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    PA Dems, DRBC Squeal over Proposed Cut to DRBC Budget

    The Delaware River Basin Commission suckling pig is about to have less slop in the trough to gorge itself on, thanks to wise oversight by PA Gov. Tom Corbett. The DRBC, for those who don’t know, is an interstate quasi-governmental agency made up of the states that are in the Delaware River Basin, including Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey (where HQ for the DRBC is located) and Delaware. The governors for each of those states plus a representative from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers make up the voting board of the DRBC.

    For years PA has borne the brunt of the funding for the DRBC–disproportionately–lavishing the DRBC staff with buckets of cash with which they supposedly do their jobs. PA has had enough. Time for the other states that profess to love the DRBC so much to pull their own weight, so Corbett has decreased the amount of money PA will contribute to the trough. And that has the pigs squealing, including Corbetts potential Democrat opponents for the governor’s chair and (not surprisingly) DRBC staffers who have gone apoplectic with dire warnings…
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    Marcellus Prejudice on Display at Washington, PA Church

    This is interesting, and sad, and maddening: A developer purchased a run-down, abandoned convent in downtown Washington, PA (for $11K) with plans to invest $300,000 to fix it up and put business offices in it. Or perhaps (this is the rumor) turn it into temporary housing for Marcellus Shale workers. That “M” word–that’s all it took. The pastor at the church across the street, Immaculate Conception, is against it. So too is the local town councilman. Their fear? Those disgusting, low-life “transient” workers will (don’t laugh) bring down the neighborhood. It won’t be safe to (don’t laugh) walk around at night. Because, you know, (whispering)…transients. Better to keep the old convent, a bombed-out looking eyesore, in downtown rather than have transients lurking about.

    Now if the developer was wise he would have said something about housing “undocumented workers” (i.e. illegal aliens) at the convent. That would magically make the project A-OK. Here’s the interesting/sad/maddening story:
    Read More “Marcellus Prejudice on Display at Washington, PA Church”

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    Marcellus Well Freeze-Offs Lower January Natgas Production

    Wells freezing from the brutally cold winter in the northeast has led to a slight decrease in the amount of gas production coming from the Marcellus, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and analysis by Bentek Energy (a division of Platts). Official numbers for January production from the EIA won’t be out until the end of March, but preliminary numbers indicate the cold weather is having an impact on supplies…
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    CONSOL Proved Reserves Up 44%, Marcellus the Key

    MDN has reported this week on a flurry of proved and unproved reserves announcements. Range and Antero have proved reserves in the trillions of cubic feet, Rex Energy in the billions. Yesterday CONSOL Energy weighed in (me too! me too!) with their numbers. The CONSOL announcement, however, is a bit more interesting and enlightening than some of the others. They break it down by shale play/type of play and also run some EURs–Estimated Ultimate Recovery numbers for just how much they believe they’ll end up getting from all that drilling.

    Here’s the interesting CONSOL announcement from yesterday about proved (and unproved) reserves and EURs, and the key role the Marcellus plays in the company’s future:
    Read More “CONSOL Proved Reserves Up 44%, Marcellus the Key”

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    National Fuel Spends 2/3 of Capex Budget on Drilling, Mostly Marcellus

    National Fuel Gas company is a big, diversified company. They own operations in all three segments of the oil and gas business: upstream (their subsidiary Seneca Resources is a big Marcellus driller), midstream (gathering and storage pipelines in PA), and downstream (utility company in the Buffalo, NY area). So they really “do it all.” Yesterday, in the ongoing parade of 4Q13 updates, National Fuel issued theirs–only everyone else’s 4Q is actually National Fuel Gas’ 1Q14. Regardless, it covers the last four months of 2013, no matter what you call it. And what does it show?

    It shows that National Fuel Gas via its Seneca Resources division continues to be the main focus of the company. They spent 2/3 of their capital budget on exploration and production in 2013–and the lion’s share of that in the Marcellus. Here’s the narrative part of the update issued yesterday:
    Read More “National Fuel Spends 2/3 of Capex Budget on Drilling, Mostly Marcellus”

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    Noble Energy: More Marcellus Drilling Ahead in 2014

    Noble Energy, one of the larger Marcellus Shale drillers (with 360,000 acres under lease) released their fourth quarter and full year 2013 results yesterday. The company reports producing 196 million cubic feet of gas per day on average, a 17% increase over 3Q13 and a big 61% increase over 4Q12. By December 31st they were producing 210 Mmcf/d. Noble is a big company with both on- and off-shore drilling operations around the world. The Marcellus continues to play in increasingly important role in their portfolio for 2014, as evidenced by the update and by comments made by Noble executives yesterday.

    Below are extracts from yesterday’s Noble update and the analyst conference call with company execs. We’ve selected out portions dealing with the Marcellus so you don’t have to wade through it all…
    Read More “Noble Energy: More Marcellus Drilling Ahead in 2014”

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    3 Cheers for Groups Standing Up to Obama “Climate Change” Agenda

    When Barack Obama can’t convince his political opponents (or the American people) that his skewed views on an issue are the correct views for the country, he does what any good fascist does–he simply starts writing executive orders, bypassing the U.S. Constitution that grants lawmaking powers solely to Congress. He simply seizes power for himself. Dictators the world over have done the same thing for millennia. It’s still relatively new here in the U.S. where citizens used to have (gasp) individual freedom from oppression by their government. It seems that’s something in our past.

    MDN is not the only lone outpost to recognize the dangerous road we’re now on, and not the only lone outpost to recognize that for all of his platitudes about natural gas and “all of the above,” Obama’s talk is just that–cheap talk. He doesn’t mean it because his actions (via the EPA and other agencies that frequently overstep their bounds) contradict his words. Actions always speak louder than words. A small glimmer of hope has appeared. A number of business organizations–76 in all, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and the American Gas Association–have banded together to oppose Obama’s planned power grab on the faux issue of “climate change.” They recognize they and their members are in the crosshairs of this administration and they’re not going down without a fight…
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    Phelim’s Journey of Truth in Europe – FrackNation in Parliament!

    MDN friend and masterful documentarian Phelim McAleer, who single-handedly debunked the outrageous lies and distortions in Josh Fox’s Gasland fictions, is taking his FrackNation documentary on the road for screenings in Europe. On the roadshow list are the UK Parliament (in London of course), the European Parliament (in Belgium) and in Warsaw, Poland. Looks like Dimock, PA will be famous around the world–for the right reasons!

    Our best to Phelim on his journey of truth in Europe…
    Read More “Phelim’s Journey of Truth in Europe – FrackNation in Parliament!”

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    Cadiz, OH Considers Offer to “Flip” Royalty Rights for $11K/Acre

    calculatorThis story is almost a month old, but somehow it missed our otherwise good radar. It involves landowners who want to sell their already-leased acreage royalty rights to investors–“flipping” the rights to royalties they may or may not get at some future point for money on the barrel head now. In this case, the landowner considering doing the flipping is the Village of Cadiz (Harrison County), OH, and the company that wants to buy their royalty rights is Flatiron Financial. Flatiron, you may recall, recently purchased a bunch of leases from some of Ohio’s Amish farmers (see OH Amish Flip Royalty Rights for Tax-Free Lump Sum Payment). Seems the flipping business is good and Flatiron is turning on the pressure in Cadiz, telling village officials they don’t have long to make a decision. The hand is slowly leaving the table…better act now! Right.

    So what is Flatiron offering? Cash now for potential future royalties–and the cash is on the order of $11,000-$12,000 per acre. Note: This is not a one-time lease payment, it is signing over all future royalties (for decades to come) for a lump sum payment now. It becomes a game of poker, estimating your odds of whether you’ll get more “down the road” if you wait for monthly or quarterly royalty checks, or just take it all now–“bird in the hand” thinking. Tough call. What will the village leaders do? The clock is ticking…
    Read More “Cadiz, OH Considers Offer to “Flip” Royalty Rights for $11K/Acre”

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    Harrisburg Newspaper Criticizes 0.00255 Drilling Part of PA Budget

    If you want to know what the prevailing political attitudes are from Pennsylvania’s (Democrat) politicians, look no further than the editorial page of the Harrisburg Patriot-News newspaper. There you’ll find whatever the next party line attack will be against PA Republicans and/or the shale drilling industry. And so today what do the learned, careful, deliberative minds of the PN editors focus on in PA Gov. Tom Corbett’s proposed budget which he unveiled on Tuesday–a budget which is an astonishing $29.4 BILLION in size and includes spending INCREASES for education and old folks but no broad-based tax increases? One of the sources for revenue in the budget–pocket change really–is a measly $75 million (which is 0.00255, or roughly 2/10ths of 1% of the entire budget) raised by allowing a little bit more drilling under, not on, state forests. And that’s what the editors at the PN jump on about the budget. Amazing.

    What’s even more amazing is the mental gymnastics they have to perform to criticize Corbett’s proposal–a proposal that does not allow any new rigs or drill pads on state forest lands! They resort to quoting anti-drilling organizations like PennFuture with arguments made with more “maybes,” “mights,” and “coulds” than you can count. In other words, absent any scientific evidence to the contrary, we should not do something (that Eddie Rendell and John Hanger once did, raising $444 million), simply on Democrat anti-drillers’ say-so. Maybe the PN editors like Hanger’s plan to turn PA into a bunch of pot smokers (they can tax) instead? We say, no thanks…
    Read More “Harrisburg Newspaper Criticizes 0.00255 Drilling Part of PA Budget”

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    Range Resources New High for Proved/Unproved Marcellus Reserves

    Yesterday MDN reported that Antero Resources was reporting a new high for the company–they have 7.6 trillion cubic feet equivalent (Tcfe) of proven natural gas reserves under the acreage they lease (see Antero 2013: 124 Marcellus/Utica Wells Drilled, Reserves Skyrocket). Not to be outdone, Range Resources has published their own chest-thumping announcements that they (Range) had 8.2 Tcfe at the end of 2013. In addition, Range is reporting their unproved resource potential zooms up to 42 – 55 Tcf of natural gas and 3.7 – 4.9 billion barrels of NGLs and crude oil.

    Here’s a pair of announcements from Range with more details on their excellent position in the Marcellus at the end of 2013…
    Read More “Range Resources New High for Proved/Unproved Marcellus Reserves”

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    Rex 2013: Proved Reserves up 37%, Avg Drilling Costs Up Too

    We like to refer to Rex Energy, the State College-based Marcellus/Utica driller as the little energy company that could. Rex is quite a bit smaller than some of the big boys, with just 77,000 leased acres in the Marcellus and 20,000 acres in the Utica. But they appear to be a healthy company–and they stay focused on their core mission of drilling in the northeast. We’ve recently mentioned “proved reserves” for some of the big boys in the Marcellus and Utica–reserves in the trillions of cubic feet. Rex’s proved reserves are in the billions of cubic feet.

    Below is a Rex announcement from a few days ago outlining their proven reserves. It’s a good update because it also outlines their average costs to drill, and the locations where they drill…
    Read More “Rex 2013: Proved Reserves up 37%, Avg Drilling Costs Up Too”

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    Chevron’s Head of Unconventional Resources Discusses Marcellus

    Chevron is the third largest acreage holder in the Utica Shale with 600,000 leased acres and fourth largest in the Marcellus with 714,000 acres. So when Chevron’s manager of unconventional resources for global drilling and completions, Michael Power, sits down for a Q&A to discuss “what’s next”–new methods and technologies the company will be using–that’s of high interest for MDN readers.

    An interview of Power with Drilling Contractor magazine reveals Chevron’s strategy in the Marcellus–fewer pads with more wells and longer laterals. They’re also recycling wastewater on site for reuse in drilling and fracking. Power discusses Chevron’s under-construction Decision Support Center in Pittsburgh, government regulation, community relations and more in this enlightening interview…
    Read More “Chevron’s Head of Unconventional Resources Discusses Marcellus”

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    OSU Tech/Money Backs Ohio Start-up Bringing CNG to Everyone

    We have a chicken and egg problem with CNG (compressed natural gas) vehicles: you need vehicles with engines converted, or designed, to run on CNG, and you need a way to fuel up. Detroit is listening–they’re coming out with a flurry of new CNG vehicles this year, including the Ford F-150 pickup truck. The only thing holding it all back seems to be a way to keep the tank filled. Americans have always been of the mindset that you head on down to the local filling station or these days, convenience store, to fill ‘er up. Filling stations are slowly beginning to offer CNG (and along interstate highways, LNG for big rigs), but it’s not happening nearly fast enough.

    Since you can burn the very same natural gas in your vehicle that you use to heat your home and cook with, wouldn’t it be great if there were a box you could hang on your garage wall that enables you to compress the gas from the local utility company to be used at home–just fill ‘er up at home? Wow, that would be awesome–and that’s just what an Ohio start-up company, using technology innovated at Ohio State University, is doing. With a $1 million investment from OSU, Simple-Fill is launching a very cool solution for businesses and homeowners that will enable them to use their existing natural gas hookup to fill up their CNG vehicles. Imagine never having to stop by the convenience store again (except to pick up a lottery ticket)…
    Read More “OSU Tech/Money Backs Ohio Start-up Bringing CNG to Everyone”

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    Can a Single Canceled Airline Route Affect Utica Shale Development?

    Could a single canceled airline route have an impact on the development of one of the hottest shale plays in the U.S. (the Utica)? Maybe, is the surprising answer. United Airlines has announced they will discontinue their non-stop daily flights to and from Cleveland and Oklahoma City. OKC is the headquarters for Chesapeake Energy, and Chessy is the #1 driller (for now) in the Utica Shale. It’s also HQ for Gulfport Energy, one of the most prominent and prolific drillers in the Utica next to Chesapeake. By cutting out that direct route it will mean much longer flights with layovers “at best” according to the Oklahoma Independent Petroleum Association. They leave us to think about the “at worst” possibilities.

    “No problem!” you say. Pittsburgh is probably closer to the oil and gas fields of eastern Ohio than Cleveland anyway. Or Columbus. Ahhh, but there’s the rub. Neither of those airports go direct to OKC either. Cleveland was the only one in the entire region to do so. And so this spring when United cuts the direct routes, it will mean a major disruption for the flow of “foreigners” (as Gov. John Kasich refers to them) coming into Ohio to work in Ohio’s oil and gas fields…
    Read More “Can a Single Canceled Airline Route Affect Utica Shale Development?”