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    WV City Turns Former Football Field into RV Park for Shale Workers

    Here’s an idea: Rent RV spots on a now-abandoned sports field to temporary workers in the area who are there to work on pipelines and compressor stations, drilling and fracking–and use the money to someday convert that field into a neighborhood park once the temporary workers have done their job and moved on. McMechen (Marshall County), WV Mayor Mike Gracik is proposing just that. The old sports field that once hosted football games for Bishop Donahue High School and the former Union High School is already hosting a dozen RVs right now, with room to easily double that number.

    But (you may ask), won’t that bring in, you know, transient workers who will be loud and noisy and spread STDs all over the place? According to Mayor Gracik, the RV campground is “one of the most quiet places around the city”…
    Read More “WV City Turns Former Football Field into RV Park for Shale Workers”

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    Delaware Riverkeeper Gets a French Kiss from Phila. Inquirer

    The Philadelphia Inquirer today runs an extended article on Maya van Rossum, the head of the Delaware Riverkeeper organization, in honor of Worship the Earth Day. Van Rossum’s official title appears to be the Delaware Riverkeeper, an arrogant and pretentious title, like the person that holds it. You may recall the ill-mannered van Rossum disrupted a visit from her demigod, Barack Obama, by shouting at him during a speech in Scranton, PA last year (see Anti-Driller Shouts Fracking Question to Obama in PA Appearance). Fantastically, Delaware Riverkeeper was given standing to participate in the court case that resulted in overturning parts of the PA Act 13 drilling law–even though the drilling industry, which is directly affected by the case, was barred from participating in (see Act 13 Case Goes Back to Court, Drillers Petition to Join Lawsuit).

    The purpose of the Philly Inquirer article is to paint van Rossum as a latter day Joan of Arc, a heroine who fights as the “voice of the river.” When in fact she’s rigid, unyielding and unreasonable. Her house is loaded up with expensive solar panels and she drives and electric car–and she wants to make you do the same. We have no issue with eccentric behavior, except when the person exhibiting that behavior demands you go along with it too. And that’s exactly what van Rossum does–she attempts to force her twisted view of the world onto the population at large. Unfortunately she has had more success than we’d like to admit, in part because of sycophantic “reporters” who write worship articles in major newspapers…
    Read More “Delaware Riverkeeper Gets a French Kiss from Phila. Inquirer”

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    Judge in XTO Criminal Spill Case Says Figure Out Your Own Charges

    A small development in the shameful case brought by Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, against XTO Energy over a four year-old accidental spill that she’s trying to prosecute as a crime (see PA AG Abuses Her Authority, Files Criminal Charges Against XTO). XTO filed paperwork with the court to ask for more information about the charges that have been made against them. Apparently environmental cases are quite complex and you don’t always know what, exactly, you’ve been charged with!

    The judge in the case has denied XTO’s request to be told what, exactly, they’re being charged with. Last Thursday Lycoming County Judge Marc Lovecchio essentially told XTO, “You figure it out”…
    Read More “Judge in XTO Criminal Spill Case Says Figure Out Your Own Charges”

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    Company Sets up in Youngstown to Handle Radioactive Shale Waste

    Too hot to handle? A Pennsylvania company operating in the Youngstown, OH area, Austin Masters Services, has been awarded a permit to handle and treat frack waste that potentially contains radioactivity. Anti-drillers want the permit revoked. Fracking waste is just too hot to handle, according to the nutters. Fortunately the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources, which studies these things, has confidence that Austin Masters Services knows what it’s doing, and does it right. The company knows how to test oil and gas drilling waste for radioactivity without exposing anyone or anything in the process.

    The litigious Lea Harper, head of the so-called Fresh Water Accountability Project (who is suing the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District over a drilling lease in the Seneca Lake area, and has sued to stop injection wells, etc.), has her knickers in a twist about the Austin Masters Services operation. So too do other anti-drilling wackos, although there’s not much to be upset over. Austin Masters doesn’t even have any customers for their services in Ohio, yet…
    Read More “Company Sets up in Youngstown to Handle Radioactive Shale Waste”

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    Williams to Lay Pipeline in “Pristine” Lancaster County, PA

    The rather boring information/news is this: Williams plans to install a 9.6 mile pipeline in Lancaster County, PA, part of an expansion project for the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (or Transco). The new pipeline will run under 7 creeks, two unkept areas overrun with weeds and trees, will involve cutting down a few trees and digging up some dirt–dirt that will be put back so you won’t even know it was ever disturbed.

    However, in the hands of a talented propagandist, creeks become “high-quality streams,” unkept, rundown areas become “Natural Heritage Areas,” cutting down a few trees is turned into “clearing” trees–from (gasp) 26 acres! And digging up some dirt is converted into digging up 9 acres of (yes) “farmland.” What utter bilge…
    Read More “Williams to Lay Pipeline in “Pristine” Lancaster County, PA”

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    1 Day Only: 3 Free E-Books Chronicle Drilling PA Marcellus Well

    MDN previously alerted you to the wonderful labor of love performed by Janice Gavern of Susquehanna County, PA. Janice is your “salt of the earth” type of person. She’s a cancer survivor and runs a goat farm with her daughter near Montrose, PA–right in the heart of some of the most productive shale in the entire Marcellus play. Four years ago Janice was intrigued by what was happening around her and grabbed her camera and with permission from her friend (a landowner) and from the company drilling on her friend’s property (Cabot Oil & Gas), Janice set out to capture the process. It resulted in more than 8,000 pictures (see PA Resident Snaps 8,000 Pictures of Cabot Well Construction).

    Janice has, so far, created three e-books on Amazon’s Kindle service chronicling the drilling of a Marcellus Shale well. These are unedited pictures taken by a talented non-professional photographer. A fourth volume is in the works. In the meantime, Janice alerted us that the first three volumes, which normally cost $9.99 each, will be available for free–this week. Here’s the details on how (and when) to get them…
    Read More “1 Day Only: 3 Free E-Books Chronicle Drilling PA Marcellus Well”

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    RI Politicians Cry to Energy Sec. Moniz About High NatGas Prices

    Free enterprise. Capitalism. Freedom. Works every time and in every place that it’s tried. And it works better than any of the alternatives. The opposite is government regulation, restriction, less freedom–and when that’s tried, in places like Rhode Island–you get less of things and higher prices. Which is why Rhode Island officials were crying to Energy Sec. Ernest “Hair” Moniz yesterday. They want relief from high natural gas prices and they (predictably) want “the government” to fix it.

    What if, instead, Rhode Island and Massachusetts and other New England states, instead of banning fracking (see Vermont Becomes First State to Ban Fracking) tried capitalism, free enterprise and less government regulation? Hey, there’s a radical idea! Run some more pipelines and start fracking and you’ll see natgas prices drop in New England as it has in other areas. But a dose of common sense is simply a bridge too far for places like Rhode Island…
    Read More “RI Politicians Cry to Energy Sec. Moniz About High NatGas Prices”

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    MDN Quoted/Referenced/Reviled

    We don’t toot our own horn much, mostly because that’s not in our nature. However, increasingly we spot Marcellus Drilling News or editor Jim Willis being quoted or referenced in various places. Jim has given information and interviews to reporters from half a dozen different publications over the past few months, including Bloomberg, the Washington Post and the Fayetteville (NC) Observer. When we spot media references, we’ll pass them along, for your reading enjoyment (and our tooting edification).

    Today’s list includes Jim’s recent appearance on the David Madiera Show, broadcast on 94.3 FM “The Talker” in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area, an article on the Media Matters for America website, and a reference on the Digital Journal. The interview was a “friendly”–Dave Madiera is pro-drilling. The other two are anti-drilling publications. MDN is regularly trashed by the other side–a badge of honor…
    Read More “MDN Quoted/Referenced/Reviled”

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    Antero Pays $15K/Acre, 20% Royalties for MWCD Piedmont Lake Lease

    wowAll’s we can say is “WOW!” Last Friday the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) signed another (new) lease with Antero Resources to lease more than 6,300 acres in and around Piedmont Lake, in Guernsey, Harrison and Belmont counties in Ohio. The land is in prime Utica Shale territory and Antero must have wanted it bad, because they paid a $15,000 per acre signing bonus. Plus 20% in royalties for anything produced from the land. That is, by far, the largest bonus payment we have ever heard of in the Marcellus and Utica region.

    Landowners in the MWCD area should be thankful. Because of this deal and other leases signed by the MWCD, the rates landowners pay to the MWCD are going down–by 50%–starting next year. What a fantastic story where everyone wins. Landowners win with lower watershed fees, Antero wins by scoring what will no doubt be very productive property for shale wells, America wins with more (and cheaper) natural gas. There are no losers in this scenario. Here’s more on Friday’s meeting of the MWCD board and the decisions they made…
    Read More “Antero Pays $15K/Acre, 20% Royalties for MWCD Piedmont Lake Lease”

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    NY DOH Docs Show Geisinger Fishing for $, Ralph Nader Lurking

    The anti-drilling Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association and the Gannett Albany Bureau filed identical Freedom of Information Law (or FOIL) requests in Jaunary of this year to get information about the so-called review of health effects from fracking, a review being conducted by the NY Dept. of Health (DOH) and it’s resigning Commissioner, Nirav Shah. Some five CDs and one DVD full of information later and we have a few interesting tidbits. One tidbit is that Geisinger Health System, which famously launched a multi-year study of the “health effects” of fracking in PA without any money to fund the study (see PA Marcellus Health Study Still No Pulse – Needs Extra $24M), tried to enlist Shah and the NY DOH, no doubt believing NY is flush with Wall Street cash. NY politely declined.

    We also learn the wacky Ralph Nader requested a meeting with NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens. Ralph wants all fracking everywhere–from here to Pluto–to stop. Martens politely declined the meeting (time waster for Joey). Here’s an overview, based on the documentation, of what the DOH has–and has not–done in their ongoing, never ending review of the “science”…
    Read More “NY DOH Docs Show Geisinger Fishing for $, Ralph Nader Lurking”

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    Aubrey McClendon Leases Rigs from Chesapeake to Drill in the Utica

    Aubrey McClendon, the former CEO of Chesapeake Energy (before corporate raider Carl Icahn tossed him from the company he founded) is back in business with Chesapeake. Sort of. McClendon’s new company, American Energy Partners, which is set to go great guns in the Ohio Utica Shale, is leasing drilling rigs from Chesapeake for $26,000 per day–six of them (with a seventh at $23,500 per day). Makes for strange bedfellows, no? But hey, a rig’s a rig’s a rig. Doesn’t matter who owns it. What matters is to get drilling now, before the competition. And Aubrey is all over it.

    However, Aubrey is being mum on the arrangement. Here’s the little that is know, picked up from Chesapeake’s financial filings with the SEC…
    Read More “Aubrey McClendon Leases Rigs from Chesapeake to Drill in the Utica”

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    Western PA/NY Pipeline Company Starts Separating NGLs for More $$

    Anticipating that Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling will one day come to northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York, the owner of a pipeline system that services 6,500 older vertical wells in that area has just made an upgrade. EmKey Energy has just opened a new $10 million gas processing plant east of Union City, PA where five of EmKey’s underground pipelines converge. And here is the beauty and the brilliance. That new processing plant does nothing more than separate out natural gas liquids from the incoming stream of gas–NGLs that have been there all along but weren’t economical to separate. Now the plant separates butane, propane and ethane and sells them for bigger money than they would have been sold as part of the methane stream.

    According to EmKey’s founder Oivind Risberg, the $10 million upgrade is profitable and doing well. But the real gravy train will arrive when shale drilling enters the area and his pipelines hook up to the deeper Marcellus and Utica Shale. That’s when the really big payoff will happen. Brilliant! Here’s more about EmKey’s “make good money now, but boatloads of it later when shale drilling arrives” strategy…
    Read More “Western PA/NY Pipeline Company Starts Separating NGLs for More $$”

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    President Visits Pittsburgh to Talk Jobs, Ignores Shale Jobs

    Well, we hate to say “we told you so,” but, well, we told you so. Last Wednesday President Obama and his oafish sidekick Joe “the clown” Biden “took a little road trip” according to the Pres, to visit the Community College of Allegheny County West Hills Center in North Fayette, PA (near Pittsburgh). The purpose of the trip was to dole out gobs of your hard-earned money to community college professors and students (nothing against either, except when it’s my money going to them!). The Pres announced $600 million in new money–from his Presidential “stash” no doubt. He figures your money will help create jobs out there in flyover country.

    We pointed out published comments from both Dave Spigelmyer, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, and Stephanie Wissman, executive director of the Associated Petroleum Industries of Pennsylvania, encouraging the Pres to acknowledge the major role Marcellus Shale drilling has played in creating jobs in western PA (see Obama/Biden Pittsburgh Visit Today: Don’t Expect NatGas Praise). Did either the Pres or sidekick Biden give at least a passing nod to shale and the hundreds of thousands of jobs the shale industry has created in the past half dozen years? Nope. Which is just what we predicted. Admitting the private sector is the best jobs-creating engine in existence doesn’t fit the narrative that big government creates jobs. Interestingly, only 300 people turned out for the event. We’ve been to town hall meetings for pipelines with more people than that! Here’s a recap of what the Pres did talk about last week on his shaleless visit to Pittsburgh…
    Read More “President Visits Pittsburgh to Talk Jobs, Ignores Shale Jobs”

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    PA RINO Claims 50 Repubicans Ready to Vote Yes on Severance Tax

    If you believe a left-leaning AP reporter and a few RINO sources, Republicans just can’t wait to vote for higher taxes in PA. According to the Democrat who pretends to be a Republican, Eugene DiGirolamo (R-Bucks), there’s “50 Republicans” in the state legislature who would vote for a nosebleed-high severance tax on Marcellus Shale drilling and do so right the heck now.

    Really? How about some names Gene? Besides yourself and two or three other southeastern PA RINOs. Frankly, we think it’s smoke and mirrors to prop up your own pathetic campaign. And by the way–when will the Democrats in southeast PA boot people like DiGirolamo and replace him with a real Democrat, and not a pretender?…
    Read More “PA RINO Claims 50 Repubicans Ready to Vote Yes on Severance Tax”

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    Lawyers Give Heads-up on Cobra Pipeline in Warren, OH

    MDN makes no claims to omniscience when it comes to Marcellus and Utica drillers and pipeline operators–but it’s not often a completely new name pops up to surprise us–something we had not heard of before. Such is the case with Cobra Pipeline. According to the Cobra Pipeline website: “Cobra Pipeline Co., LTD is an Ohio based intrastate natural gas pipeline company headquartered in Willoughby, Ohio. Cobra Pipeline Co, LTD owns approximately 300 miles of intrastate gas pipeline and compression within the State of Ohio. Our system connects natural gas suppliers with major interstate transmission pipeline systems. Cobra Pipeline provides competitively priced gas transportation service as well as operating a safe and efficient gas pipeline system.”

    So it appears Cobra is a local gathering system that perhaps at one point connected conventional (vertical only) wells, but increasingly now connects unconventional (shale) wells to larger pipeline systems. The reason it popped up on the radar is because a couple of lawyers recently spoke to a small group of landowners in Marietta (Washington County), OH about Cobra’s plans to come through that area–mostly along an existing route used by Columbia Pipeline. The lawyers were there to give landowners a heads-up and tips for how to negotiate the best deal for a pipeline easement, and what to do if eminent domain rears its ugly head…
    Read More “Lawyers Give Heads-up on Cobra Pipeline in Warren, OH”