Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Jun 20, 2013
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Big News: EPA Fracking Study Delayed 2 Years – Now Due 2016
Big news from the “Shale Gas: Promises and Challenges” conference in Cleveland, OH yesterday from none other than the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Jeanne Briskin, coordinator of the multi-year study on hydraulic fracturing research the EPA’s Office of Research and Development is performing, said yesterday the final report for the EPA fracking study will be delayed by two years–until 2016. This is the first time MDN has heard that the final study will be delayed.The fracking study was ordered by an activist Congress back in 2010. The EPA released an outline of their research plan in late 2011 but by then had already started to collect data, ahead of completing the plan for how they would collect the data (see EPA Releases Plan to Study Fracking, Jumps the Gun). A preliminary report was due and was issued in late 2012 (see EPA’s Fracking Study Progress Report (Dec 2012)). The final report is due in 2014. Not anymore…
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Plugging in to the Utica Shale Supply Chain
What does it take to become a supplier to the drilling industry? This article about an Ohio company that successfully cracked the Utica Shale supply chain sheds some light on the ins and outs of selling to the industry:
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY
Anti-Drilling Stupidity on Parade in Albany, NY
The problem in New York, dear reader, is not (necessarily) an inept politician–Gov. A. Cuomo–but rather the hypocrisy and stupidity of many of my fellow residents. To wit, a rally in Albany on Monday drew something over 1,000 anti-fossil fuel protesters (the AP says 2,000, they always double the real number), where those who attended cheered poll results that show an increase across the state in those who oppose shale drilling…
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Stanford Prof Says Fracking & Earthquakes are a Concern
Every three or four months, as regular as clockwork, the mainstream media resurrects the claim that “fracking causes earthquakes.” We’ve written about it a number of times (see MDN’s Industrywide Issues>Earthquakes category). Any kind of underground activity causes small (micro) “earthquakes.” But the kind you feel on top of the ground–the kind of earthquake that makes the surface move? No, fracking does not do that. At least almost never–we are aware of a single instance in England where a well was fracked directly on a fault line that caused an earthquake (see Report from England Links Fracking to Earthquakes).
At yesterday’s “Shale Gas Promises and Challenges” event in Cleveland, a pro-drilling professor from Stanford University, Mark Zoback, playing to an anti-drilling crowd, said fracking’s link to earthquakes is a concern…
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NY State Politicians Tackle the *Really* Tough Issue…of Cider
This post is somewhat off-topic and purely for your entertainment purposes. We’re near the end of a legislative session here in New York State–you know, the state where 4/5 of the state, known as “Upstate,” is in economic poverty with job and population losses year after year. Our intrepid governor, Andrew “The Ditherer” Cuomo is hard at work with lawmakers (before heading off to the Hamptons for the summer). They’re trying to figure out how to improve the lives of all
serfsNew York residents, especially thoselosersin Upstate.Would an immediate influx of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment from drilling in shale deposits be one of the things our hardworking politicians are discussing to, you know, improve the lives of Upstaters, especially farmers? Nope. Not even on the table. Instead, they’re fiddling around with legislation to allow farmers to make up to 150,000 gallons of hard cider a year (using NY apples of course)–presumably to keep them drunk so they won’t notice their property rights have been confiscated and they’re about to lose the family farm…
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OH Anti-Drillers Worked Up over Radiation
Anti-driller Dr. Marvin “Radon” Resnikoff has found some new clients to buy his recycled reports about killer radioactivity from shale drilling. His latest takers? The FreshWater Accountability Project Ohio (FWAPO). You may recall the U.S. Geological Survey was none too impressed with Resnikoff’s wild radioactivity claims (see Radon Debate: USGS Responds to Marvin Resnikoff Accusation). But hey, a guy’s gotta make a livin, ya know? So he continues to peddle his “radioactive” reports.
Last week the FWAPO released one of Resnikoff’s recycled light-on-facts reports (just change the headers and add the word “Ohio” in a few places)–see a copy embedded below. Resnikoff now has the anti-drilling faithful in Ohio all worked up over radiation…
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Allegheny County | Armstrong County | Butler County | Columbia Pipeline Group | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Indiana County | Industrywide Issues | NiSource | PennEnergy Resources | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Westmoreland County | XTO
NiSource Big Pine Gathering Pipeline Goes Online in SW PA
NiSource and Columbia Pipeline Group announced yesterday their new Big Pine Gathering System is now online and running in PA’s Marcellus Shale. Big Pine is a 57-mile pipeline gathering system serving southwestern PA: Allegheny, Butler, Armstrong, Indiana and Westmoreland counties. NiSource has a long-term contract with XTO Energy to deliver XTO’s natural gas to three different pipeline transmission systems. In addition to XTO, NiSource recently signed PennEnergy Resources as another customer for the new pipeline.
Details from the NiSource press release:
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Place Your Bets: Will ‘Blood and Oil’ TV Show Last a Month?
Once again our opinion is confirmed that television is a vacuum cleaner with the sole purpose of sucking your brains out. You watch it–your IQ goes down. The latest empirical evidence to support that rather bold statement? A new “reality” series called Blood and Oil on the Discovery channel.
Yesterday, MDN told you about a new TV series debuting last night on the Discovery channel about a small family oil company in Ohio, threatened with extinction by big, bad oil coming to the state to tap the Utica Shale (see Blood and Oil: New “Reality TV” Series about OH Oil Company). We watched the first 12 minutes or so–until the first commercial break. That’s all we could take…
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Jun 19, 2013
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Butler County | Energy Companies | Exxon Mobil | Industrywide Issues | NGLs | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | XTO
XTO’s New NGL Recovery Plant in Butler County, PA Now Online
Flying under the radar for more than year, XTO Energy (the Marcellus/Utica Shale subsidiary of Exxon Mobil) announced yesterday their natural gas liquids (NGL) recovery plant in Butler County, PA is now up and running. The plant will process wet gas coming from the the southwestern portion of PA, separating NGLs from methane. Although not referenced in the XTO announcement (see below), the recovered NGLs will be fractionated (further separated) and marketed by MarkWest (see MarkWest Signs Deal with XTO to Process NGLs in PA).The announcement from XTO that their new NGL recovery plant is now up and running:
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Carrizo Focuses on Eagle Ford, Keeps Toe Dipped in Marcellus/Utica
Marcellus and Utica Shale driller Carrizo Oil & Gas issued a second quarter brief update yesterday to say results they’re getting in the Eagle Ford Shale play (in Texas) are better than expected. Carrizo gets both oil and gas in the Eagle Ford, which seems to be their focus lately. Carrizo operates three rigs in the Eagle Ford, two in the Niobrara Formation (Colorado), and one rig in the Marcellus. According to the release, Carrizo will move up previously planned Utica drilling from 2014 to 2013 to avoid drilling in the winter. They plan to drill their second Utica well by the end of this year.
According to MDN’s Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook 2013, Volume 1, for the period Jan-Apr 2013, Carrizo had 8 permits issued for drilling in Pennsylvania, and 2 permits for drilling in Ohio. Relevant portions of yesterday’s Carrizo update:
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Shale Drilling Under (Gasp!) Allegheny County, PA Parks?
Is shale drilling coming to an Allegheny County, PA (Pittsburgh area) park near you? Maybe. Drilling likely won’t involve putting a rig in a park, but instead on land situated near a park–where a number of rigs are already located.
Allegheny County Chief Executive Rich Fitzgerald is investigating the possibility of leasing the land under county parks for shale drilling, to help with $100 million in deferred park maintenance and improve the “deplorable conditions” at some of the parks…
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Blood and Oil: New “Reality TV” Series about OH Oil Company
You knew it would have to happen sooner or later. Fictionalized television about the oil (and gas) business, like Dallas, has gotten long in the tooth. Enter so-called reality TV. Starting tonight on the Discovery channel, we have the “real life” story of an Ohio family-run oil company, Cutter Oil, and how they face a “life and death” struggle against “big oil” coming in to the state and snatching up all of the Utica Shale leases. At least that’s our interpretation of what this series is about by reading the press release (below).
MDN does not watch live television anymore and hasn’t in years (perhaps explains a lot, right?). We consider most television a wasteland–a vacuum cleaner of the brain. However, we may make an exception for this one. Will you be watching? Starts at 10 pm tonight. Here’s the announcement…
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OH Court: Landowner Can’t Reclaim Rights for ‘Not Enough’ Drilling
In yet another case of “know what’s in your lease,” an Ohio court (Fifth District Court of Appeals) has upheld the rights of a driller to not develop all portions (or layers) of leased acreage. The case is Bilbaran Farm, Inc. v. Bakerwell, Inc. The plaintiffs, Bilbaran Farm, claimed that the 275 acres they own was not “fully developed” because the driller drilled three wells targeting the Clinton sandstone and then stopped. The landowner alleges after a certain period of time the portions not developed (and obviously won’t be developed by the current driller) should revert back to them so they can re-lease with someone else and have it developed, and that by not doing so they are economically harmed.
The judges of the Fifth District did not agree…
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ODNR Issues Guidelines for Unitization (Forced Pooling) Requests
If you’re a driller in Ohio with leased Utica Shale land, but there’s a holdout or two in some of your leaseholds, you can make an application with the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources’ (ODNR) Division of Oil & Gas for something called “unitization.” MDN calls it “forced pooling,” a term more commonly used. It means (in Ohio) that if you own leases for 65% of the land in a given unit (typically 640 acres) and want to drill on and under that land, you can file an application to request a unitization hearing. We’ve embedded the guidelines you need to follow in your application below.
But be forewarned: There’s a lot of hoops to jump through. The application you file must be complete, including things like a gamma ray-density log, lots of aerial photographs and maps, complete information on all mineral rights owners, and a check for $10,000. Don’t forget the check. And you’d better be sure your ducks are all in a row, because the check is non-refundable…
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