Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, June 4, 2014
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Smoking Gun in NY? Cuomo Political Aides Met with Shah & Martens
Let’s give credit where it’s due. Gannett repeatedly filed Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to get schedule details about former Commissioner of the New York State Dept. of Health (DOH) Nirav Shah. Gannett has been fishing to see who Shah talked to in his now 1.5+ year “review” of proposed fracking regulations–a process that Shah himself said should only take a few weeks to complete (see NY Health Com. Nirav Shah Says Fracking Health Review Almost Done). Not long after that statement, Shah did some major backpedaling and refused to peg a date when he would finish his review (see Cuomo Underling Shah: “No Timetable” on Fracking Decision). It’s now a year and a half later. The question we posed at the time was, who’s pulling Shah’s strings? Thanks to some (rare) investigative reporting by Gannett–now we know. Andrew Cuomo was and is pulling the strings, and there’s a smoking gun to prove it…
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Rice Energy’s Bigfoot New Reigning Utica Well Champ – 42 Mmcf/d!
Rice Energy’s corny well names have, in this case, turned into a self-fulling prophecy. Rice announced yesterday that their first Utica Shale well–the Bigfoot 9H in Belmont County–is producing an initial 41.69 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. That production places the Bigfoot on top of the heap as the most productive Utica well so far–flying by Antero Resources’ Yontz well (see Antero Resources Utica Well Produces Stratospheric 38.9 Mmcf/d). In addition to this huge news, Rice also announced they’ve increased their line of credit and they’ve lined up more pipeline capacity for their Utica Shale gas…
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CNG/LNG | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Exporting | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Regulation | Statewide MD
Good News: Maryland Approves Dominion Cove Point LNG Plant
First the Dept. of Energy approved it (see Celebrate! Dominion Wins DOE Approval for MD LNG Export Facility), then the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see FERC Final EIS: Cove Point Won’t Hurt Environment), and now, the Maryland Public Service Commission has approved Dominion’s plan to build a ~$3.5 billion liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plant in Cove Point, MD. Specifically, the PSC issued a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) last Friday. The certificate is needed to allow Dominion to install two 65-megawatt steam turbine generators that produce electricity. The waste heat from two combustion turbines, which are used to drive compressors to produce LNG, will be recycled to produce steam to drive the steam turbines. The PSC’s action is yet another important milestone/hurdle passed by Dominion on their inevitable way to building and operating the plant…
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Obama’s Climate Madness Metastasizes – EPA Kills Coal Electricity
Get ready for rolling blackouts. We predict a run on candles at the local Walmart. We’re talking, of course, about President Obama’s EPA unilaterally forcing coal generating electric plants to shut down in the coming years because they can’t meet strict new carbon emission standards (coal is made from…carbon). All of the wind and solar and purple unicorns in the world won’t replace the electricity that’s about to go away thanks to the Obamadroids. Some of the slack will be taken up by natural gas–but it’s a hollow victory for natgas because electric power plants won’t be able to convert quickly enough and infrastructure won’t be in place soon enough to prevent mass electric outages. And no, we’re not kidding…
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Aubrey McClendon Announces 2 New Hires for AEP’s Utica Operation
Aubrey McClendon announced yesterday that he’s made a couple of key hires for his new company American Energy Partners. Now working at AEP is Jeff Agosta, who becomes AEP’s Chief Financial Officer for the Utica Shale division. Agosta is the former CFO for oil drilling giant Devon Energy (from 2010-2014). Devon previously flirted with a few Utica Shale wells but has since moved on to other projects. Although no salary was mentioned by AEP in their announcement, Agosta earned a tidy income of $1.6 million at Devon in 2013, and prior to that, $4.4 million in 2012 (according to Reuters). Did Agosta’s pay cut at Devon had something to do with his being in the job market? In addition to Agosta, McClendon rescued another friend from the clutches of Carl Icahn and Chesapeake Energy. Jeff Mobley most recently served as senior VP of investor relations and research at Chesapeake. He becomes senior VP of major acquisitions at AEP…
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Accidents | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | Marshall County | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Washington County | West Virginia
MarkWest Washington, PA Plant Struck by Lightening Reopens
At 6:00 pm last Wednesday night lightening struck the MarkWest Energy gas processing complex in Chartiers (Washington County), PA, otherwise known as the Houston complex (see Lightening Strike at MarkWest Chartiers Plant Causes Evacuation). The strike caused a small fire and an evacuation of residents living in the area. MarkWest announced yesterday the complex has been reopened–most of it anyway. Plant III is still closed pending repairs, so in the meantime, MarkWest is rerouting some incoming gas to their complex in Majorsville, WV…
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Butler County | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Rex Energy
MarkWest Beefs Up Bluestone Plant in NWPA – Mostly for Rex Energy
Good news for drillers in northwestern Pennsylvania–particularly Rex Energy. MarkWest announced yesterday they doubled the processing capacity at their Bluestone plant in Butler County, PA. The Bluestone II plant is now online and operating and processing an additional 120 million cubic feet of gas per day. In addition to the new plant, MarkWest has added ethane and heavier fractionation capabilities to the original Bluestone plant–20,000 barrels per day. And they’ve completed a 32-mile ethane pipeline which connects to the Mariner West pipeline, flowing ethane all the way to Sarnia, Ontario…
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Watch Who’s For & Against Change in DOE’s LNG Approval Process
Last week MDN told you about the Dept. of Energy announcement that they’re changing the way they approve potential LNG (liquefied natural gas) export projects to non-free trade countries (see DOE Changes Way They Evaluate/Approve LNG Export Facilities). We said at the time that while we appreciate that the DOE wants to streamline and turn a two-stage process into a single approval process, we have some deep reservations about the change-up. So we noticed, with interest, that the anti-drilling Sierra Club praised the change, and the pro-gas Center for LNG (CLNG) expressed deep reservations, not unlike our own, which verifies our own thinking and skepticism about this policy change…
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, June 3, 2014
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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MDN Launches 2014 Marcellus/Utica Databook – 3rd Year!
Marcellus Drilling News is today launching the third series of our Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook! The 2014 edition of the Databook, Volume 1, officially launches today. Never in our wildest dreams did we think back in 2012 that the Databook would become so popular. We’ve now published two complete series–the 2012 and 2013 series (3 volumes each, or six volumes total) and today begins the third series–for 2014. The heart and soul of the Databook is a series of maps–one for every county where permits for drilling have been issued–throughout Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. The “secret sauce” for the Databook is to visually, through maps and charts (87 of them in this edition), show you who is drilling right now or soon will be–and where they are drilling…
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Guest Article: Decline Curves Demystified – Chris Acker
Ack is back! MDN is pleased to bring you another guest post from our very good friend Chris Acker. Chris is a geological engineer with an MBA. He grew up in the oil fields of Venezuela where his father, a petroleum engineer, was a drilling contractor for all the major players, onshore and off. Chris’ interest in energy economics and policy found him working for Exxon, Petroleum Industry Research Associates and Petroleos de Venezuela. He bought a parcel of land in the PA countryside twenty-five years ago and later semi-retired to work on antique pianos (see www.PianoGrands.com). A few years ago, it was established that Chris’ property in Susquehanna County sits atop one of the Marcellus shale’s most prolific areas. He is now happily engaged once again in energy economics, with emphasis, naturally, on gas. In this post Chris gives us the lowdown on what every landowner with a well sooner or later wants to know: How fast will production from my well peter out? It’s called a “decline curve” and Chris gives us a great understanding of the fundamentals…
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CONSOL Energy Pulls Out of Northeastern Ohio
Yet more evidence that drillers are abandoning northern Ohio. CONSOL Energy has opted to not renew a lease at the Columbiana County Port Authority’s industrial park in Leetonia. CONSOL leased 10,000 square feet at the industrial park in March 2012 for $252,199 per year. That’s a half million bucks for two years. Now gone. Why? Leaky roof? Bad neighbors? Nope. CONSOL loved the facility. They said the decision to not renew was because…
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Rumor Mill: EQT May be Leaving Guernsey County, OH
Buzz buzz buzz… The rumor mill is chattering in southeast Ohio–and the rumor going around is that EQT is leaving town. Indeed, has the company already left? An enterprising Ohio reporter fired off an email to EQT asking them to confirm or deny. And the reporter got an answer, from none other than Steve Schlotterbeck, executive vice president and president, Exploration and Production for EQT Corp. What did Schlotterbeck say?…
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Virginia Reviews Fracking Regs with Eye to Allow Shale Drilling
This Wednesday the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME) will have a first meeting to look at the state’s existing rules on fracking. A panel of state officials, a representative from the drilling industry, and “others” (environmentalist wackos?) will assemble in Richmond to review the regulations on the books now, and make recommendations on things to change in anticipation of drillers who have expressed an interest in drilling in some of Virginia’s shale plays. No, the shale drillers are interested in is not the Marcellus (found along the western fringes), but instead is the Taylorsville Basin, located south and east of Fredericksburg, VA (see Virginia Inches Closer to Shale Drilling in Taylorsville Basin)…
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WV DEP Launches New Website to Assist with Storage Tank Law
As MDN previously reported, the coal industry accident in West Virginia where a chemical tank leaked, temporarily polluting the drinking water for 300,000 WV residents not only affected the coal industry, but the natural gas drilling industry too. In the closing hours of the most recent WV legislative session, lawmakers passed a new storage tank law that affects gas drillers (see Impact of WV’s New Chemical Tank Law on Marcellus Drillers). The WV Dept. of Environmental Protection has just launched a new website to assist drillers and others affected by the new law…
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Let’s give credit where it’s due. Gannett repeatedly filed Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to get schedule details about former Commissioner of the New York State Dept. of Health (DOH) Nirav Shah. Gannett has been fishing to see who Shah talked to in his now 1.5+ year “review” of proposed fracking regulations–a process that Shah himself said should only take a few weeks to complete (see 
Get ready for rolling blackouts. We predict a run on candles at the local Walmart. We’re talking, of course, about President Obama’s EPA unilaterally forcing coal generating electric plants to shut down in the coming years because they can’t meet strict new carbon emission standards (coal is made from…carbon). All of the wind and solar and purple unicorns in the world won’t replace the electricity that’s about to go away thanks to the Obamadroids. Some of the slack will be taken up by natural gas–but it’s a hollow victory for natgas because electric power plants won’t be able to convert quickly enough and infrastructure won’t be in place soon enough to prevent mass electric outages. And no, we’re not kidding…
Ack is back! MDN is pleased to bring you another guest post from our very good friend Chris Acker. Chris is a geological engineer with an MBA. He grew up in the oil fields of Venezuela where his father, a petroleum engineer, was a drilling contractor for all the major players, onshore and off. Chris’ interest in energy economics and policy found him working for Exxon, Petroleum Industry Research Associates and Petroleos de Venezuela. He bought a parcel of land in the PA countryside twenty-five years ago and later semi-retired to work on antique pianos (see www.PianoGrands.com). A few years ago, it was established that Chris’ property in Susquehanna County sits atop one of the Marcellus shale’s most prolific areas. He is now happily engaged once again in energy economics, with emphasis, naturally, on gas. In this post Chris gives us the lowdown on what every landowner with a well sooner or later wants to know: How fast will production from my well peter out? It’s called a “decline curve” and Chris gives us a great understanding of the fundamentals…