Scranton Newspaper Takes Another Swipe at Local Landfill/Cuttings
This past summer MDN brought you the story of Keystone Sanitary Landfill and their request to expand the landfill skyward (see DEP Delays Scranton Landfill Expansion; Requires Study). Keystone Landfill, on the outskirts of Scranton, PA, is the state’s third busiest landfill. They accept a lot of Marcellus drill cuttings (leftover rock and dirt). A consultant for Keystone, Albert Magnotta, recently told Scranton’s anti-drilling rag the Times-Tribune that residents from the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area will run out of places to dump their trash in five years if Keystone is not allowed to expand. So the Times-Tribune found another landfill not too far away, Alliance Sanitary Landfill in Taylor, PA–owned by the country’s largest garbage collection/dumping service (Waste Management)–to dispute Keystone’s claim. The Times-Tribune would love nothing better than to close down Keystone (a privately-owned local company) and their ability to accept drill cuttings, by assisting a nationally-owned competitor…
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The biggest news to hit the oil and gas industry in recent memory happened yesterday. The financial press lit up (and ran HUNDREDS of stories) about the leak/announcement/news that oilfield services company Halliburton is “in talks” to buy out rival Baker Hughes. The largest oilfield services company in the U.S. (and in the world) is Schlumberger, followed by Halliburton (again, in both the world and in the U.S.). Baker Hughes (BH) is the fifth largest oilfield services company in the world, but #3 in the U.S. Halliburton’s market capitalization this morning–price per share times outstanding number of shares–is $47.65 billion. Baker Hughes’ market cap is $26.59 billion, up $5 billion since yesterday afternoon when the news broke. Combined, the two companies would be worth $74.24 billion and employ (if there are no layoffs) 144,000 people. Schlumberger’s market cap, by comparison, is $127.62 billion with 126,000 employees. Both Halliburton and BH are heavily involved in providing all sorts of services (rigs, fracking, logistics, etc.) for exploration & production companies in both the Marcellus and Utica, as well as every other major shale play in the U.S. AND in every conventional play around the world…
We have some more details about that lease deal for $100 million by Tug Hill Operating to lease land in Marshall and Ohio counties in the northern panhandle of West Virginia that we wrote about yesterday (see