Marcellus Drilling News

Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Washington County

Hearing on PA DEP Water Testing – 2.5 Hour Gripe Session
February 20, 2013February 20, 2013

Pennsylvania State Rep. Jesse White (Democrat from Cecil, PA) held a hearing yesterday in Washington, PA that took aim at practices by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) over how they test (or don’t test) and report (or don’t report) on water supplies near active shale drilling locations. The DEP was invited to attend their own roasting but declined, calling White’s hearing political theater, unproductive, unprofessional and a waste of time (see PA DEP Not Attending Hearing on Water Testing Near Shale Drilling).

With representatives from anti-drilling organizations like Earthworks and PennFuture scheduled to testify at the hearing, it’s not surprising the DEP declined to show up just to be bullied. The session was apparently a 2 1/2 hour dump-on-the-DEP-fest:

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Ohio | Portage County

Kent State University: No Plans to Allow Gas Drilling
February 20, 2013February 20, 2013

In Ohio, whether or not a state university like Kent State wants to allow drilling for natural gas on or under their land is up to the administrators of that university. Kent State owns over one thousand of acres of land. The main campus, in Portage County, OH, is over 900 acres by itself. Kent State owns eight campuses, a golf course and an airport—all in the Utica Shale region.

Although there is no official position (yet) coming from Kent on whether they want to lease their land for gas drilling, the administration has said there are “no plans to initiate drilling” on the Kent State campus.

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Columbia Pipeline Group | Energy Services | NiSource

NiSource Spending $1.8B over 5 Years on Pipeline Upgrades
February 20, 2013February 20, 2013

NiSource Inc., parent company and operator of the Columbia Gas Transmission pipeline which runs throughout the northeast including Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and New Jersey, released their 2012 financial and operating statement yesterday. The update and investor phone call (see presentations below) also provides updates on future plans. Among the interesting highlights: NiSource will spend $1.8 billion on pipeline improvements through 2017.

NiSource is not only pipelining natural gas in the Utica and Marcellus, they’re drilling wells too…

Read More “NiSource Spending $1.8B over 5 Years on Pipeline Upgrades”
Access Midstream Partners | Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Williams

Access Midstream’s 2012 Numbers: Chesapeake Deal Nets 1 Bcf/d
February 20, 2013February 20, 2013

In December, MDN told you about a complex 3-way deal in which Chesapeake Energy sold off its remaining midstream subsidiary (pipelines, compressor stations and processing plants), including midstream assets in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, to Access Midstream Partners. Access immediately turned around and sold 50% of itself to Williams. In essence, Chesapeake sold its midstream assets to Williams using Access as an intermediary (see Chesapeake, Access & Williams in Complex 3-Way Midstream Deal). No doubt there are certain tax advantages to structuring the deal the way they did. The Chesapeake acquisition netted an additional 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day for Access.

Access issued its fourth quarter and full year 2012 report yesterday. They spent $735 million and made $478 million in revenue for 2012. Access predicts capital spending in 2013 will be $1.6-$1.7 billion and they expect to make around $850 million in revenue. They predict the revenue number will grow to over $1 billion by the end of 2014, more than doubling revenue from 2012 (in just two years).

Read More “Access Midstream’s 2012 Numbers: Chesapeake Deal Nets 1 Bcf/d”
AB Resources | Chesapeake Energy | Chevron | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Marshall County | Taxation | West Virginia

Chesapeake’s Property Tax Assessment Lowered in Marshall County
February 20, 2013February 20, 2013

West Virginia has a phenomenally complicated taxation structure when it comes to, well, everything—but especially for oil and gas wells. The severance tax is 5%—that’s pretty easy. But WV also has an ad valorem (property) tax for both drillers and mineral rights owners. The way WV calculates the value of income-producing properties takes a tax attorney to figure out. In Marshall County, tax attorney John Mairs represents both Chesapeake Energy and Chevron. Chesapeake has 29 wells in the county and Chevron has 19.

Mairs was successful in getting Chesapeake’s property assessments on their 29 wells reduced by nearly $60 million, but Chevron’s assessment was reduced by only $20 million and that was due to a clerical error at the state level. Here’s the story on how and why the property assessments were modified in Marshall County for these two drillers:

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Health Impacts | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Marcellus Health Impact Study Finally Gets Funding
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

In August 2012, Geisinger Health System along with a second health system, Guthrie Health, announced they would jointly conduct the first ever study of the health impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling (see Health Care Systems Partner to Study Marcellus Impacts). They were later joined by a third organization: Susquehanna Health (see Third Group Joins Unfunded Marcellus Health Impact Study). Problem was, they didn’t have funding to begin the study (see Much-Ballyhooed Marcellus Health Impact Study Not Funded).

Six months later funding has finally arrived in the form of a $1 million grant from the Degenstein Foundation of Sunbury, PA. Geisinger Health announced the grant yesterday on their website:

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Belmont County | Blue Racer Midstream | Caiman Energy | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Marshall County | NGLs | Ohio | Pipelines | Processing Plants | West Virginia

Bomb Threat at Natrium, WV NGL Plant Doesn’t Slow Construction
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

A $500 million natural gas liquids processing plant in Natrium (Marshall County), WV will go online in the next few weeks—even with a temporary stoppage of construction last Saturday due to a bomb threat (no word on who made the threat or why). The Natrium plant is part of Blue Racer Midstream, a $1.5 billion joint venture between Dominion and Caiman Energy (see Dominion, Caiman in $1.5B Utica JV: Blue Racer Midstream). The new plant was originally scheduled to go online by end of 2012.

Some of the construction for the plant is happening across the border in Belmont County, Ohio:

Read More “Bomb Threat at Natrium, WV NGL Plant Doesn’t Slow Construction”
Bradford County | Energy Services | Eureka Resources | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Wastewater

Eureka Resources Building PA’s Biggest Marcellus Wastewater Plant
February 19, 2013March 7, 2019

Eureka Resources currently operates a Marcellus Shale wastewater treatment facility in Williamsport, PA that processes 8,000 barrels of wastewater per day. The company announced today it is building a new, second facility near Towanda, PA. The new plant will have the capacity to treat up to 10,000 barrels of wastewater per day. Target completion date is October of this year…

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Ohio | Patriot Water Treatment | Regulation | Statewide OH | Wastewater

Patriot Water in Warren, OH Objects to ODNR Directive
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

A feud that stretches back to June 2011 between shale wastewater treatment company Patriot Water Treatment of Warren, Ohio and the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources continues.

The latest skirmish in what has become a legal battle is over the ODNR’s order to D&L Energy to stop shipping wastewater to Patriot’s Warren plant:

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Coshocton County | Holmes County | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Taxation | Wealth Management

Landowners: Make Lease Payments You Receive Tax-Free
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

MDN ran across a story in the local Zanesville, Ohio newspaper that makes an interesting boast. A group of three financial advice firms have joined forces to offer workshops for landowners in the Coshocton, OH area that supposedly instructs landowners on how to save “virtually every tax dollar” on lease bonus payments. The technique, which involves setting up some sort of special legal structure, will also “save taxes” on royalty payments. We are 100% in favor of landowners keeping their money!

But, is it too good to be true? We don’t know. However, it does sound interesting, and if you live somewhere in the Coshocton vicinity, we’d encourage you to check it out. Let us know if you do…

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

New Rules/Laws for Shale Drilling Will Come to WV in 2013
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

Last week a set of legislative rules crafted to regulate the horizontal gas well industry cleared an important committee hurdle when the WV joint Legislative Rule-Making Review Committee gave its qualified blessing to rules proposed by the WV DEP. In addition, some 60 bills related to the energy industry were introduced in the first two days of the new West Virginia legislative session—24 of them concerning natural gas. Conclusion: More regulation of shale drilling is on the way in 2013.

First, details about the DEP fracking rules recently approved by the joint committee:

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Arrowhead Utica Pipelines | Columbiana County | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Hilcorp Energy | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Trucking | Utica Shale

Hilcorp Subsidiary Leases Property for Utica Transfer Facility
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

The Columbiana County Port Authority operates an industrial park in Wellsville, Ohio. Tucked into a story about road improvements the Port Authority is making at the park we learn that two subsidiaries of Utica Shale driller Hilcorp have leased two different parcels in the park: Arrowhead Utica Pipelines and Harvest Pipeline Co. The Port Authority is spending over $900,000 on road upgrades, largely to expand a road to the future site of a new shale gas transfer facility that will be built by Arrowhead.

The details:

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Industrywide Issues | New York | Oneida County | Regulation | Wastewater

Oneida County, NY Bans Fracking Wastewater as De-Icer for Roads
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

In what is becoming a more frequent occurrence, another municipality has banned the use of treated fracking wastewater as a de-icer on its roadways. This time it’s Oneida County, NY:

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Chautauqua County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Anatomy of a Moratorium – Why Some NY Towns Ban Fracking
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

Ill-informed (we would call them willfully ignorant) people show up at a town board meeting and make false statements about the shale drilling industry and ask the board to ban fracking. It’s a scene that plays out repeatedly across New York State, and has just happened again—this time in Pomfret (Chautauqua County), NY, in the western part of the state:

Read More “Anatomy of a Moratorium – Why Some NY Towns Ban Fracking”
Alternative Energy | Industrywide Issues | NG Vehicles | Statewide WV | West Virginia

WV Gov. Tomblin Proposes Ending Tax Credit for Electric Cars
February 19, 2013February 19, 2013

West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin signed into law a tax credit in 2011 that covers 35% of the cost for “alternative fuel vehicles”—up to $7,500 for passenger cars and $25,000 for large trucks. His “good intentions” are costing too much. The original bill covered many types of alternative fuels, including electric and coal liquids. Gov. Tomblin wants to change that. He’s proposing new legislation that eliminates the tax credit—now—for all vehicle types except those that run on natural gas.

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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Feb 19, 2013
February 19, 2013February 19, 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, Feb 19, 2013”