Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Sep 16, 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 | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Regulation | Tennessee Gas Pipeline
MA Town Health Board Claims “Unlimited Power” to Stop TGP
Who knew the U.S. Constitution had a clause in it that grants the Deerfield, Massachusetts town health board “unlimited power” to do what they want to do. That’s what Cristobal Bonifaz, a lawyer from Conway, MA, is claiming. Even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to federal law, is the sole agency charged with granting or withholding permission on interstate pipelines, Bonifaz says the Deerfield health board has “unlimited power” to do what they want, and he’s volunteering to be their attorney in attempting to stop the expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline through the township. How?…
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Rex Gets Permits to Drill Near Martian School, Antis Apoplectic
Finally! On Friday, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection wisely granted drilling permits to Rex Energy for a site 3/4 of a mile away from a school in Mars (Butler County), PA. Some of the Martian parents are anti-drilling and demanded the school board engage in the illegal action of setting up a no-drill zone two miles beyond school property (see Martians Still Trying to Invade Neighbors to Prevent Drilling). Clearly such a measure would never hold up in court–but that doesn’t stop anti-drillers from trying, wasting everyone’s time and money. Now it looks to be a moot point. However, the Martians are not done yet. They’re a bit shell-shocked that their pretentious demands have been turned down (adult versions of spoiled children who have just been told “NO!”), so they’re regrouping and hatching new strategies on where to go from here…
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ETP Selects Manufacturer for 600 Miles of Pipeline for ET Rover
Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) in June announced their intention to build a 600-mile long pipeline called ET Rover that will shuttle some 3.25 billion cubic feet per day of Marcellus and Utica Shale gas to markets in the Midwest and Canada (see Big News: ETP “Rover” Marcellus/Utica Pipeline to Midwest/Canada). ETP hasn’t wasted any time. They already have a number of large customers lined up. The company has also lined up the manufacturer that will produce the 600 miles of pipeline–the largest order for this company in it’s 35-year history…
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Reversing the Fortunes for “Wrong Way” REX Pipeline
What happens when you build a major interstate natural gas pipeline–and you’ve guessed wrong about the market. That happened to Tallgrass Energy and their Rockies Express Pipeline (REX), which runs from Colorado and Wyoming in the West to Ohio in the East. The REX Pipeline was completed in 2009, just in time for the shale revolution to begin in the Marcellus and now in the Utica. What to do when you’re pumping gas into a saturated market? At last week’s LDC Gas Forum in Chicago, Tallgrass vice president Doug Walker said you change things up…
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OH Frack Sand Co Going Public, Seeks Big $ in IPO
An Ohio-based frack sand company, Fairmount Santrol (formerly Fairmount Minerals), recently announced their intention to go public and sell shares of stock. Flying under the legal name FMSA Holdings, the company is headquartered in Chesterland (Geauga County), OH, in the northeastern corner of the state. Fairmount Santrol was founded in 1986 and last year reported $1.2 billion in revenue (or $1.6 billion, depending on the source you use) and $114 million in net income. How much money do they hope to raise?…
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Poll: Huge Majority of PA Voters Want More Home-Grown O&G
The results of a Harris poll taken of 608 Pennsylvania registered voters at the end of July/beginning of August is bad news for anti-drillers–really bad news. The Harris poll found an astounding 87% of Pennsylvanians think it’s “important” that we produce more oil and natural gas right here in the good ole US of A–including Pennsylvania itself. That single question alone puts anti-drilling candidates on notice that they’re on the endangered species list this November. Even more astonishing: 70% of Pennsylvanians think the federal government doesn’t do enough to encourage energy infrastructure here at home. Talk about an anti-drilling nightmare in the making!…
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Antis Take Aim at PA Drillers for Not Hiring Enough Minorities, Women
We seriously wonder if PBS reporterette Marie Cusick, who writes anti-drilling diatribes on the Pennsylvania StateImpact website, has ever, herself, visited a Marcellus well pad. How else could she write an article pejoratively titled “Gas drillers still ignoring law to include women and minorities”? MDN has visited pads a number of times–and the thing that stood out to us was the number of women suited up in overalls working in the dirtiest jobs on the drill site. But let’s not let reality destroy a good work of “journalistic” fiction…
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National Media Acknowledges Marcellus Shale Saved the Bills
It’s not often that MDN sets the trend for national news, but we have to say we believe we did this time. Going back to June 2014, MDN speculated that if the Buffalo Bills franchise was purchased by billionairre Terry Pegula, it would be Marcellus money funding the purchase (see Fascinating Connection Between NFL & Marcellus/Utica). We then brought you the news that Aubrey McClendon, the former Chesapeake CEO and fracking “bad boy” the media loves to hate, would also help fund the purchase via his purchases of Marcellus and Utica property from Pegula (see Aubrey McClendon’s Money Makes Purchase of Buffalo Bills Possible). Last week the deal was struck and indeed, Pegula the Marcellus fracking billionaire, was the winner (see Buffalo Bills Stay in Buffalo, Thanks to $1.4B of Marcellus Money). After we reported that story on Wednesday, it took a couple of days, but eventually even Gannett and the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin had to admit we were right. In an interesting twist, the PSB reports that NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo is gushing with praise for Pegula, which of course just points out his sleazy, political double-standard on the fracking issue…
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Calendar of Events for Sep 15-28, 2014 [Free]
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.
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Sep 15, 2014
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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CWA v Waste Treatment Corp Wastewater Discharge Lawsuit Settled
In October of last year MDN told you the radical national anti-drilling organization Clean Water Action (CWA) had sued a small Pennsylvania company by the name of Waste Treatment Corporation (WTC) in Warren, PA in federal court claiming the company continued to accept, treat and discharge Marcellus drilling wastewater into the Allegheny River (see CWA Sues/Accuses Waste Treatment Corp of Continued Shale Pollution). WTC was supposed to have stopped that practice two years earlier, in 2011, after then-Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Michael Krancer, got all such operations to cease and desist. Responses to the CWA lawsuit from both the WTC and the DEP raised more questions than they answered for us (see Waste Treatment, PA DEP Respond to CWA Lawsuit). Since last year, the lawsuit has been quiet–at least publicly. Yesterday CWA announced they’ve reached a settlement of the case with WTC agreeing to immediately stop accepting/discharging Marcellus wastewater (even though they say they don’t), install expensive new equipment over the next 8 months, and then restart accepting Marcellus wastewater processing again…
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Advanced Well Services | Butler County | Energy Services | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Supply Chain
PA “Snubbing” Company DWS Experiences Rapid Expansion
What do you think of when you hear the word “snub”? We always thought it meant how Webster defines it: “to treat with contempt or neglect”. However, in the world of oil and gas drilling, to snub, or “snubbing” means something completely different. Deep Well Services (DWS) is the only “snubbing” oilfield services company located in Pennsylvania. With headquarters in Zelienople (Butler County), PA, the company has gone through a rapid expansion adding dozens of new employees over the past four months. So, what is snubbing and why should you care about it?…
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FEMA Discriminates, Won’t Help PA Landowners with Gas Leases
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has a reputation as a dysfunctional government agency–deservedly so. They botched the response to folks in need in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina under Pres. George W. Bush, and they botched the response to Hurricane (then “super storm”) Sandy in New Jersey and New York under Pres. Barack Obama. Many folks in New Jersey and New York still aren’t back in their homes or in comparable replacement homes–two years later. Now we learn that FEMA continues their losing streak with a new rule (published in May of this year) that if you’re a landowner with a shale drilling lease and you get flooded–you’re outta luck. FEMA will not grant flood insurance for properties, nor will they purchase flooded properties, that have a drilling lease. Landowners Pete and Sharon Morgan from Meshoppen Township (Wyoming County), PA have learned that the hard way…
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Shell CEO van Beurden Talks on American Shale, Global Warming
Last Friday Shell’s still relatively new CEO, Ben van Beurden, had a sit-down interview with editors and reporters from the Washington Post. You may recall that not long after taking the reigns of Shell (in March 2014) van Beurden announced the company would shed some of its American shale assets (see Cuts Coming to Shell’s Marcellus Shale Operations). Sure enough, they did (see Rex Energy Takes Shell to the Cleaners – Picks up 208K Acres). But a few days later Shell picked up more Marcellus acreage, making our heads spin (see After Selling 208K Marcellus Acres, Shell “Buys” 155K More Acres!). When asked by Post editors about Shell’s stumbling and bumbling in American shale, van Beurden said the company is not abandoning American shale–just being picky and going after “the best of the batch”…
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MSC, PIOGA, Chamber of Commerce Join National LNG Export Coalition
Pennsylvania is blessed with two industry premier trade groups and one premier business trade group that represent the oil the gas industry: the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA), and the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce. In an announcement yesterday, all three PA organizations signaled their support for an increase in exports of natural gas by joining a national coalition of groups called Our Energy Moment (OEM). With nearly 50 business and and economic development organizations, OEM raises awareness and (yes) “celebrates” the many benefits of expanded markets for liquefied natural gas (LNG) and exporting U.S. natural gas to our friends around the world…
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Who knew the U.S. Constitution had a clause in it that grants the Deerfield, Massachusetts town health board “unlimited power” to do what they want to do. That’s what Cristobal Bonifaz, a lawyer from Conway, MA, is claiming. Even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, according to federal law, is the sole agency charged with granting or withholding permission on interstate pipelines, Bonifaz says the Deerfield health board has “unlimited power” to do what they want, and he’s volunteering to be their attorney in attempting to stop the expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline through the township. How?…
Finally! On Friday, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection wisely granted drilling permits to Rex Energy for a site 3/4 of a mile away from a school in Mars (Butler County), PA. Some of the Martian parents are anti-drilling and demanded the school board engage in the illegal action of setting up a no-drill zone two miles beyond school property (see 
In October of last year MDN told you the radical national anti-drilling organization Clean Water Action (CWA) had sued a small Pennsylvania company by the name of Waste Treatment Corporation (WTC) in Warren, PA in federal court claiming the company continued to accept, treat and discharge Marcellus drilling wastewater into the Allegheny River (see