Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Jan 15, 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 | Broome County | Delaware County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY
Breaking: NY Court Decisions in Binghamton & Sidney Cases
An important development in two New York court cases that potentially impacts shale drilling in the state–and no, neither is (directly) about the Dryden or Middlefield town ban cases currently before New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. The two cases we’re referring to are (1) the City of Binghamton and their ill-fated “moratorium” thrown out by a lower court judge in 2012 and subsequently appealed, and (2) a similar moratorium in the Town of Sidney, NY.In the Binghamton case, the appeal of the tossed-out fracking moratorium authored by anti-drilling husband and wife team of David and Helen Slottje has been withdrawn–so that case is now officially ended and the moratorium remains tossed and unenforceable. This is big news with big implications. In the case of Sidney, the judge in that case (different judge from the Binghamton case) issued a decision yesterday, but as of the time we wrote and posted this story, we still do not have a copy of the decision. We’ll post it as soon as we get it. Let’s dive deeper into both cases…
(Important update at the end of this article)
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Rice Energy Launches IPO, Hopes to Raise $840M
MDN told you last month that Marcellus and Utica Shale driller Rice Energy would soon launch an initial public offering (IPO) and start to trade publicly listed stocks (see Impending Rice Energy IPO Creating a Buzz). Rice Energy launched their IPO yesterday. Previous chatter was that the company would receive a valuation of $2.5 billion. That’s not how much the stock offering would generate–but the overall value the market would give to the company (market capitalization, or “market cap”).
Rice, in a statement issued yesterday (see below), announced they have now floated 40 million shares of common stock and hope to get $19-$21 per share (30 million of that for the company, 10 million for an unnamed “selling stockholder”). If that happens, the company and the selling stockholder together will receive $840 million. For comparison, a larger Marcellus/Utica driller, Antero Resources, went public last October and sold over 35 million shares with their IPO and raked in $1.57 billion ($44 per share)! The Antero IPO valued the company at $11 billion. Antero’s IPO did much better than they hoped. Will Rice’s?…
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Bradford County | Energy Services | Greene County (PA) | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Preston County | PVR Midstream | PVR Partners | West Virginia | Wyoming County (PA)
PVR Partners Marcellus Pipeline Flows Increase 60% in 1 Year
Midstream company PVR Partners issued an update yesterday to brag about their Marcellus operations–and well they should. Average throughput on the PVR “Eastern Midstream Systems” increased 60%, from 1.1 billion cubic feet per day average in December 2012 to 1.8 Bcf/d in December 2013. They also completed a total of 101 well connections in 2013 for the Eastern Midstream area.
PVR’s Eastern Midstream includes operations in Lycoming, Wyoming, Bradford and Greene counties in Pennsylvania, and Preston County in West Virginia. Here’s the full PVR update with more details:
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA
PA Democrat Gov Candidates Support Partial/Full Moratorium
Last night, eight Democrat candidates participated in a forum in Philadelphia, all of them seeking the Democrat nomination for governor to run this November. Pay close attention: Seven of the eight support a shale drilling moratorium–either statewide or in certain parts of the state. This is profoundly bad news if the good citizens of PA are unwise enough to elect one of them to the governorship.
If you want a good idea of the calamity that awaits PA in choosing a Democrat governor, House and Senate, PLEASE read (or re-read) MDN contributor Chris Acker’s article here: Guest Post: Pennsylvania Drilling Moratorium – Good or Bad?. Here’s how it played out last night in Philly with regard to Democrat support for a moratorium on shale drilling:
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2013 Northeast Oil & Gas Award Finalists Announced
Envelope please! And the winners are… sorry, but you’ll have to wait to find out. However, we do have a list of the finalists for the 2013 Northeast Oil & Gas Awards.
Below are the names of the finalists, and details about the awards ceremony being held on March 20 in Pittsburgh (MDN will be there!)…
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Belmont County | Blue Racer Midstream | Economic Impact | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Marshall County | Ohio | Ohio County | Pipelines | Processing Plants | West Virginia | Williams
Utica/Marcellus Construction Spending Rockets in Wheeling Area
According to McGraw Hill Construction, the Wheeling, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Ohio and Marshall counties in WV and Belmont County in Ohio, saw construction explode from $60.3 million in 2012 to $1.57 billion in 2013–a 29-fold increase. The vast majority of that explosion in construction came from–you guessed it–the Marcellus and Utica Shale. Midstream companies Williams and Blue Racer spent the majority of that on new processing plants and pipelines in the area.
This is incredibly good news for that area of the Ohio Valley. The even better news? Ironworkers Local No. 549 predicts this kind of spending by the drilling industry will go on for at least another 5-10 years. Wow!…
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Fracking Finally on the Way in Virginia? Maybe Yes, Maybe No
An article out of Virginia caught our eye, about the potential for drilling and fracking in Virginia, which has so far been pretty devoid of horizontal drilling and high volume fracking. In reading the article it was like rewinding the tape and hearing the same concerns and arguments we heard 2-3 years ago in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Funny how the same things keep coming around again and again. Folks who watch HBO and Gasland get stirred up and are understandably concerned, afraid their water supplies will become contaminated with nasty chemicals from fracking–which of course has never happened…anywhere. But still, people have to read and understand and become comfortable with an unfamiliar-to-them process.
The article from Virginia was about potential drilling perhaps a year off–in an area that’s not the Marcellus Shale. The focus of the article–and the potential drilling that will take place–is the Taylorsville Basin along the eastern/central part of the state, around Caroline County, VA. Even though there’s no Marcellus or Utica anywhere in that area, the article still has implications for shale drilling that may one day happen along the western edges of Virginia where there is Marcellus acreage. The implications? Republican state lawmakers seem a bit too eager to introduce legislation that bans fracking in water aquifers–legislation that may have a spillover effect in other areas of the state, including the Marcellus…
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Natural Gas’ “Unfair Advantage” over Wind and Solar
Yet another novel argument is being trotted out by the militant green left–natural gas an an “unfair” advantage. You see, it’s just too darn easy to build a pipeline–compared with putting up an electrical transmission line. That’s the cockamamie argument now being made by renewable energy zealots like Jaafar Rizvi, writing in Grist Magazine.
As MDN has shouted for years now–the shale drilling debate is not really about water contamination, truck traffic and “fugitive” methane–it’s really about a few misguided people who want to pick your energy source for you–and for everyone else too. They irrationally hate fossil fuels because fossil fuels, including natural gas, threaten to slow the adoption of so-called renewable sources of energy, like wind and solar. How do wind and solar energy get to market? Via high voltage electricity transmission lines. According to Mr. Rizvi, it’s not a fair playing field between natgas pipelines and electric transmission lines…
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New Fracking Book from ABA Good for Lawyers & Laymen Alike
The American Bar Association has just published a new book on fracking titled “Beyond the Fracking Wars.” According to the press announcement, the book ($119) strikes a balance between the legal, regulatory, social and technical aspects of fracking. It further explains the numerous policy choices and decisions that influence fracking development and expansion, taking an approach that is neither pro- nor anti-fracking. A “just the facts, ma’am” kind of book.
The ABA announcement:
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MoveOn.org Launches FrackingFighter Campaign (Try not to Laugh)
The extreme left wing group MoveOn.org has spawned a new effort called Fracking Fighters which “seeks to slow down the fracking boom that is anticipated to occur across the United States in 2014 and beyond.” They’ve decided to put a massive $50,000 behind the effort. So far they’ve gotten 100 signups for their trouble. Big whup.
For those too young to remember, MoveOn.org was started in 1998 to encourage Congress to “move on” and forget about impeaching then President Bill Clinton who lied under oath (perjury) about getting a bj in the Oval Office from intern Monica Lewinski. Getting a bj in the White House is a resume enhancer for the moral-less left–they secretly envied Bill and wanted to be just like him. Long after bj Bill had left town, MoveOn stuck around to support other really important causes, like slowing down fracking. Wait, it’s OK for Bill to frack, but not anyone else? How does that work??…
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Jan 14, 2014
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Belmont County Continues to be One of Hottest Spots in OH Utica
MDN has previously told you, on a number of occasions, that an early indicator of where drilling will soon heat up is to watch the local county land recorder’s office–the place where they keep official copies of property deeds. If it’s crowded in the local land records office, that means drillers are ready to make offers to landowners and want to start drilling. Of course they first have to figure out who owns the mineral rights, hence the activity in title searchers and abstactors checking deeds.Over a year ago we told you about the crazy lines and overpacked recorder’s office in Belmont County, OH (see Belmont County, OH Deed Research Impacts Local Library Too). Our prediction held true as Belmont has become one of the hottest hot spots in the eastern Ohio Utica Shale. You might think a year later things would have settled down at the Belmont County Recorder’s Office. Not so. Last Wednesday when Belmont County Recorder Mary Catherine Nixon arrived at the office at 8:30 am, she found 120 people waiting in line to get in. Oy vey!…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA | Taxation
PA Dems Lick Their Chops over Chance to Tax Marcellus Drilling
Sad and tragic is how we would term it. Pennsylvania’s elected Democrats in both the House and Senate are licking their chops, salivating at the chance to get rid of a mostly fair fee/tax on the Marcellus drilling industry–the “impact fee” created under the now largely gutted Act 13–and replace it instead with a harmful, regressive severance tax they can use to endlessly fund their pork barrel projects and frankly, line their own pockets. The Dems are almost like kids at Christmas, jumping up and down can’t wait to open the presents happy over the possibilities…
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Accidents | Blue Racer Midstream | Caiman Energy | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Marshall County | NGLs | Processing Plants | West Virginia
Blueracer Natrium Wet Gas Plant Remains Offline, How Much Longer?
Last September there was an explosion and a fire “isolated to a small area” at the Blueracer Natrium processing and fractionation facility in Marshall County, WV (see Explosion/Fire at Blue Racer’s Natrium, WV Processing Plant). The fire, which “burned itself out,” knocked the plant offline until this January. Because of the outage, at least two (and perhaps more) companies found other sources to process their wet gas (see Blue Racer’s Natrium Plant to Remain Offline Until Jan 2014). However, not all drillers have had success in finding other sources to process their wet gas and are stuck, waiting for the Blueracer Natrium plant to re-open.
The latest word from Blueracer on when they will reopen the plant, which doesn’t seem encouraging…
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Industry Vet Points Out Error in PA Supreme Court Act 13 Ruling
Timothy Merrill, a now-retired resident of western Pennsylvania who worked 40 years as a buyer and marketer in the natural gas industry, wrote a sterling analysis of the Act 13 decision by the PA Supreme Court a few days ago in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In his article, Merrill points out the whopping error upon which Chief Justice Ron Castille (a Republican!) based his decision. Castille states in his decision he believes drilling and fracking are inherently harmful to the environment. Problem is, says Merrill, there’s 60 years of drilling and fracking history in PA that proves just the opposite (something called “evidence,” Mr. Chief Justice). Unfortunately Castille, along with the three anti-drilling Democrats on the high court, have now invented new rights that didn’t exist before–creating bad case law that will have a profound impact for years to come.
Here’s Merrill’s “what for” article that takes the disappointing Castille to the woodshed for his profound lack of judgment…
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An important development in two New York court cases that potentially impacts shale drilling in the state–and no, neither is (directly) about the Dryden or Middlefield town ban cases currently before New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. The two cases we’re referring to are (1) the City of Binghamton and their ill-fated “moratorium” thrown out by a lower court judge in 2012 and subsequently appealed, and (2) a similar moratorium in the Town of Sidney, NY.
MDN has previously told you, on a number of occasions, that an early indicator of where drilling will soon heat up is to watch the local county land recorder’s office–the place where they keep official copies of property deeds. If it’s crowded in the local land records office, that means drillers are ready to make offers to landowners and want to start drilling. Of course they first have to figure out who owns the mineral rights, hence the activity in title searchers and abstactors checking deeds.