In a move that is sure to bring both cheers of support and wails of protest, last week a councilman for the city of Steubenville, OH asked officials to consider leasing Read More “Steubenville, OH Councilman Wants to Frack City Parks”
Sometimes the government has trouble filing paperwork for itself on time–we all know how that feels! Last year the state of Pennsylvania passed some of the most Read More “Some PA Towns Fail to File Impact Fee Paperwork with State”
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: Fri, May 10, 2013”
Are you a landowner with an old, abandoned railroad bed running across your property? You might want to check your deed very closely, especially if you’ve signed a gas lease for “your” property.
What you thought was your property may not be your property when it comes to large sums of lease and royalty payments, as some landowners in Susquehanna County, PA are learning the hard way…
Read More “Landowners: Watch Out for Old RR Easements – You May Owe Them $”
MDN recently highlighted two deals by Chesapeake to sell Marcellus Shale acreage at what we consider fire sale prices–in one case $574 per acre (see Southwestern Energy Buys 162K PA Marcellus Acres from Chesapeake), and in a second case $606 per acre (see Chesapeake Fire Sale Continues – EQT Picks up 99K Acres in SW PA).
However, Seeking Alpha blogger and energy analyst Richard Zeits–someone whose opinion we respect–has a different take. He says when you analyze the deals closely, they aren’t as irrational as they may appear, and these deals are far from a “fire sale”…
Read More “Zeits Says Chesapeake Marcellus Land Deals Not a Fire Sale”
The schizophrenic behavior of Cecil, PA town supervisors… Earlier this week Cecil town supervisors voted to have a closed door meeting with Range Resources to assess the “relationship” between the company and the town (see When We Get Behind Closed Doors…Range Resources & Cecil Twp). It looked to MDN like perhaps, just perhaps, the supervisors were making an attempt to patch things up. Range has them in court, after all.
But maybe not. We now learn that at the same meeting, the same supervisors want to shut down a local Range water impoundment:
Read More “Cecil, PA Supervisors Want Better Relations with Range, but…”
In March, MDN told you about a new joint venture between Crosstex Energy and Enerven Compression Services to build new compressor stations and a condensate processing plant in the Ohio Utica Shale (see Crosstex Energy to Build New Compressors, Processing Plant in OH). At the time Crosstex said they had secured a $75 million line of credit and were investing $50 million of it in the jv. Scratch that. Yesterday Crosstex announced they’re investing another $25 million in the jv, so it looks to us like they’re using up the rest of their line of credit to do it.
The Crosstex announcement:
Read More “Crosstex Invests Another $25M in OH Midstream JV”
We’re not sure this is exactly news because for months (years?) now MDN has told you that CONSOL Energy is on the way to transitioning from being one of the country’s largest coal producers to one of the country’s largest natural gas producers.
Yesterday, CONSOL’s CEO Brett Harvey wanted to make that point loud and clear to investors who attended a no-media-allowed annual shareholder’s meeting. In comments following the closed-door session, Harvey said, among other things, that the company will sell certain assets in order to fund more Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling:
Read More “CONSOL CEO: Company Transitioning to “More of a Gas Company””
The latest Utica Shale permits and wells drilled numbers, as of May 4:
Read More “Latest Grand Tally for OH Utica Shale Well Permits: 639”
We’ve heard for months now that the Dept. of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is really really close to releasing their new “rules for fracking on federal lands” (see New Interior Secretary Jewell Says BLM Fracking Rules Coming Soon). These are the same rules that Barack Obama would like to see used as a model for the states to use on non-public lands too (see Feds ‘Hope’ States will Use BLM Rules for ALL Fracking).
Must be this time the new rule release really is close, because Congress is held a hearing yesterday and the new rules, still unreleased, are receiving fire from both Republicans and Democrats…
Read More “BLM Rules for Fracking on Federal Land Criticized in DC”
The parade of first quarter financial/operational updates continues. The midstream sector is critically important for the Marcellus & Utica Shale. MarkWest is one of the biggest midstream players (perhaps the biggest) in the Marcellus/Utica. They issued their 1Q13 update yesterday:
Read More “MarkWest Energy 1Q13: Revenue Down $31M, New Customers in Utica”
Marcellus Shale driller Atlas Resource Partners reports achieving record average net production of 133.0 Mmcfed for the first quarter 2013, a 21% increase over the fourth quarter 2012, in their 1Q13 report issued yesterday. From the report:
Read More “Atlas Resource 1Q13: Record Marcellus Production”
Findlay Township (Allegheny County, PA, west of Pittsburgh) approved its first three Marcellus Shale wells at a meeting last night. Supervisors voted unanimously (3-0) to let Range Resources to drill on Clinton-Frankfort Road…
Read More “Findlay Twp, PA Approves First 3 Marcellus Wells, Range to Drill”
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: Thu, May 9, 2013”
Yesterday was D-Day, Decision-Day in the City of Youngstown, Ohio. Would the citizens of the city vote to commit economic suicide by adopting an amendment to the city’s charter that would not only ban fracking in the city, but also ban just about any activity related to shale drilling? A group of anti-fracking zealots, aided and abetted by Democrat city council members, were pushing for just that (see Youngstown, OH to Commit Utica Suicide with Vote to Ban Drilling).
Good news: Wiser heads have prevailed in Youngstown. Rational-thinking people voted down the ban by a vote of 57% to 43%. Closer than we’d like to see, but a convincing win nonetheless:
Read More “Youngstown, OH Votes Down Fracking Ban Amendment”
Gulfport Energy Corporation reported its first quarter financial and operating results yesterday, and there’s lots of talk about their efforts in the Utica Shale. Gulfport includes details about their wells and the oil and gas production they’re achieving in the Utica.
Here’s the Gulfport operational highlights for 1Q13 along with their Utica Shale Operational Update (complete with impressive 24-hour production rate numbers for the current nine operating wells that are now online):
Read More “Gulfport Energy 1Q13: Utica Utica Utica”