Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, May 22, 2013
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Chesapeake Energy Appoints Anadarko Engineer as New CEO
Less than two months ago corporate raider Carl Icahn and other mercenary “stockholders” of Chesapeake Energy (with the help of complicit reporters at Bloomberg and Reuters) unceremoniously dumped Aubrey McClendon, founder of Chesapeake, as CEO (see McClendon Exits Chesapeake, Well-Bonused “Friends” Replace Him). Yesterday, Chesapeake announced they’ve hired an executive from rival drilling company Anadarko Petroleum to lead them. Three of Aubrey’s closest “friends” that together were running the company via an “Office of the Chairman”–Archie Dunham, Steve Dixon and Dom Dell’Osso–will now go back to their regularly scheduled jobs (and piles of money). Et tu, Brute?Robert Douglas (“Doug”) Lawler, 46, until this week, was senior vice president of international and deepwater operations at Anadarko. On June 17, he will join Chessy as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors. Doug is a petroleum engineer with an MBA. Our advice to Doug when he arrives at the corporate board room at Chessy: Watch your back when Carl Icahn is in the room. And you darned well better produce a dramatic turnaround on the balance sheet, quickly, or you too will be histoire.
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Cabot O&G Uses Marcellus Shale Gas to Power Drilling Rigs
Cabot Oil & Gas has jumped on the natural gas-powered drilling rig bandwagon. Yesterday, Cabot announced they have begun using “field gas”–Marcellus Shale gas from the very wells they’re drilling–to help power the drilling rigs they’re using to drill for the gas. According to Cabot, this is the first time field gas has been used in drilling rigs in northeastern PA. Cabot is using Caterpillar engines that run on duel fuel technology–part natural gas, part diesel.
You may recall other Marcellus drillers are also using duel fuel, and some are using 100% natural gas, to power their rigs. Those companies include EQT, CONSOL, Seneca Resources and Antero Resources (see Antero Res 2nd Marcellus Driller to Use 100% NatGas Rig Engines for a description of other drillers’ efforts to date). The unique aspect of Cabot’s announcement is that they’re using field gas and not trucking in LNG to power their duel fuel engines. It means far fewer truck trips to the drill site.
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NYSPC Launches Free Webinars to Win Public Support for Fracking
The New York State Petroleum Council (NYSPC), part of the American Petroleum Institute, is launching a free webinar series for the public–particularly residents of New York–tomorrow (Wednesday). Apparently the NYSPC has taken to heart the admonishment of Gov. Andrew Cuomo who recently lectured the NYSPC about getting more of the public on the pro-drilling bandwagon (see Gov. Cuomo Fires Back at NY Petroleum Council over Indecisiveness).
The first session schedule for tomorrow will feature Greg Sovas, former director of the mineral resources division of the NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation…
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PA House Bill 1414: New Reporting for Royalty Calculations
Listen up drillers and landowners in PA: Pennsylvania House Bill 1414 (copy embedded below) is making its way through the PA legislature. That bill, if passed, will require new reporting standards when it comes to calculating oil and gas royalties.
From the ShaleEnergyLawBlog:
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Bipartisan Policy Center: U.S. NatGas Prices Will Stay Low
It seems as if everyone is hauling out their crystal balls to try and divine where the price of natural gas will go in both the short and long term–and they all pretty much say the same thing: The price won’t go much higher for a long time–even if demand really picks up and even if the U.S. starts exporting natgas. The latest organization to take a stab at the prediction game is the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a Washington, D.C. based organization founded by liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans (mainstream media’s definition of bipartisanship).
The BPC’s Energy Project staff released a new report yesterday titled “New Dynamics of the U.S. Natural Gas Market” (full copy embedded below). The key findings of the study will not make the anti-drilling nutters happy, that’s for sure:
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Chesapeake Donates $1M, Employees Help with OK Tornado Recovery
MDN is no fan of the new Chesapeake Energy under the tutelage of board member and corporate raider Carl Icahn–that you know from reading this site for any length of time. However, when a company like Chesapeake does something good and wholesome and just “right,” we don’t want to overlook that either. Yesterday, Moore, Oklahoma was hit by devastating tornadoes. There were a number of fatalities and a huge amount of property damage. Oklahoma native son company Chesapeake (headquartered in nearby Oklahoma City) announced they will donate $1 million cash to the American Red Cross to help with this tragedy. In addition, Chessy employees are volunteering their time to help in the recovery effort. It is noteworthy, and we applaud them.
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, May 21, 2013
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Accidents | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA
AP’s Non-Story About PA Water Wells “Contaminated” by Drilling
Yes ladies and gentlemen, it’s been entirely too long since the Marcellus Shale drilling industry has had a serious allegation of water contamination leveled against it, so it’s time to manufacture a faux “controversy” and attempt to smear the industry. Thank God for the AP and Scranton Times-Tribune, who will readily comply and do just that.First, the latest smear job by AP that attempts to say that 161 PA water wells have been “contaminated” from 2008-2012, then our analysis of this sham story to set the record straight.
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Shock Moderator for JLCNY’s Drilling Education Session in Albany
MDN has to confess this one is a head scratcher. Last week MDN received a media alert that the 77,000-member Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) has taken up Gov. Cuomo’s challenge to educate lawmakers and the general public about shale gas drilling. The JLCNY will host a meeting in Albany for lawmakers, their staff, and “those charged with decisions related to natural gas development in NY state” on May 30. The educational session is appropriately titled, “Top Myths of Natural Gas Development: Debunked.”
The head scratcher is who will moderate it: Anti-drilling former Gannett reporter and author, Tom Wilber…
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Marcellus/Utica Gas Going to Japan: TGP Signs 20-Year Export Deal
Last week the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP), which runs through the Marcellus/Utica region, signed a 20-year agreement with Mitsubishi Corporation of Japan to ship natural gas to the Gulf Coast (Louisiana) where it will be liquefied–turned into LNG–and exported to Japan. This is the second such agreement to export Marcellus and Utica Shale gas to Asia. A little over one month ago Dominion announced a 20-year deal to export 100% of the output from their planned Cove Point, MD LNG plant. The gas from Cove Point will go to both India and Japan (see Dominion’s Cove Point LNG Facility Achieves Important Milestones).
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Energy Services | GreenHunter Resources | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | Wastewater | West Virginia
The Long (Federal) Road to Approve GreenHunter’s Barge Terminals
GreenHuner Water has purchased seven facilities along rivers in PA, WV and OH where it hopes to open operations to barge either fracking wastewater or brine to other locations “down river” for disposal by injection wells. The latest barge facility purchase made by GreenHunter is in Wheeling, WV (see GreenHunter Buys Barge Terminal in Wheeling for Frack Wastewater). The big gamble by GreenHunter is that they will receive approval by the U.S. Coast Guard. The gamble got bigger when it was revealed the Obama White House, via the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), would also need to approve it (see Obama “Inches” Toward Approving Barge Shipments of Frack Water).
The gamble is now much bigger by orders of magnitude. The Coast Guard says in addition to themselves and the OMB, the Dept. of Energy, Dept. of Transportation and the federal EPA will also have a hand in the review and decision on whether or not to allow barging of fracking wastewater and brine:
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BLM Releases Revised Rules for Fracking – Why it Matters
In May 2012, the Dept. of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a new list of rules for fracking on federal lands (see BLM Issues Proposed New Rule for Fracking Federal Lands for a copy of the original proposed rules). The proposal was a disaster and quickly pulled by the BLM for reconsideration. A year hence and they’re back with BLM’s Fracking Rules 2, a revision of their rules for how drillers must operate on federal lands. A full copy of the newly revised rules is embedded below.
Reaction to the new rules, by the drilling industry, is tepid. The American Petroleum Institute rightly asks: Why do we need federal rules for something that’s working just fine as regulated by the states? You may wonder why MDN cares about this issue when there’s virtually no federal land in the Marcellus/Utica region–most federally-owned land (700 million acres) is in the Western U.S. Why care? Because these rules will likely one day be expanded to cover private land too (see Feds ‘Hope’ States will Use BLM Rules for ALL Fracking).
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Boardwalk Pipeline Partners | Energy Services | Guernsey County | Industrywide Issues | NGLs | Ohio | Pipelines | Williams
Bluegrass NGL Pipeline Going Through Guernsey County, OH?
In March, Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners announced a joint venture to re-purpose existing pipelines and build new sections of pipeline to carry natural gas liquids from the Marcellus/Utica region to the Gulf Coast for processing (see Williams, Boardwalk Announce Marcellus-to-Gulf Coast NGL Pipeline). The exact route of the new Bluegrass Pipeline, as they call it, has not been disclosed. However, we have an idea of where some of it will be built as it crosses Ohio…
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FracFocus 2.0 – Fracking Fluid Chemical Registry Gets Even Better
FracFocus, the online national hydraulic fracturing chemical registry launched in April of 2011, is about to get even better. Version 2.0 of FracFocus launching June 1 will include better search capabilities and improved data verification.
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Energy Companies | Gulfport Energy | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale
OH Watershed District Cuts New Water Deal for Gulfport Fracking
MDN told you a month ago that the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) had voted to sell water from its plentiful reservoirs and lakes to Antero Resources and Gulfport Energy for use in Utica Shale fracking operations (see Muskingum Watershed Votes to Sell 209M Gals of Water for Fracking). Of the 209 million gallons they agreed to sell, only about 25 million would be sold to Gulfport.
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