the Wattenberg Field in Colorado and in the Utica Shale in southeastern Ohio, provided their third quarter 2014 update yesterday. PDC has sold their Marcellus operations and now concentrates on the Utica in the northeast (see PDC Energy to End Marcellus Drilling in 2014, Continue in Utica). PDC reports adding a second drilling rig to their OH Utica operation in July and, as a result, they’ve drilled 3 new Utica wells during 3Q14. Below we’ve pulled out relevant portions of the update dealing with the Utica Shale…
Read More “PDC Energy 3Q14: Drills 3 New Utica Wells, 11 Utica Wells Online”
Bentek Energy, the analytics and forecasting unit of Platts, is fresh out with numbers that the U.S. Energy Information Administration won’t release until Dec. 31. Namely, natural gas production in the lower 48 United States averaged 69.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in October–breaking its previous monthly average high for the 10th consecutive month. Production was up up 7.9% (or 5.2 Bcf/d) from average production a year ago, and according to Bentek, there’s no end in sight for how high production will go…
Read More “US Breaks Another Natgas Record: 69.9 Bcf/d Production in October”
Two days ago MDN told you that Range Resources is the winner of a contract to drill under (not on) Mingo Creek County Park in Nottingham Township in Washington County, PA (see Range Resources Wins Contract to Drill Under Mingo Creek Park). Precisely 2 (out of 207,820) Washington County residents turned up Thursday night to ask county commissioners to delay their impending vote to move forward with the lease. Certainly nothing out of the ordinary about that–except that the language used by those who oppose drilling (and fossil fuels) never ceases to surprise and amuse us. They intentionally attempt to conjure up images of environmental disaster and holocaust, even though there is no evidence to support their claims. For example, one of the two last night told commissioners by drilling under the park from land adjacent to the park it will create “a ring of fire” around the park. Of course, we immediately thought of Johnny Cash…
Read More “Washington County Votes to Establish “Ring of Fire” at Mingo Park”
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: Fri, Nov 7, 2014”
In our political coverage yesterday, we overlooked one very important race–perhaps the biggest shocker of all: For only the second time in the past 50+ years a Republican won the governorship in Maryland. Which is astounding when you consider Republican Larry Hogan (pictured on the left) is an older businessman who was outspent 4 times by his younger opponent, Anthony Brown (pictured on the right), who was/is the sitting Lt. Governor in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one. It was an utter repudiation of the last eight years of ever-higher taxes and a bungled roll-out of the Obamacare health exchange in Maryland. Oh, and did we mention that new incoming Gov. Hogan is pro-drilling?!…
Read More “Maryland Elects Republican for Governor, Fracking on the Way?”
That was fast. We find it amusing that Governor-elect Tom Wolf’s hometown newspaper, the York Daily Record (YDR), is already lowering expectations for their favorite son and what he’ll be able to accomplish as a Democrat governor in a state with an even larger majority of Republicans in the House and Senate than it had under current Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. The YDR says Wolf may not walk on water after all (although they’re not sure, he may), and that those nasty Republicans may, well, not just roll over and play dead like they’re s’posed to. Not only does Wolf have to fend off the nasty Republicans, he has a hard time keeping his own “supporters” somewhere in the realm of planet Earth. During Wolf’s victory celebration Tuesday night in York, when he mentioned shale drilling, some of the rabidly wacko anti-drillers in the audience went into hysterics–one of whom was physically removed from the premises…
Read More “Anti-Fracker Ejected from PA Gov-Elect Wolf Victory Celebration”
Range Resources has won the right to drill under (not on) the Mingo Creek County Park in Nottingham Township in Washington County, PA. We told you back in December that county commissioners were soliciting proposals to drill under the county park (see Washington County Seeks Proposals to Drill Under Mingo Creek Park). In the end, Range Resources, Rice Energy and EQT were all interested–but it was Range’s terms of a $6,500 per acre signing bonus with 18% royalties that won the day…
Read More “Range Resources Wins Contract to Drill Under Mingo Creek Park”
What about those idiotic “ban fracking” ballot measures up for a vote on Tuesday in Ohio’s Utica Shale? The ballot measure in Youngstown, OH was the fourth such vote for that city (see Fourth Time the Charm for Youngstown Frack Ban Measure?). The Youngstown ballot measure went down in flames. There was a ban measure in Gates Mills, OH, a suburb near Cleveland (see Gates Mills, OH Caves – Anti-Frack Measure on Nov. Ballot). The Gates Mills ballot measure went down in flames too. Finally, there was a ballot measure in ultra-liberal Kent, OH. That ballot measure was voted down (miracles never cease!). Three strikes and yer out. But what’s this? The loonies in Athens, OH prevailed in snookering enough Democrat voters to support a ban that it actually passed in Athens. A year ago we asked the question, Will Utica Shale Drilling Come to Athens County, OH Soon?. We can now answer that question: NO. No drilling will come to Athens–at least to the city (and likely the rest of the area) now that the voters of Athens have thumbed their nose at the industry. There’s plenty of other locations outside of Athens in which to drill…
Read More “3 of 4 Frack Ban Ballot Measures in Ohio Fail – Athens Exception”
Antero Resources, one of the largest acreage holders and biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica region, issued their third quarter 2014 update yesterday. During 3Q14 the company added another 32,000 net acres in the core of the Marcellus and Utica Shale plays resulting in 520,000 total net acres in the Appalachian Basin. The company’s net daily gas equivalent production averaged 1.08 billion cubic feet per day, a 91% increase over the prior year quarter. They also floated an IPO for their midstream division hauling in a hefty $1 billion more in revenue…
Read More “Antero 3Q14: Production Passes 1 Bcf/d; Adds 32K Acres in NE”
Gulfport Energy, a major Utica Shale exploration & production company, reported their third quarter 2014 operational and financial results yesterday. The compan reports spudding/drilling 31 Utica Shale wells in 3Q14, bringing 19 new wells online for production during the quarter. Right now they operate 8 horizontal drilling rigs in the Ohio Utica Shale. By the end of the year Gulfport will have spent upward of $750 million (or more) on their Utica drilling program for 2014. Here’s more…
Read More “Gulfport Energy 3Q14: 31 Utica Wells Drilled, 19 Brought Online”
MarkWest Energy, the largest midstream company operating in the Marcellus/Utica, issued their third quarter update yesterday. The company processed Marcellus and Utica Shale gas volumes averaging 2.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) during 3Q14. The also placed into service 800 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d) of new processing capacity, with the addition of Sherwood IV & Sherwood V in the Marcellus Shale and Cadiz II and Seneca III in the Utica Shale. In addition, MarkWest signed up new customers American Energy Partners in the Utica Shale and PennEnergy Resources and EdgeMarc Energy in the Marcellus Shale. The company continues to aggressively push forward in the northeast to build out infrastructure that’s desperately needed…
Read More “MarkWest 3Q14: 2.6 Bcf/d of Gas Processed, 800 Mmcf/d New Capacity”