Marcellus Drilling News

Energy Companies | Epsilon Energy | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Shareholder Rebellion at Epsilon Energy – New Board as of Today
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

Apparently there’s been a shareholder rebellion at Marcellus driller Epsilon Energy. MDN reported a year ago that Epsilon, headquartered in Ontario, Canada, was scaling back its focus on drilling in the Marcellus due to low natural gas prices, and instead concentrating on oil drilling in the Bakken Shale region of North Dakota (see Epsilon Energy 2Q12 Update: Scaling Back in the Marcellus). At that time (perhaps still), the company owned a 35% stake in the Auburn gas gathering system in the PA Marcellus.

The company released the following statement on Friday that virtually the entire board of directors will resign as of today, July 15, and be replaced by a new slate of board members:
Read More “Shareholder Rebellion at Epsilon Energy – New Board as of Today”
Energy Services | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | NGLs | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

MarkWest: $2.2B in Marcellus/Utica, Bring on the Cracker Plants!
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

MarkWest Energy, a major Marcellus and Utica midstream company, is investing $2.2 billion in the Marcellus/Utica region in pipelines, processing and fractionation plants. According to MarkWest, they have enough work in the northeast to keep them expanding for the next five years. One of the main services offered by MarkWest is removing ethane from raw natural gas. Their plan is to ship the ethane to either Canada or the Gulf Coast via pipelines. However, they’d love it if the region had “several cracker plants.” Here we go again with more cracker talk!

A good overview of MarkWest’s several billion dollar investment in the northeast, and their belief that the region needs its own cracker plant:
Read More “MarkWest: $2.2B in Marcellus/Utica, Bring on the Cracker Plants!”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Cuomo and Fracking and Comments (Oh My!)
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

Kind of a strange editorial in the Rochester, NY Democrat and Chronicle (D&C) newspaper last Friday. The gist of the editorial is that Gov. Cuomo has not distinguished himself by fence-sitting on the fracking issue (we agree with that point). However, the editorial writer(s) have angst that because Cuomo and his lieutenants at the Dept. of Environmental Conservation and State Dept. of Health have taken so long with their respective reviews, that the 200,000 comments from the public filed by a deadline earlier this year will go un-responded to and that the public’s input will be “dismissed” and not considered in the final decision.

Here’s what the D&C editorial says:
Read More “Cuomo and Fracking and Comments (Oh My!)”
Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Landowner Issue: Title Washing & How it May Affect Your Lease
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

Pennsylvania landowners entering into leases for oil and gas drilling on and under their property need to be aware of an issue exclusive to PA called “title washing.” Lawyer Ronald L. Hicks, Jr. from the firm Meyer, Unkovic & Scott writes about title washing in today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

What is title washing? As Hicks explains, it is a now-dormant practice whereby landowners who owed back taxes on a property would let the property go to a tax sale and then buy it back themselves at a discount because the tax sale would be accepted as a payoff of the old tax debt (pennies on the dollar). This happened mostly from 1900-1950. As part of the “washing” process, title to both the surface and the subsurface was provided free and clear. But recent PA court decisions have said oil and gas rights were not a part of the subsurface “washing”. It’s a tangled, complicated mess. Bottom line, according to Hicks, landowners should have their titles researched before signing a lease–and make sure any tax sales in the history of the lease are examined very closely to see if title washing was involved…
Read More “PA Landowner Issue: Title Washing & How it May Affect Your Lease”
Energy Services | GreenHunter Resources | Industrywide Issues | Marshall County | Wastewater | West Virginia

Wheeling Delays Vote Again on GreenHunter Wastewater Facility
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

It looks like the Wheeling Water Warriors will live to fight for another month. The Wheeling (WV) Planning Commission was due to finally vote to allow GreenHunter Water to build a frack wastewater recycling plant at a facility along the Ohio River in Wheeling. After some initial bumps, it seemed as if things were going along fine and that the Commission would vote last week (see GreenHunter’s Wheeling Frack Wastewater Plant Up for Vote July 8). However, the Commission has once again tabled the vote–this time until August 12th.

The latest machinations from Wheeling and what’s holding up the vote this time:
Read More “Wheeling Delays Vote Again on GreenHunter Wastewater Facility”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

WRLC Says, “Why Can’t We be Friends?” in the OH Utica
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

The Western Reserve Land Conservancy (WRLC), a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to preserving the natural resources of northern Ohio, has the mission of working to “permanently protect natural areas and farmland.” The good news is that the WRLC believes Utica Shale drilling in Ohio can be done safely and wisely–with some effort. They also believe that if the Utica becomes “a battlefield” in the fracking wars, all Ohioans will lose. The WRLC says what’s needed by both sides is cooperation and creativity.

We like the WRLC’s sentiment. Only problem is, when dealing with extreme and unreasonable people who view all fossil fuels (and those who want to use them) as the enemy, cooperation and creativity is not possible. There is no middle ground when dealing with unreasonable (as in you can’t rationally reason with them) people who demand a ban on fracking…
Read More “WRLC Says, “Why Can’t We be Friends?” in the OH Utica”
Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County

Cabot to Plug Unviable Gas Well in Dimock, PA
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

Cabot Oil & Gas announced last week that they will plug one of the first Marcellus wells they drilled in Dimock Township (Susquehanna County), PA as soon as the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) concludes an investigation into the gas well and two nearby water wells that may have been contaminated with methane from the Cabot well. The well is “unviable.” Cabot (and the DEP) stress that the investigation into whether or not the well is creating methane migration is not done and in the meantime Cabot is supplying water to one of the two affected homes…
Read More “Cabot to Plug Unviable Gas Well in Dimock, PA”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Exporting | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

France Sticks its Collective Head in Frack Sand
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

Apparently the matter is now settled in France. As long as President Francois Hollande is in office, he will not allow shale drilling in France. Too bad for the French people. Great news for the U.S.–France just became a huge export market for us…
Read More “France Sticks its Collective Head in Frack Sand”
About MDN | Calendar

Calendar of Events for Jul 15-28, 2013 [Free]
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

Below are upcoming events for this week and next.
Read More “Calendar of Events for Jul 15-28, 2013 [Free]”
Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Jul 15, 2013
July 15, 2013July 15, 2013

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Jul 15, 2013”
Earthquakes | Industrywide Issues

Science Magazine Article on Fracking & Earthquakes: Nothing New
July 12, 2013July 15, 2013

Major…media…is…breathless…… Fracking causes earthquakes! A single article by a single author published in Science magazine means it must be so, right? Wrong. Here’s what you need to know about the new article called, “Injection-Induced Earthquakes,” released yesterday on the Science website but containing a publish date of today: The article (from what we can tell by the abstract and media synopses of it), tells us nothing we don’t already know.

What do we know? Injecting any kind of fluid under pressure–fracking fluid, nasty waste chemicals, or even water itself–will cause an earthquake if enough fluid is injected near a seismic fault. We already know that. What you won’t see in major media accounts of the story is any kind of context, which MDN provides for you below…
Read More “Science Magazine Article on Fracking & Earthquakes: Nothing New”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Lehigh County | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Dems Beat the ‘Ban Shale Drilling’ Drum, Voices Grow Louder
July 12, 2013July 12, 2013

A few weeks ago MDN was one of (perhaps the only) media outlet of any kind to call attention to the insanity of the Democrat party in Pennsylvania in casting a vote at their statewide convention calling for an immediate moratorium on all fracking in the state (see PA Democrat Party Votes to End Marcellus Shale Drilling Statewide). Seems that major media just wants to ignore this story, perhaps thinking no one will notice that the inmates now run the asylum in the PA Democrat party.

However, the crazies will not be silent. A group of Democrat protesters gathered in Allentown yesterday to encourage/cajole/agitate PA Senator Pat Browne (Republican) to support their call for a moratorium on fracking. It was one of 10 such “rallies” held yesterday. Warning to all PA residents: if you elect a Democrat legislature and governor in the next election cycle, you run the very real risk of shutting down the only thing that keeps the PA economy from being 10 times worse than it is: shale drilling. Look for the Dems to become more vociferous against fracking as the election season heats up. This is just the beginning…
Read More “PA Dems Beat the ‘Ban Shale Drilling’ Drum, Voices Grow Louder”
Electrical Generation | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

DOE: Climate Change Affects Fracking & NatGas Too
July 12, 2013July 12, 2013

The climate, it’s a changin’. Ought to be a song. Yesterday, the Obama Dept. of Energy (DOE) released a new report on American energy sector “vulnerabilities” that come from mythical man-made global warming (euphemistically renamed “climate change”). The new report is titled, “U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme Weather” (full copy embedded below). It says that unconventional shale drilling either is, or soon will be, affected by global warming from lack of water supplies to use in fracking. It also asserts that as temps rise, less natural gas (and oil) will be used for heating, but more electricity will be used for cooling.

Here’s the DOE press release announcing the study:
Read More “DOE: Climate Change Affects Fracking & NatGas Too”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues

United Church of Christ Votes to Divest from Fossil Fuel Companies
July 12, 2013July 12, 2013

As a practicing Christian, there’s nothing quite so repugnant to MDN editor Jim Willis as a religious denomination claiming God is against something He never said He was–like fossil fuels. Yet that’s what the entire United Church of Christ denomination, from Christianity’s “left wing,” has just done. UCC has just voted to divest any investments they have in “fossil fuel” companies. It’s an utterly stupid move. Why stop there?

Why not divest from companies that use fossil fuels? Or divest from companies that sell goods and services to nasty, evil fossil fuel companies? Heck, why not divest from your own congregations–they all use fossil fuels to heat and keep the lights on!…
Read More “United Church of Christ Votes to Divest from Fossil Fuel Companies”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Better Check Your Ramsbottom, It May Get Fracked!
July 12, 2013July 12, 2013

Say ain’t so! MDN saw the following headline and it gave us a smile, so we thought we would share it with you. For your Friday entertainment. The headline is this:

Controversial fracking technique could be used in Ramsbottom

Who, or more properly where, is Ramsbottom? And why will it get fracked? Read on, dear reader…
Read More “Better Check Your Ramsbottom, It May Get Fracked!”
Forced Pooling | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Gov Corbett Signs Back-Door Forced Pooling Bill into Law
July 11, 2013July 11, 2013

It’s sad for us to have to report this, but PA Gov. Tom Corbett has signed a bill into law that’s bad for PA’s landowners. MDN told you about Senate Bill SB259 last week (see New PA Royalty Bill SB259 Faces Opposition from NARO). While the bill has some very good things for landowners in it (more transparency with items deducted from royalty checks), there’s one last minute addition that’s a big problem: There’s language that allows landowners with older leases to be pooled with others, putting them at a disadvantage–they can’t renegotiate their lease for a better deal.

It’s a bad deal for landowners. No matter how much lipstick you put on this pig (see Corbett’s statement below), it’s still a pig…
Read More “PA Gov Corbett Signs Back-Door Forced Pooling Bill into Law”

Controversial fracking technique could be used in Ramsbottom