Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, Oct 10, 2014
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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MSC Pushes Back Against NEPA Newspaper Sham Editorial on Exports
Three cheers for Marcellus Shale Coalition president David Spigelmyer for responding to a bone-headed editorial that recently appeared in the Wilkes-Barre, PA Times Leader castigating potential natural gas exports and denigrating the entire Marcellus Shale industry. The “reporters” of the Times Leader, in their sycophantic zeal and eagerness to obsequiously seek favor with their favorite candidate, Tom Wolf, ran an editorial titled, “Our Opinion: Exporting Pennsylvania’s natural gas to the globe defies good sense” in which they take pot shots at the men and women of the Marcellus along with mis-characterizing the issue of Marcellus gas exports. Mr. Spigelmyer had the ballsintestinal fortitude to verbally slap them across the face and tell them to grow up…
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Bradford County | Electrical Generation | Energy Services | IMG Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania
Details on 3 Marcellus-Powered Electric Plants in Bradford County
With 60 gigawatts of electric power generation going dark over the next few years due to Obama’s war on coal (enough electricity to power 45 million homes), something has to replace it. That something is almost always natural gas-fired electric generating plants. Some of those plants are sizable. But some are smaller. MDN previously reported that IMG Midstream wants to build a dozen tiny electric generating plants in across Pennsylvania–plants that will generate 4.4 megawatts of electricity. Seven of those plants are located in northeast PA (see 7 Small Marcellus-Powered Electric Plants Coming to NEPA). Three of those seven will be located in Bradford County, PA–one of the most heavily drilled counties in the state. Here’s a bit more detail about the three plants coming to Bradford County…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Luzerne County | Northampton County | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA | UGI Energy Services
Update on PennEast Pipeline–Its Physical & Emotional Path
The anti-drilling nutters at the Sierra Club (we call them Sierra Clubbers, you know, people who like to go “clubbing“?) have apparently polled a new phrase that they think is a winner. They’ve found when you say magic words, like “pipeline x will leave a nasty, ugly scar that’s irreversible” on Old Mother Nature, that gets low information people really fired up. So that’s the new phrase they toss around for projects like the recently announced PennEast Pipeline (see 3rd New NEPA Marcellus Pipeline Proposed, Connects to Trenton, NJ). PennEast will run from Wilkes-Barre, PA all the way to a spot near Trenton, NJ. Communities along the proposed route have been organizing meetings with the express purpose of castigating and ridiculing the proposed $1 billion project. “Not in my back yard!” they yell. The Sierra Clubbers helpfully sprinkle magic words like “scar the earth” which whips them up into even more of frenzy. So UGI and the four other partners in the project have abruptly stopped attending those meetings and will, instead, host their own meetings in an attempt to keep anti-drillers from trying to manipulate people’s emotions. Good for them…
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Chester County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Sunoco Logistics
West Goshen’s Legal Shenanigans Try to Block Mariner East Pipeline
Even though Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner East pipeline is already buried in the ground and has been for decades, some communities along the path of the pipeline don’t want Sunoco to repurpose the pipeline for use to flow natural gas liquids (NGLs) like ethane and propane. In order to repurpose the pipeline, Sunoco needs to build 18 pump stations and 17 valve control stations in 31 municipalities along its 299-mile route. Communities like West Goshen (Chester County, near Philadelphia) are fighting it because they don’t want such a station built in their township. Sunoco recently won a very important decision by the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) that said Mariner East always has been and still remains a “public utility” under PA law, which exempts them from local zoning ordinances (see Major Milestone: PA PUC Rules Mariner East IS a Public Utility). West Goshen isn’t happy with that so they’re appealing the decision in PA Commonwealth Court, asking the court to stop Sunoco from beginning construction before the appeal process plays out. West Goshen is holding the gun of the courts to the head of Sunoco and will intentionally try to play this out as long as they can (death by a thousand cuts)…
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Ohio U Researcher Gets Extra $1.45M to Finalize Wastewater Tech
An ongoing criticism of shale drilling is that the wastewater produced in the process–both the wastewater from fracking and then later, the naturally occurring water from the depths that comes out (called brine or produced water) needs to go someplace. Recycling it increasingly happens–but there’s still a lot that gets disposed of via injection wells. MDN recently told you about an incredible breakthrough technology that turns the nastiest frack wastewater into (yes) drinkable water in about a half hour (see Exclusive: Breakthrough Tech Cleans Frack Wastewater < 30 Minutes). Keystone Pure Water Tech, the company pioneering this new technology, is not the only company to work on cracking the recycle-it-at-the-well-pad technology. A researcher at Ohio University, Dr. Jason Trembly, has been working for two years on the same problem. He got an initial grant/investment of $2 million, and yesterday he got another $1.45 million to complete the project and get his technology released…
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Dominion Launches Public Offering for Midstream Subsidiary
Dominion Resources continues to dominate midstream news in the Marcellus/Utica. Recently the company announced that they, along with three other partners, want to build a $5 billion, 550-mile natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina, dubbed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (see Dominion Commits to Major New Marcellus/Utica Pipeline Project). Then the company received final approval to begin building a massive LNG export plant in Cove Point, Maryland (see Dominion Gets Final Fed Approval to Build Cove Point LNG Plant). Earlier this week, the company announced their midstream subsidiary, called Dominion Midstream Partners, is launching an initial public offering (IPO) to raise money for their projects. No word on whether/if either the Atlantic Coast Pipeline or Cove Point LNG plant will come under the umbrella of the new corporate entity…
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Alternative Energy | Erie County (NY) | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY
NY Gov. Cuomo Backs Billionaire Solar Guy Over Fracking
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is about to direct $750 million of taxpayer’s hard-earned money to go to Elon Musk, founder of Paypal and Tesla Motors, a man whose net worth is $11.7 BILLION. Why? It’s Cuomo’s crony capitalism move to get Musk to build a manufacturing plant near Buffalo that will produce (don’t laugh) solar panels. Can anyone say “Solyndra”? Cuomo is hoping to buy
votesUpstate NY jobs with his latest sleazy move. Meanwhile, if Cuomo would only open the state for hydraulic fracturing, he wouldn’t have to spend a dime of taxpayer money to create thousands of new jobs and lift the standard of living for everyone in Upstate. Instead, he prefers to steal from already-poor taxpayers and reward the super rich. Here’s more on the latest travesty unfolding in NY…
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Carrizo Gets a Bump Up in Line of Credit, Declines Most of It
The banks who lend money to Carrizo Oil & Gas, a Marcellus/Utica driller, have taken a look at the company and its assets and have determined that instead of a “borrowing base” (or line of credit) worth $570 million, Carrizo has done well enough that they’re ready to goose it up to a credit line of $675 million–a nice $105 million increase. (Maybe we should bank where Carrizo does!) Carrizo has said “hold on there a minute pardner, we’re just gonna increase it another $15 million for now.” And so Carrizo’s line of credit is now worth $585 million…
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Marathon Petroleum Buys the Hess Truck! What Will We Do for Xmas?
You know that big green Hess truck that pulls into your local Hess gas station to fill the underground storage tanks with gasoline? Neither the truck nor the gas station belong to Hess anymore. Hess has completed its transformation to a production and exploration (E&P) company only. Hess has E&P operations around the world, including an active drilling program in Ohio’s Utica Shale. Word came last week that Marathon Petroleum Corp has completed its purchase of Hess’ retail and transportation operations (gas stations and trucking)–for a whopping $2.82 billion. The purchase will allow Hess to laser focus on finding oil and gas. The burning question is, will Marathon keep the green Hess truck toys for Christmas?…
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Oct 9, 2014
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Accidents | Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Tioga County (PA) | Wastewater
PA DEP Levies Biggest Fine Ever, $4.5M Against EQT
We’ve got some bad blood happening between EQT–a big Marcellus driller headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA–and the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The DEP has just filed a lawsuit against EQT to force the company to cough up a new record–$4.53 million in fines–for a leaky wastewater impoundment in Tioga County, PA. The fine comes a week after the anti-drilling PA Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, once again abused her office’s powers by filing criminal charges against EQT (see today’s companion story). The DEP says EQT filed for and received permission to build a freshwater impoundment at that location in 2012, but after the impoudment was built, they decided to change and use it for frack wastewater. Problem is, with a wastewater impoundment you need monitoring wells drilled around the impoundment and extra protections that were lacking because it was supposed to be used for freshwater only. EQT then built a second impoundment next to it for wastewater and did install monitoring wells, figuring those monitoring wells would cover both impoundments. The first impoundment leaked and, according to the DEP, EQT just doesn’t get how serious the problems were/are that resulted, and so they’ve slapped them with their biggest single fine ever. EQT is already fighting back both legally and with their own press release…
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Accidents | Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Tioga County (PA) | Wastewater
PA Attorney Gen. Kane Abuses Office Again, Arrest Warrant for EQT
Last year Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, abused her office and filed criminal charges against XTO Energy over a spill of fracking wastewater at a site in Lycoming County, PA that happened more than three years ago–long before she took office (see PA AG Abuses Her Authority, Files Criminal Charges Against XTO). In a Britney Spears “Oops!…I Did It Again” moment, Kane has filed a second case of criminal charges against a driller over an accident. Last week Kane filed charges against EQT over a leaky wastewater impoundment in Tioga County, PA. Yesterday the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection fined EQT $4.53 million–it’s highest ever fine–over the same incident (see today’s lead story). Kane is claiming that EQT polluted and disturbed PA waterways and committed misdemeanor crimes in the process…
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Seismic Testing Company Behaves Badly in Greene County, PA
The following story makes us very angry. Provided the details are accurate and true–we have no reason to believe they aren’t–Geokinetics (a seismic testing company) and Cougar Land Services (landmen) have behaved badly toward a landowner in Greene County, PA that didn’t want any testing done on his land. To be fair, the property owner does not own the mineral rights under his land and doesn’t know who does. However, neither the landman nor the seismic testing company that attempted to (in our opinion) trespass on his property to do the testing notified him that they had permission from the mineral rights owner. And even if they did have permission from the mineral rights owner, they should have handled the testing in a far different manner than they did. The following article is from PublicSource in Pittsburgh. Yes, PublicSource is largely an anti-drilling news organization–but provided the reporting is accurate, truth is truth, no matter where it comes from…
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Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Virginia | West Virginia | Wetzel County
EQT’s WV to VA Pipeline Open Season a Success, FERC Filing in Oct
In early September MDN told you that EQT and NextEra Energy were getting hitched–in a joint venture for the 330-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline project that will run from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA (see EQT & NextEra Tie the Knot on WV-VA Pipeline Joint Venture). The happy couple, with EQT in charge, announced a binding open season for the proposed pipeline. Yesterday EQT said the open season has been successful with 2 billion cubic feet of capacity locked up in 20 year deals–but they’re waiting a few more days, until this Friday, before closing the door. EQT also said yesterday they expect to begin their pre-filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) later this month. Later this year they’ll begin open houses to discuss the project with communities where the pipeline will run. If everything goes according to plan, the pipeline will go online sometime around November 2018…
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PPG Tries to Prop Up Discredited/Shamed PA Rep Jesse White
You know that anti-drilling State Rep. Jesse White (Cecil, Washington County, PA) is in trouble when the Democrat editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes time to author an entire editorial to make excuses for his deranged behavior in attacking his own constituents by using fake online identities–pretending to be some of his own pro-drilling constituents and posting comments as them to make them look bad (see How the Mighty Have Fallen: PA Rep White Admits Guilt, Not Sorry). It’s sick, it’s unpardonable, and at a minimum unethical–perhaps even illegal. He should have been tossed out of office a year ago when it was exposed–but there you go. Behaving badly is a resume enhancer in the PA Democrat Party and now White’s fellow Dems on the editorial board of the PPG have to hold their noses and try to keep him in office with their lame “approval” of him…
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Three cheers for Marcellus Shale Coalition president David Spigelmyer for responding to a bone-headed editorial that recently appeared in the Wilkes-Barre, PA Times Leader castigating potential natural gas exports and denigrating the entire Marcellus Shale industry. The “reporters” of the Times Leader, in their sycophantic zeal and eagerness to obsequiously seek favor with their favorite candidate, Tom Wolf, ran an editorial titled, “Our Opinion: Exporting Pennsylvania’s natural gas to the globe defies good sense” in which they take pot shots at the men and women of the Marcellus along with mis-characterizing the issue of Marcellus gas exports. Mr. Spigelmyer had the 
You know that big green Hess truck that pulls into your local Hess gas station to fill the underground storage tanks with gasoline? Neither the truck nor the gas station belong to Hess anymore. Hess has completed its transformation to a production and exploration (E&P) company only. Hess has E&P operations around the world, including an active drilling program in Ohio’s Utica Shale. Word came last week that Marathon Petroleum Corp has completed its purchase of Hess’ retail and transportation operations (gas stations and trucking)–for a whopping $2.82 billion. The purchase will allow Hess to laser focus on finding oil and gas. The burning question is, will Marathon keep the green Hess truck toys for Christmas?…
We’ve got some bad blood happening between EQT–a big Marcellus driller headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA–and the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The DEP has just filed a lawsuit against EQT to force the company to cough up a new record–$4.53 million in fines–for a leaky wastewater impoundment in Tioga County, PA. The fine comes a week after the anti-drilling PA Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, once again abused her office’s powers by filing criminal charges against EQT (see today’s companion story). The DEP says EQT filed for and received permission to build a freshwater impoundment at that location in 2012, but after the impoudment was built, they decided to change and use it for frack wastewater. Problem is, with a wastewater impoundment you need monitoring wells drilled around the impoundment and extra protections that were lacking because it was supposed to be used for freshwater only. EQT then built a second impoundment next to it for wastewater and did install monitoring wells, figuring those monitoring wells would cover both impoundments. The first impoundment leaked and, according to the DEP, EQT just doesn’t get how serious the problems were/are that resulted, and so they’ve slapped them with their biggest single fine ever. EQT is already fighting back both legally and with their own press release…