This story is an amusement for MDN, one of those deliciously ironic tales that’s sure to tick off the greenies. And that’s precisely why we bring it to you.
This is the story of how the sale of a wind farm in California will benefit shale gas drilling in the Marcellus, Utica and other shale plays.
Read More “Sale of CA Wind Farm Benefits/Enables Shale Fracking”
Because the sale price of domestically produced oil and natural gas has gone down over the past year, royalties for landowners have gone down as well. However, the bonus payments landowners receive when signing a new lease agreement have gone up—way up in the Marcellus and Utica Shale.
A newly released survey (embedded below) from Farmers National Co., a real estate management company for property owners, shows a dramatic increase for bonus deals in West Virginia (up 1.75 times), in Pennsylvania (more than doubling, up 2.3 times), but most dramatically, in Ohio (up nearly 13 times from a year ago). The largest reported lease signing bonus in Ohio for 3Q12 was a whopping $8,200 per acre.
Read More “Lease Bonus Payments for Marcellus & Utica Reach New Highs”
Yesterday MDN told you about an exploratory shale well being drilled in Tioga County, NY, just a few miles outside of the Town of Owego by Carrizo Oil & Gas (see this MDN story). We said that Carrizo was drilling a vertical well with plans to turn it horizontal when and if the fracking moratorium in New York is lifted. Were we wrong?
According to an interview given by Carrrizo to NGI’s Shale Daily publication, the well being drilled near Owego will not be turned horizontal. This is what was said:
Read More “Carrizo Says Owego, NY Well Vertical Only (for Now)”
A so-called “grassroots coalition” has formed to oppose the proposed 120-mile Constitution Pipeline. The Constitution will be built by Williams and Cabot Oil & Gas, stretching from the Marcellus Shale gas fields of Susquehanna County in northeaster Pennsylvania through New York State to Schoharie County (see this MDN story for background).
A “group” opposing the new pipeline has sprung up with an impressive web presence at the URL StopThePipeline.org. But who’s behind this group? And what are their true aims? MDN has done a bit of nosing around.
Officials in Jefferson County, PA say their predicted portion of the new Marcellus Shale impact fee being collected by the state just went down by half—and they don’t know why. Previous numbers issued by the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) showed Jefferson would receive $160,000-$200,000 in impact fee revenue from the nine wells currently drilled in the county. But as of Tuesday, that number has gone down to $100K or lower.
The unanswered question on everyone’s mind: Will other PA counties share a similar fate? Just what’s going on with the impact fee numbers anyway?
Read More “PA County Sees Expected Impact Fee Revenue Cut in Half”
A speaker at a recent manufacturing forum in Pennsylvania states the shale gas drilling boom in northeastern and southwestern PA that has so far eluded the northwestern corner of the state will soon arrive there as well. But the Marcellus is not the big draw in that part of the state. Instead, it’s the Utica Shale.
Among the counties where drilling is expected to heat up? Erie County.
Read More “Prediction: Shale Gas Drilling on the Way in Erie County, PA”
Seems like new natural gas-powered electric generating plants are popping up everywhere in Pennsylvania. Just yesterday MDN told you about the PA DEP approving the state’s first new natural gas electric generating plant to use Marcellus Shale gas, being built in Bradford County in northeastern PA (see this MDN story).
Today brings news that a new Marcellus gas powered electric plant will be built in Livingston County in northwestern PA:
Read More “Second Marcellus Gas-Powered Electric Plant Announced for PA”
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) continues its activity of reviewing local town ordinances for compliance with the new Act 13 Marcellus Shale drilling law. If a town’s ordinances are found to be in violation of the law, they either will have to change their zoning ordinances or risk not receiving their cut of the Marcellus Shale impact fee (i.e. tax) being collected by the state. Checks are due out in December.
Some townships, like South Fayette, are thin-skinned and have a persecution complex over a PUC review (see this MDN story). Other towns, however, take it in stride and when told their laws need fixing, they fix them—like Roaring Brook Township in Lackawanna County, PA.
Read More “NE PA Town Welcomes PUC Review of Shale Zoning Ordinances”
An article in today’s Pittsburgh Tribune-Review takes a look at how fracking technology in general—and the chemicals used in fracking in particular—are improving. Companies drilling in Pennsylvania are at the forefront of experimenting with new and improved fracking fluids. The article also takes a look at look at alternatives to using water in fracking—so-called “waterless” fracking.
It begins this way:
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, Oct 12, 2012”
MDN is not used to breaking the news, but that’s what we’ll do today. The Town of Highland, located in Sullivan County, NY, is about to be sued by the Highland Field & Stream Club over the town’s vote to ban gas drilling.
MDN received the following email notification from the attorney for the Highland Field & Stream Club:
Read More “Town of Highland, NY Gets Sued Over Gas Drilling Ban”
What does Carrizo Oil & Gas know about the New York moratorium on fracking we don’t? The moratorium has been in place for 4 1/2 long years now. There are some signs the moratorium may soon end—witness the parade of mainstream news sources granting political cover and “permission” to Gov. Cuomo to make a pro-fracking decision. But the standard operating procedure by the DEC’s Joe Martens until now has been stall and delay.
Enter Carrizo. Today’s Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin announces that Carrizo is drilling an exploratory vertical shale gas well outside of Owego, NY (Tioga County), squarely in the “hot zone” of the Southern Tier where gas drilling will take place. Their aim? Find out if shale gas is present in the vertical well, and then turn the well horizontal when and if the moratorium is lifted.
Read More “Carrizo Drills Exploratory Marcellus Well – in New York”
The number of permits filed to drill new shale oil and gas wells in Ohio slowed a bit in September, according to recent records. The number of permits to drill new shale wells in Pennsylvania saw an uptick in September.
Read More “A Look at the Numbers: OH Drill Permits Dip, PA Permits Grow”
Chevron just received its first permit to drill in the Utica Shale in Mercer County, PA. This is the fourth permit for shale gas drilling in Mercer County.
Read More “Chevron’s First Utica Drilling Permit for Mercer County, PA”
Board members for the Town of Horseheads, NY (Chemung County) are in no hurry to pass a fracking ban or moratorium. They’re waiting to see what the town zoning board says after they’ve studied proposed new drilling rules from the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation. The town board is also waiting to see whether or not the DEC even bothers to release new rules to allow fracking. Until then? No hurry, man.
Read More “Horseheads, NY Board in No Hurry to Ban Fracking”
A recently drilled shale oil and gas well in southeastern Ohio (Athens County) is already showing signs of promise. The owner reports that although the well was drilled into the Utica Shale and has not yet been fracked, it’s already starting to produce oil:
Read More “Athens, OH Shale Well Produces Oil – Before it’s Fracked”