Marcellus Drilling News

Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania

Public Hearing on NEPA Proposed Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant
January 6, 2015January 7, 2015

In August 2013, MDN told you about plans by Invenergy to build a combined-cycle electric generating plant near Scranton, PA that would be powered by locally extracted Marcellus Shale gas (see Marcellus Gas to Power Combined-Cycle Electricity Plant in NE PA). In October 2014, Invenergy purchased the 80-acre parcel where they plan to build the plant (see Invenergy Buys Land in NEPA for Natgas Electric Generating Plant). These things, however, take time. A lot of time. Years, according to Invenergy. Last night residents from the township where the plant would be built, Jessup, attended a standing-room only meeting. Press accounts indicate the room was divided with some in favor and others opposed to the project…
Read More “Public Hearing on NEPA Proposed Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant”
Industrywide Issues | M&A

Will Some Marcellus/Utica Drillers be Takover Targets in 2015?
January 6, 2015January 6, 2015

Even though oil prices set one foot over the price cliff starting last year (both feet are now over the cliff), top flight research firm IHS reports that mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the energy sector, particularly in the “upstream” (drilling) area, were brisk in 2014. Upstream M&A rose 23%, to $173 billion, according to IHS. Year over year, M&A activity in the Marcellus/Utica region doubled, going up by 16%. Not surprisingly if you’re an oil & gas company with debt up to the neck and low or no hedging on the prices you receive for your oil & gas, you’ll be in the cross-hairs for a takeover in 2015, according to IHS…
Read More “Will Some Marcellus/Utica Drillers be Takover Targets in 2015?”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

LOL: Anti-Fossil Fueler Says Pipelines are Like ‘Parasitic Worms’
January 6, 2015January 6, 2015

We noticed a letter to the editor, published by the increasingly anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post Gazette, in which the author says pipelines, like the proposed $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline that will run from West Virginia to North Carolina, are “parasitic worms” traveling under the surface. Obviously it’s another case of FDS–Fracking Derangement Syndrome–which has metastasized in the head of someone who grew up watching Captain Planet cartoons. Fossil fuels are evil, don’t ever cut down a single tree, throw away your flyswatter–you get the idea. Rather than pipelines “worming” their way under the ground like parasites that eventually kill its host, we’d say a better metaphor is that pipelines carrying natural gas and oil are like the veins and arteries in your body–delivering life-giving nourishment (energy) to every part of the body. Without them, you’d die. In fact, counter to the notions of this silly letter writer, without natural gas and oil and the pipelines they run through, many millions of Americans would die…
Read More “LOL: Anti-Fossil Fueler Says Pipelines are Like ‘Parasitic Worms’”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Butler County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Rex Energy

Martian Update: Principal Doesn’t want Rex Drilling Near his Home
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

Between Christmas and New Year, Middlesex Township (Butler County), PA held the second of what may be up to five hearings on the already-granted permits for Rex Energy to drill five wells on a single well pad in the township. You may recall that two agitating “environmental” groups–headquartered on the other side of the state, in the Philadelphia area–along with four parents from the Mars School District, filed an appeal of the legal and legitimate permits granted by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection to Rex in September (see Rex Drilling Operation Near Mars School Put on Hold). The first hearing was held in November and the antis (as they always do) droned on for more than four hours (see Martians & Enviro Groups Continue to Block Rex Drilling in W PA). They continued their whine-fest on Dec. 29th with another five hours of mind-numbing sameness–drilling will kill us, drilling will pollute Mother Earth, yada yada yada. The main excuse is that drilling 3/4 of a mile from a local school will harm the kiddies. No mention that at least two school districts in the state, one close to Mars, has allowed drilling ON SCHOOL PROPERTY with no harm to the kiddies in those districts. At the hearing on the 29th, we get the REAL story behind the (ab)using of children as an excuse. One of the Mars School District principals lives near the drill pad and he opposes drilling near his expensive new home…
Read More “Martian Update: Principal Doesn’t want Rex Drilling Near his Home”
Axiall | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Gastar Exploration | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Marshall County | West Virginia

Gastar Wins WV Lawsuit to Keep Fracking, Completes 10 New Wells
January 5, 2015January 6, 2015

In November we told you that Chemical manufacturer Axiall, with a plant in Natrium (Marshall County), WV, had successfully stopped Gastar from fracking several drilled shale wells located near the chemical plant (see Gastar Fracking Near WV Chemical Plant Halted Pending Court Review). Axiall was afraid that fracking the wells would release fugitive methane into their nearby brine wells. Axiall says something similar happened previously with some of their brine wells near a Triad Hunter fracking operation. But Gastar fought back and today announced a WV court has thrown out the lawsuit brought by Axiall and that Gastar is now free to frack. According to Gastar, Axiall tried to stop them in PA with a similar kind of lawsuit which was also dismissed…
Read More “Gastar Wins WV Lawsuit to Keep Fracking, Completes 10 New Wells”
Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Pipelines | Tyler County | West Virginia

What’s a Fair Price for Running Pipelines Through Your Property?
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

The landowners in Tyler County, WV who sit along the proposed route of Energy Transfer Partners 800-mile, $4.4 billion pipeline, called Rover, to connect the Marcellus/Utica region with the Midwest and Canada are asking for one thing: a fair price. According to one landowner, they’ve received an offer from ETP that’s about 1/3 of where it should be. Problem is, if landowners don’t accept ETP’s offer, once the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approves the pipeline, ETP can then use eminent domain to simply take the land it needs and pay the price it wants to pay. Landowners’ only recourse at that point is to ask a court to arbitrate a price. No, we’re not fans of eminent domain–it’s an imperfect concept for an imperfect situation in which some hold-out landowners remain unreasonable. But that doesn’t excuse lack of a fair price. So what price has been offered and what do landowners think is a fair price to receive?…
Read More “What’s a Fair Price for Running Pipelines Through Your Property?”
Commodity Price | Industrywide Issues

Marcellus Gas Price Got as Low as $0.53/Mcf on Friday in PA
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

An article in the Financial Times (yes, THE Finanical Times, published in London) says even though the weather has turned colder and snowier in the northeast U.S., natural gas prices are still in the basement. And boy are they right. According to the FT article trading from last Friday at the Leidy hub in Pennsylvania traded for 80 cents per Mcf (or the equivalent, 80 cents per million British thermal units). It’s actually worse than that at the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Zone 4 Marcellus trading point. Last Friday the price got as low as 53 cents per Mcf. The average for all trades last Friday at Zone 4 Marcellus was 67 cents per Mcf. Talk about prices going into and through the basement!…
Read More “Marcellus Gas Price Got as Low as $0.53/Mcf on Friday in PA”
Allegheny County | Housing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Washington County

Home Values in Heavily Drilled Western PA Go Up, Not Down
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

Yet another anti-drilling lie is put to rest–again. You often here that “the value of my house, my property, will decrease if drilling comes to the area.” Not so. Take the uber-drilled area of Allegheny and Washington counties, essentially the Pittsburgh, PA area. Housing values there have gone up–and it’s a “seller’s market” according to real estate professionals. Why? The Marcellus Shale, of course…
Read More “Home Values in Heavily Drilled Western PA Go Up, Not Down”
Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation

Feds Eye Regulating Local Natgas Gathering Pipelines
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

Is it a good idea for the federal government to start regulating local natural gas gathering pipelines? We can debate whether or not it’s good to have more federal encroachment on the states, but at the end of the day, it may be academic because the feds intend to do it. The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has been studying the issue of local gathering line regulations since 2011 and will, later this year, propose new regulations (i.e. un-legislated laws). Although new regulations may be coming from the PHMSA, it’s not clear to us who (which agency, federal or state) would enforce those new regulations. Likely state regulators would enforce the new regulations…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Obama Sec of Interior Says Frack Bans ‘Wrong Way to Go’
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

President Obama’s Secretary of the Interior, Sally Jewell, told a PBS reporter she thinks fracking bans, like those passed by several California towns and by the state of New York, are “the wrong way to go.” She says, in so many words, that fear-mongering results in bad laws, like frack bans. Needless to say, anti-drilling zealots are not pleased that Jewell, who happens to be a former petroleum engineer (someone with a brain who knows what she’s talking about), has popped their pretentious bubble and questioned their fear-mongering tactics…
Read More “Obama Sec of Interior Says Frack Bans ‘Wrong Way to Go’”
Alternative Energy | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

NY: Forget Shale Methane, Tap Organic Waste (i.e. Poop) Instead
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

We had to pick ourselves up off the floor after laughing so hard at the latest machinations to be turned out by the in-the-tank-for-Andrew-Cuomo and left-of-Vlad-Putin Albany Times Union. The TU recently ran a commentary piece by the anti-drilling “Energy Vision” organization that, we kid you not, says forget about evil, nasty fossil fuel methane. Instead, we need to start using “renewable” methane–from poop…
Read More “NY: Forget Shale Methane, Tap Organic Waste (i.e. Poop) Instead”
Broome County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Reminder: NY Landowner Frack Ban Protest Today in Binghamton, NY
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

A quick reminder from the Central New York (CNY) Landowner Coalition–perhaps the largest of the member coalitions that belong to the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY)–that today, Jan. 5, there is a mass protest scheduled in Binghamton, NY to send the message very loud and very clear to Gov. Andrew Cuomo that he screwed up big-time with his politically-based decision to ban fracking in the Empire State. Here’s the details for the protest:
Read More “Reminder: NY Landowner Frack Ban Protest Today in Binghamton, NY”
About MDN | Calendar

Calendar of Events for Jan 5-18, 2015 [Free]
January 5, 2015January 5, 2015

Below are upcoming events for this week and next. 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 Jan 5-18, 2015 [Free]”
Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Jan 5, 2015
January 5, 2015January 5, 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, Jan 5, 2015”
Energy Companies | Southwestern Energy

Southwestern Energy on a Tear – Doubles Marcellus Budget for 2015
December 31, 2014December 31, 2014

Southwestern Energy is on a tear in the Marcellus/Utica region. In 2014, the company picked up 413,000 acres and some 1,500 wells from Chesapeake Energy for $4.975 billion and paid another $394 million to Statoil as part of that same deal (to get more ownership of the jointly-owned acreage); Southwestern purchased all of WPX’s acreage–46,700 acres and 63 Marcellus Shale wells–in northeast Pennsylvania for $300 million; and Southwestern cut a deal with DTE Energy to significantly expand their pipeline gathering system in northeast PA. They’ve also been busy in several other shale plays. On Monday, Southwestern issued a company update and guidance for 2015. The very notable thing about that update: Southwestern, contrary to almost every other major and minor shale player, is increasing spending on shale drilling in 2015, by $200 million…
Read More “Southwestern Energy on a Tear – Doubles Marcellus Budget for 2015”
Accidents | Energy Services | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Washington County | Williams

Explosion, Fire at Meter Station Along Williams Ethane Pipeline in SWPA
December 31, 2014December 31, 2014

A meter station along the Williams Ohio Valley Ethane pipeline reportedly exploded and caught fire in in Chartiers Township (Washington County), PA–about four miles from Houston, PA–on Christmas Eve. The fire has caused the shut-down of the ethane pipeline that runs some 50 miles from Marshall County, WV to an ethane hub in Houston…
Read More “Explosion, Fire at Meter Station Along Williams Ethane Pipeline in SWPA”