Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Sep 17, 2013
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Ohio Moves to Quarterly Production Reports Starting Jan 2014
Investors and those who watch the Utica Shale industry, including MDN, have long called on the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) to abandon annual reporting of gas and oil production and instead move to a more frequent reporting system–quarterly would be about right. Late last year MDN prematurely told you quarterly reporting was on the way (see [Corrected] ODNR Moving to Quarterly Production Numbers for O&G). The state legislature took up the measure again earlier this year and made quarterly reporting part of the language in the 2013 Ohio budget bill (see Ohio Moves One Step Closer to Quarterly O&G Production Reports). The budget passed with quarterly reporting language intact.Last Thursday, director of the ODNR, James Zehringer, along with the chief of the division of oil and gas operations for the ODNR, Rick Simmers, spoke at the Guernsey County Energy Coalition meeting. Simmers said starting in January 2014, Ohio drillers will be required to file quarterly production reports…
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Energy Companies | Energy Services | EQT Corp | Green Field Energy Services | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA
EQT First Driller to Frack a Marcellus Well Using 100% Field Gas
Marcellus Shale driller EQT was the first driller to use liquefied natural gas (LNG) to power a drilling rig starting in 2012 (see EQT Converts 2nd Drilling Rig in WV Marcellus to Run on LNG). EQT continues to be a trailblazer. They announced today that by using technology from Green Field Energy Services, they have just completed fracking a Marcellus well using 100% “field gas” or methane produced right at the well site.
They not only drill for the gas, but the gas they drill for, they turn around and use to drill a neighboring well which cuts down on emissions, truck traffic and cost. How cool is that?…
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Allegheny County | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation
Pittsburgh Dem Proposes Ban on Drilling in County Parks
Should counties allow shale drilling to take place in or under county parks? It’s a politically charged issue, that’s for sure. Some political leaders, instead of facing the issue head-on, try to “kick the can down the road” and delay the discussion for years.
In a surprise editorial, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes liberal Democrat Councilwoman Barbara Daly Danko (Allegheny County) to task for proposing to delay discussion and debate about this important issue. Last week she introduced a bill that would ban drilling in Allegheny County parks until 2017. The PPG says it’s not necessary and makes a decision that much harder later on…
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Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County
Dimock Family & Lawyers in Legal Hot Water for Secret Assistance
“Dimock” is the issue that won’t die because the media and anti-drillers won’t let it. The latest installment in this soap opera: Landowners Scott and Monica Ely refused Cabot Oil & Gas’ offer to settle in 2012, although virtually all other landowners who say Cabot contaminated their water wells with methane (natural gas) did settle. The Elys were hoping for a bigger payday, so they kept on–against the advice of their lawyers.
The Elys told the court they couldn’t find legal help so they would represent themselves. Then, against legal and ethical standards, a pair of lawyers (one of them from the firm previously representing the Dimock families) secretly helped them anyway. The Elys and their surreptitious lawyers are now in legal hot water…
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Benesch Law’s Useful Quarterly Report/Overview on Utica Shale
How about a handy quarterly snapshot of the Utica Shale and where various initiatives (like infrastructure investments) stand? The attorneys and researchers at Benesch Law produce just such a report every three months. The latest edition is now out. One statistic of note to give you a feel for the enormous scope and potential of the Utica Shale in Ohio: There are 133 pipeline projects–from local gathering lines to interstate natural gas liquids pipelines–either now being built or on the drawing board. It represents billions of dollars of investment in the Utica.
Below is the full Benesch Shale Industry Report – Quarterly Summary Q2 2013. Well worth the few minutes it takes to read…
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God, Veggies & Bees – What’s Next on the Chesapeake Chopping Block?
As MDN pointed out last week, Chesapeake Energy CEO Doug Lawler continues to cut expenses by cutting people (see Chesapeake’s Lawler Continues to Swing the Ax – More VPs Gone). Such activity puts a smile on his boss’ face, corporate raider Carl Icahn, because Icahn can see his stock price inching up–getting high enough that he can sell it at a profit. That’s what corporate raiders do.
An update on Chessy’s ax-wielding. The latest things to go on the chopping block? God, veggies and bees…
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Marcellus Drilling Comes to Wood County, WV
According to Cam Huffman, president and CEO of the local economic development agency Area Roundtable in Parkersburg, WV, Wood County is now starting to see Marcellus drilling activity. Between potential drilling in Wood and other activities, like a regional ethane cracker plant, Huffman says Wood County is seeing an economic resurgence because of the shale drilling industry…
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FMC: Shale Industry Must Achieve 100% Frack Wastewater Recycling
At last week’s 2013 YOUNG Expo, FMC Technologies vice president of surface technologies, Johan Pfeiffer, said water use for fracking is a big deal–such a big deal that the shale drilling industry needs to move to 100% recycling of fracked wastewater. Soon. If we don’t? An ominous prediction from Pfeiffer: “If we don’t address the water issue we will lose it.”
FMC is a huge oilfield services and equipment company with a vested interest in the issue. They are right now conducting a pilot program in Colorado for a new technology that removes impurities and chemicals from frack wastewater. Pfeiffer explained a bit about their new and unique technology…
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Accidents | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | NGLs | Pipelines | West Virginia | Wetzel County
MarkWest Continues Cleanup at NGL Pipeline Spill in WV
About a month ago, a natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that connects MarkWest Energy’s Mobley and Majorsville facilities ruptured after a landslide hit it (Wetzel County, WV). The pipeline spilled onto the ground and into a nearby stream causing a fish kill (see Landslide Causes MarkWest NGL Pipeline in WV to Rupture/Spill). The West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection has “cited” MarkWest, meaning there will be a fine at some point once the full extent of the damage is known.
In the meantime, MarkWest is working to clean it up. An update on progress at the spill site…
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Calendar of Events for Sep 16-29, 2013 [Free]
Below are upcoming events for this week and next.
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Sep 16, 2013
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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OOGA Pegs Utica Shale “Sweet Spot” at YOUNG 2013
An Ohio Oil and Gas Association (OOGA) representative told attendees at the YOUNG 2013 conference held this week in Youngstown that counties in southeastern Ohio are the “sweet spot” of the Utica Shale play because the pressure there is higher and because the shale layer includes an abundance of natural gas liquids. However, another speaker–an executive from CONSOL Energy–said counties in northeastern Ohio will continue to see successful drilling too. So don’t despair!Executive VP of OOGA, Tom Stewart, used a map to detail the location of a “strip of highly pressurized shale containing natural gas liquids.” While we don’t have a copy of the map, we do have his identification of precisely which counties he says are in that strip–the Utica Shale sweet spot…
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Economic Impact | Erie County (NY) | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | New York | Pipelines | Statewide NY | Supply Chain
A New Marcellus Pipe Manufacturing Plant Comes to…New York???
Maddening? Yes. Startling? True. Teeth-gritting? You bet. Ironic and mystifying? Supremely so.
A Middle Eastern company has just announced they will invest $102 million to build a factory in South Buffalo, NY that will employ 170 people making steel pipes for the…wait for it…shale drilling industry. And who should plant his mug right in the middle of this announcement to take credit for the investment and jobs it will bring to the state? Gov. Andy Cuomo–the man who can’t decide whether or not he’ll approve fracking in New York. You can see why we’re having such a conflicted and mixed(-up) reaction…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Wayne County
DRBC Director Carol Collier Announces Her Retirement
Executive director of the Delaware River Basin Commission, Carol Collier, apparently has had enough. She announced yesterday she will retire as of March 12, 2014. You may recall Collier was shamed and humiliated on camera by filmmaker Phelim McAleer in his top-notch documentary FrackNation (see the video embedded below). Collier and her support of anti-drilling causes like the fictional Gasland movie is one of the primary reasons landowners in Wayne County, PA still have had no shale drilling–even though other PA counties all around them not in the Delaware River Basin have had drilling for years.
What does Collier’s retirement mean for the future of Marcellus Shale drilling in the DRBC’s jurisdiction? No one yet knows, but landowners are hopeful. One thing you can be sure of: Even though Collier mouths platitudes about finishing up regulations before she retires that will eventually allow drilling, there will be no movement on that issue from now until March. Of that we’re confident. Here’s Collier’s announcement from yesterday:
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OH Company Turns Drill Cuttings into Clean Fill Dirt in 24 Hours
An intriguing supply chain story that caught MDN’s eye: An Ohio company has figured out a way to speed up the work of Mother Nature in decomposing the nasty stuff that contaminates “drill cuttings”–the rock and soil left over from drilling natural gas or oil wells. Drill cuttings are typically hauled off to a landfill where it takes Mother Nature hundreds (sometimes thousands) of years to fully break down the chemicals (naturally and not-naturally occurring) in drill cuttings.
Ohio Soil Recycling greatly speeds up the natural process and turns drill cuttings into soil suitable for use as “clean fill dirt” in as little as 24 hours!…
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Investors and those who watch the Utica Shale industry, including MDN, have long called on the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) to abandon annual reporting of gas and oil production and instead move to a more frequent reporting system–quarterly would be about right. Late last year MDN prematurely told you quarterly reporting was on the way (see 
An Ohio Oil and Gas Association (OOGA) representative told attendees at the YOUNG 2013 conference held this week in Youngstown that counties in southeastern Ohio are the “sweet spot” of the Utica Shale play because the pressure there is higher and because the shale layer includes an abundance of natural gas liquids. However, another speaker–an executive from CONSOL Energy–said counties in northeastern Ohio will continue to see successful drilling too. So don’t despair!