Marcellus Drilling News

Albany County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Fate of NY Fracking Now in Hands of 7 Judge Court of Appeals
June 4, 2014June 4, 2014

Yesterday was an important day for the future of fracking in New York State. Attorneys Tom West (from Albany) and Scott Kurkoski (from Binghamton) argued before the New York State Court of Appeals, NY’s highest court, in the Dryden and Middlefield town ban cases. MDN has some of the comments made at the trial by both sides, a statement from the Joint Landowner’s Coalition of New York (JLCNY), and a rough estimate of when a decision will be rendered…
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Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies

Magnum Hunter’s Gary Evans: My Well’s Bigger than Your Well
June 4, 2014June 4, 2014

On Monday MDN told you the great news that Rice Energy has the new all-time most productive Utica Shale well (see Rice Energy’s Bigfoot New Reigning Utica Well Champ – 42 Mmcf/d!) Rice’s Bigfoot well is located in Belmont County, OH. Apparently Rice’s announcement upstaged a forthcoming announcement by Gary Evans, CEO of Magnum Hunter Resources (MHR). Lately Gary has been on a mission to raise money for MHR’s drilling program in the Marcellus and Utica. He went on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money program on Monday to do some of his own bragging in what can only be termed “my Utica well’s bigger than your Utica well”…
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Belmont County | EMG | Energy Services | Guernsey County | Harrison County | Industrywide Issues | M&A | MarkWest Energy | Noble County | Ohio | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Summit Midstream

Summit Midstream Cuts $377M Check for 40% of Ohio Gathering
June 4, 2014June 4, 2014

Ohio Gathering is a midstream (pipelines and processing plants) company operating in the southeastern Ohio area–Harrison, Guernsey, Belmont, Noble and Monroe counties. It is a joint venture owned by MarkWest, EMG and until recently, Gulfport Energy. In January MDN told you that Summit Midstream would be buying Gulfport’s 40% ownership interest (see Summit Midstream Closes Deal to Buy 40% Stake in Ohio Gathering). These things take time with lots of lawyers and due dillgence and enough paperwork to re-paper the walls in a dozen homes. The paperwork is done and Summit has cut the check–a $377 million check that will go into the bank account of MarkWest and EMG…
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Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Statewide NY | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Dominion Asks FERC for New Compressors in Upstate NY, WV
June 4, 2014June 4, 2014

Dominion announced yesterday they have filed applications with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to get permission to beef up two different pipeline systems in the Marcellus region–giving them more capacity to flow abundant, cheap Marcellus gas to northeastern markets. One of the pipelines to receive an upgrade is in upstate New York. The other is a pipeline in West Virginia. In both cases, the upgrades involve either building new compressor plants along the pipeline–or expanding existing compressor stations. The pipeline in WV also includes a new interconnection with another pipeline. Here’s the details on both projects…
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Broome County | Delaware County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | New York | Otsego County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Schoharie County | Statewide NY | Susquehanna County | Tennessee Gas Pipeline | Williams

KM Announces Marcellus Pipeline Parallel to Williams Constitution
June 4, 2014June 4, 2014

A “this is pretty interesting” story recently crossed our radar. MDN has reported, for several years now, about the Williams Constitution Pipeline being built from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY where it will connect to both the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) and the Iroquois pipeline (see New Marcellus Constitution Pipeline Announces “Final” Route). We even took you along for an inside look at one of the public comment sessions, called a scoping hearing (see Vicariously Attend FERC Scoping Hearing on Constitution Pipeline). The Constitution will begin construction very soon. Now comes word from Kinder Morgan that they want to build a second pipeline from the Marcellus Shale gas fields of Susquehanna County to their TGP, taking virtually the same route…
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Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Mitch McConnell: EPA Killing Coal is Attack on Middle Class
June 4, 2014June 5, 2014

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican from Kentucky) may not be a true-blue conservative, but he has his good days. Yesterday was one of those days. McConnell blasted the new EPA takeover of the U.S. energy industry by proposing draconian cuts in the stuff you breathe out with every breath–carbon (see Obama’s Climate Madness Metastasizes – EPA Kills Coal Electricity). Kentucky is a coal state and McConnell is hopping mad over the proposed new carbon limits. So he introduced the “Coal Country Protection Act” to defang the EPA. We love his statement on the Senate floor. In it he compares Obama and the Democrats to a Ginsu knife pitchman who deceived us once (on Obamacare) and is deceiving us again (on carbon). Fool me once…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

PPG Op-Ed: Don’t Kill the Marcellus Goose Laying the Golden Eggs
June 4, 2014June 4, 2014

We suppose sooner or later it had to happen–the increasingly anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran an op-ed that tells the truth about PA Democrat’s plans to slap a severance tax on drilling–on top of an already high impact fee. The result will be, according to energy lawyer Kevin Colosimo, to kill the goose laying the golden eggs. To be sure the editorial writers at the PPG had nothing to do with the editorial–and probably didn’t want to run it. The argument is made by anti-drillers and money-grubbing PA Democrats that “everyone else has a severance tax, even Texas and Oklahoma and all those evil, nasty oil and gas states have a severance tax. We should too.” Just a teeny, tiny problem with that argument…
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Chesapeake Energy | Crime | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues

Corp Raider Carl Ichan Investigated for Insider Trading – Denies
June 4, 2014June 4, 2014

What’s this? Corporate raider Carl Icahn is accused of insider trading. Say it ain’t so! Icahn, as you may know, is despised on this site for the way he’s systematically gutted Chesapeake Energy by using his toady Doug Lawler to fire thousands of people and sell off huge portions of the company–all in a bid to drive the stock price up, which Icahn will then turn around and sell at a handsome profit. It should be illegal, but it isn’t. Perhaps old Carl is getting sloppy in his waning years. Apparently there was some funny business with one of his deals a few years ago. Something to do with “well-timed” trades of Clorox stock, a company Icahn tried to take over. It’s complicated and the FBI and SEC are investigating Ichan, golfer Phil Michelson and Las Vegas gambler William “Billy” Walters…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Flaming Idiot Rachel Maddow Features Debunked Flaming Hose Video
June 4, 2014June 4, 2014

No one ever accused Rachel Maddow of intellectual heft. And no ever accused MSNBC, the channel where she hosts a show immodestly called The Rachel Maddow Show, of being a real news channel. But Rachel disgraced herself even more than usual recently when she showed a clip from Josh Fox’s fictional Gasland movie with a Texas landowner lighting a garden hose on fire. That clip has since be proven to be a fraud (by a Texas judge) perpetrated by Fox and the landowner, but there was Rachel showing it and talking about it as if it were a common occurrence wherever there’s fracking. Simply boggles the mind…
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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, June 4, 2014
June 4, 2014June 5, 2014

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Smoking Gun in NY? Cuomo Political Aides Met with Shah & Martens
June 3, 2014June 3, 2014

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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Belmont County | Energy Companies | Ohio | Rice Energy | Utica Shale

Rice Energy’s Bigfoot New Reigning Utica Well Champ – 42 Mmcf/d!
June 3, 2014June 3, 2014

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
June 3, 2014June 3, 2014

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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Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Obama’s Climate Madness Metastasizes – EPA Kills Coal Electricity
June 3, 2014June 3, 2014

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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American Energy Partners | Energy Companies | Utica Shale

Aubrey McClendon Announces 2 New Hires for AEP’s Utica Operation
June 3, 2014June 3, 2014

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
June 3, 2014June 3, 2014

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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