Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Jul 24, 2014
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Research | Statewide PA
Anti-Drilling PA Auditor General Criticizes DEP in “Report”
Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Democrat Auditor General Eugene DePasquale yesterday released a report (full copy below) criticizing the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) as being disorganized and ill-equipped to handle the rapid expansion of Marcellus Shale drilling in the state. What DePasquale forgot to mention in his report is his own whopping conflicts of interest. While he was a state legislator he pushed hard for so-called alternative energy programs to be funded by the state and as deputy secretary of the DEP he convinced a big wind farm operation to locate in the state. From his first day on the job, he was gunning for the Marcellus industry (see PA Auditor General Targets State’s Marcellus Drilling Industry)…
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Accidents | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Equinor/Statoil | Halliburton | Industrywide Issues | Monroe County | Ohio
EPA Reports on Enviro Damage from Statoil Well Fire in OH
On June 28 a fire at Statoil’s Eisenbarth eight-well pad in Monroe County, OH quickly spread and engulfed some 20 trucks on the pad site, along with other equipment, chemicals and supplies stored at the site. It was a devastating fire (see Statoil Frack Trucks Catch Fire in Monroe County, OH). Local, state and even federal agencies quickly responded to the incident and fortunately no one was injured. One of the responding agencies was the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA recently released their initial response report covering the period June 28 – July 5–a chronicle of actions taken, the facts known, and the EPA’s initial view on environmental damage caused by liquids escaping from the pad. We have the full EPA report (below), along with an update on the continuing fallout from that accident…
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Aubrey Goes Shopping Again, Wants Another $2 Billion for Drilling
Last week the news broke that wildcatter Aubrey McClendon, former CEO of Chesapeake Energy and current CEO of American Energy Partners (AEP), has filed the paperwork to form a new “blind pool investment” company called Energy 11 LP–controlled by AEP with the sole purpose of raising another $2 billion from investors to continue leasing and drilling in U.S. shale plays. As MDN has previously noted, it appears Aubrey continues to get the band back together (see Aubrey McClendon Gets Back into the Midstream Business). This time around, Energy 11 LP includes some of Aubrey’s old mates from Chesapeake who either left or were downsized by Carl Icahn and Doug Lawler during the Chesapeake purge. Let’s take a closer look at this latest effort by Aubrey, who has raised an average of $1 million per hour since he left Chessy last year!…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | Noble County | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Washington County
MarkWest Re-Opens Chartiers, PA Plant, New Plant in OH
MarkWest Energy Partners provided an update yesterday for two of its processing plants–one in the Marcellus and one in the Utica. MarkWest said Plant III at its Houston complex (Chartiers, Washington County, PA) is back up and running after being damaged by a lightening strike back in May (see Lightening Strike at MarkWest Chartiers Plant Causes Evacuation). They also said a brand new processing plant at their Seneca complex in Noble County, OH is now online and running, adding an additional 200 million cubic feet per day of processing capacity (now totals 600 Mmcf/d). Next up? Yet another 200 Mmcf/d plant at the Seneca complex, due to open in 2015…
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GreenHunter Files to Form Master Limited Partnership
GreenHunter Water has been in the news lately-a lot. In just the past month the company, the wastewater and water hauling subsidiary of Marcellus/Utica driller Magnum Hunter Resources, launched a natural gas liquids hauling subsidiary (see GreenHunter Launches Hydrocarbon Hauling Subsidiary in Northeast), announced they will build three new pipelines in the northeast (see 3 New (Short) Pipelines from GreenHunter in Tri-state Area), and applied for approval to build a new barge facility on the Ohio River (see GreenHunter Seeks Approval for Barge Facility in Meigs County, OH). Chalk up another milestone for GreenHunter. Yesterday the company announced they’ve filed with the IRS to become a master limited partnership (MLP)…
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Butler County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Reserves (Proved and Unproved) | Rex Energy
Rex Energy Proved Reserves Highest Yet: 1.1 Trillion Cubic Feet
Mid-year is the time oil and gas companies post an update on their proved reserves. MDN has run a few articles over the past couple of weeks highlighting some of those announcements for Marcellus/Utica drillers (see Gastar Proved Reserves Up 43% – 3/4 of it in the Marcellus and Magnum Hunter Proved Reserves Up 10.7%, Marcellus/Utica Tops). We provided an EIA article that helps define what proved (and other types of) reserves are (see Defining Our Terms: Different Types of O&G Reserves). On Monday Rex Energy got in the act and released their mid-year update on proved reserves. The company reports reserves have hit their highest level ever, exceeding 1 trillion cubic feet…
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U.S. Hits New Daily Production Record Thx to Marcellus/Utica
Genscape, an information company that tracks the flow of natural gas through pipelines in the U.S. (with some of the best intelligence in the business) announced that on Monday, natural gas production in the lower 48 states reached a new high water milestone: 70 billion cubic feet of natgas production in a single day. Which shale plays are “leading the way” in this record production, according to Genscape? Why, the Marcellus and Utica, of course!…
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Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Statewide OH | Wayne County (OH)
ET Rover Pipeline – The Right Way to Respond When Opposing It
Just about a month ago, MDN brought you the news that Energy Transfer Partners was planning a major new Marcellus/Utica Shale pipeline to transport up to 3.25 billion cubic feet per day of northeast shale gas to markets in the Midwest and Canada (see Big News: ETP “Rover” Marcellus/Utica Pipeline to Midwest/Canada). The project includes building 600 miles of 24, 36 or 42-inch pipeline mainly through Ohio and Michigan and into Ontario, Canada. On this side of the border it will be reviewed and permitted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The problem with the pipeline, from landowners’ perspective, is that it will have the power of eminent domain, leaving them with little negotiating power…
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Park Foundation Exposed as Funding Faux Research Against Shale
For years MDN (and others) have written about the shadowy Park Foundation, a supposedly philanthropic non-profit with offices in Ithaca, NY, as behind some of the most insidious and frankly false “research” that attempts to smear the miracle of hydraulic fracturing. A new article in the summer issue of Philanthropy magazine lays bare the collusion that exists between the Park Foundation and researchers at once-storied institutions like Cornell University. In fact, Park is the funder of many anti-shale groups, including Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and more than 50 large and small groups. Park has woven a clever web of bought-and-paid for “researchers” and “reporters” at both big and small media outlets to plant false stories about shale gas…
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Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Washington County | Wastewater
Range Resources to Close Wastewater Pond in Washington County, PA
So-called “investigative journalist” Amanda Gillooly maintains a “bash Range Resources all the time” blog site called Marcellus Monitor, on which she is reporting that Range Resources has filed a plan with the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection to close the Yeager wastewater impoundment in Amwell Township (Washington County), PA. Gillooly laughably says the impoundment is “the subject of myriad lawsuits and a federal probe.” Apparently two lawsuits is considered a myriad these days…
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MWCD Neighbor Asks District to Include Them in Future Lease Deal
The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) was formed in 1933 to help control flooding and promote water conservation in the Muskingum River watershed area of Ohio, an area that covers 8,000 square miles. Over the past few years the MWCD has been aggressively leasing some of it’s 54,000 acres for shale drilling, a move that is making the organization big bucks (see MWCD Reinvesting $300M of Utica Shale Revenue over Next 10 Yrs). Some of the MWCD leases are for drilling under and around reservoirs (see Antero Pays $15K/Acre, 20% Royalties for MWCD Piedmont Lake Lease). Anti-drillers have, of course, tried to spoil it (see Anti-Drillers Win Minor Victory Against Muskingum Watershed Dist), but such efforts have been largely unsuccessful in their attempt to derail shale drilling on MWCD land. What you don’t usually hear about are stories like this one…
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Butler County | Deep Well Services | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Supply Chain
PA Snubbing Company Expands by 50 Jobs in Just 3 Months
Another supply chain success story: Thanks to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, the only “snubbing” company located in Pennsylvania, Deep Well Services (DWS), has hired 50 new workers since May. By the end of this month they’ll have 128 employees on the payroll–almost all of them in PA, WV and OH. That’s more than 100 jobs added since 2012–thanks to shale drilling. Oh! What’s “snubbing” you ask?…
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Energy Companies | Gastar Exploration | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Reserves (Proved and Unproved) | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia
Gastar Proved Reserves Up 43% – 3/4 of it in the Marcellus
Gastar Exploration, a major driller in the Marcellus/Utica, posted a mid-year update on their proved (and unproved) reserves yesterday. When you lump all hydrocarbons together–natural gas, oil and condensate and natural gas liquids (NGLs)–Gastar’s estimated proved reserves totaled 78.0 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) as of June 30th. That’s up an eye-popping 43% over the same time last year. Where is all that gas coming from? Three-fourths of it is in the Marcellus/Utica, and one-fourth is in the Mississippi Lime/Woodford Shale in Oklahoma…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | Supply Chain | West Virginia
Primoris Wins Another Round of Pipeline Work in PA/WV Marcellus
A very short and light-on-specifics press release from Primoris Services Corporation says the pipeline building company, based in Dallas, TX, has just secured $80 million worth of contracts to build pipelines for “three major midstream operators” in the PA and WV Marcellus region. You may recall MDN also told you about several Primoris Marcellus Shale projects in June 2013 (see Rockford/Primoris Lands $92M in Marcellus Pipeline Contracts). Here’s the announcement of the latest round of work won by Primoris:
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Halliburton Promotes Bean Counter to President – CEO in Waiting?
The hated and reviled (by the left) oilfield services company Halliburton, whose CEO was once non other than that evil puppet master Dick Cheney, is promoting its executive VP and COO Jeff Miller, a CPA, to become president on August 1st. Miller will work closely with Dave Lesar, Halliburton’s chairman and CEO. Lest you get the wrong impression, our opening sentence was sarcasm for humorous effect. We love Halliburton! Although we’re not sure if appointing a bean counter to the top position is necessarily the best move…
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Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Democrat Auditor General Eugene DePasquale yesterday released a report (full copy below) criticizing the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) as being disorganized and ill-equipped to handle the rapid expansion of Marcellus Shale drilling in the state. What DePasquale forgot to mention in his report is his own whopping conflicts of interest. While he was a state legislator he pushed hard for so-called alternative energy programs to be funded by the state and as deputy secretary of the DEP he convinced a big wind farm operation to locate in the state. From his first day on the job, he was gunning for the Marcellus industry (see 
For years MDN (and others) have written about the shadowy Park Foundation, a supposedly philanthropic non-profit with offices in Ithaca, NY, as behind some of the most insidious and frankly false “research” that attempts to smear the miracle of hydraulic fracturing. A new article in the summer issue of Philanthropy magazine lays bare the collusion that exists between the Park Foundation and researchers at once-storied institutions like Cornell University. In fact, Park is the funder of many anti-shale groups, including Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and more than 50 large and small groups. Park has woven a clever web of bought-and-paid for “researchers” and “reporters” at both big and small media outlets to plant false stories about shale gas…