Marcellus Drilling News

Energy Companies | Hilcorp Energy

Spotlight: Hilcorp Energy’s Sole (Billionaire) Shareholder
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

Hilcorp Energy has been on the radar screen a number of times recently. The energy company is heavily involved with both drilling and midstream activity in the Ohio Utica Shale. The first mention of Hilcorp on MDN was in July 2012 when NiSource announced they were forming a joint venture with Hilcorp by combining Utica Shale acreage allowing Hilcorp to do the drilling (see this MDN story). A pipeline being built by NiSource and Hilcorp is about to start construction in Ohio (see this MDN story). And just yesterday, MDN told you about the latest developments in the Brinker Storage Field area of Ohio, involving Columbia Gas and Hilcorp (see this MDN story).

Just who and what is Hilcorp? Surprisingly, Hilcorp, a privately-owned company, is owned by a single shareholder: Jeffrey Hildebrand. According to a new article in Forbes magazine, Hildebrand is “uber-private” and very wealthy. The article shares a few other bits of information about the company and Mr. Hildebrand that MDN thought you would find interesting:

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Coshocton County | Guernsey County | Ohio | Statewide OH

8 New Utica Shale Permits Issued Last Week in Ohio
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

The latest information (for last week) shows eight new drilling permits issued for Ohio’s Utica Shale, including one permit in Coshocton County, and four permits in Guernsey County:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Former Gov. Rendell Changes Position on DRBC Moratorium
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

Ed Rendell, former governor of Pennsylvania, is a prominent Democrat and a supporter of natural gas drilling. While in office, he opposed the ongoing moratorium for drilling in the Delaware River Basin. Now that he’s out of office, he still supports drilling, but he’s changed his tune on the Delaware River Basin Commission’s (DRBC) de facto moratorium. He now supports it.

Rendell points out, however, that if you say “no” to fracking and natural gas, you say “yes” to burning more oil. At least he’s a realist.

Read More “PA Former Gov. Rendell Changes Position on DRBC Moratorium”
Alternative Energy | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

Cuomo Announces Green Tech Initiative, Dithers on Fracking
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

Throwing a little political red meat (and taxpayer money) to his leftist anti-drilling supporters, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo yesterday announced the launch of a new $30 million “green technology” initiative. One of the absurd arguments made by those who oppose drilling is that we can get by, right now, using only alternative sources of energy like wind and solar if we’d only just reduce the amount of energy we use—like by 50% (their estimates). You know, put padlocks on everyone’s thermostats so the furnace doesn’t come on for anything over 60 degrees. Rolling blackouts—“Today’s Tuesday, so we have electricity, horray!” That sort of thing.

Cuomo’s new green energy “initiative” with an emphasis on figuring out how to use energy more efficiently (sans rolling blackouts) will be music to anti-drillers’ ears. Meanwhile, Cuomo continues to dither on the one clean energy alternative that would make an immediate and profound difference for all New Yorkers: drilling for clean-burning natural gas.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Oneida County | Statewide NY

Even Without Fracking, Some NY Water Wells are Flammable
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

A recent study released by the U.S. Geological Survey looks at water well contamination in New York State. The study sampled 239 wells, 12 of them located in the Mohawk Valley area of the state (Utica, NY area). At least one of the Mohawk Valley water wells has enough methane in it (28 milligrams per liter) to be flammable. Just like the faucet in the fictional movie Gasland! Just one thing: There’s no fracked natural gas wells anywhere close to that well (high volume fracking has never been allowed in the state—ever). It’s naturally-occurring methane.

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Commodity Price | Industrywide Issues

Analyst Predicts NatGas Price Will be $4 MCF by Year’s End
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

Forbes has an article saying the commodity price for natural gas, which was at historic lows earlier this year, will go above $4 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) by the end of this year. The current price as of this writing is $2.87 mcf.

Here’s their argument (based on analysis by Canaccord) in favor of a big upswing in natural gas prices:

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Energy Companies | Hess | Ohio | Statewide OH

Hess Buys NatGas Contracts Division of Delta Energy
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

Energy giant Hess Corp. announced yesterday it is buying the natural gas marketing division of Delta Energy. Delta is based in Dublin, Ohio. What Hess is buying are energy contracts—the right to sell natural gas to a certain list of commercial and industrial customers. Hess is a huge company with operations that span upstream (drilling new wells) to midstream (pipelines, processing and terminals) to downstream (selling oil and gas to end user customers). Hess owns leases for 185,000 Utica Shale acres in Ohio and seems to be making moves to increase its presence in the state for all of its operations.

More on the Hess purchase from Delta:

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

NJ Natural Gas Customers Get Rate Cut Thanks to Fracking
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

In what can only be termed delicious irony, more than 2 million natural gas customers across New Jersey, many of whom oppose hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, will get a cut in their natural gas rates starting October 1st. Why? Because of the abundance of hydraulically fractured Marcellus Shale gas flowing into the state from Pennsylvania.

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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Sep 18, 2012
September 18, 2012September 18, 2012

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:

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Energy Companies | EnerVest | Ohio | Statewide OH

EnerVest Puts 539,000 Utica Shale Acres on Auction Block
September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

EnerVest has put leases for 539,000 Utica Shale acres in Ohio on the auction block and hopes to get more than $6 billion dollars for it. That would be something north of $11,000 per acre. Pretty optimistic, but hey, you never know!

Apparently EnerVest is the accidental energy company who just happened to amass a 3/4 of a million acres of leases some time ago and now wants to take advantage by selling some of it. From the Wall Street Journal:

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Exporting | Industrywide Issues

Guest Viewpoint: Why the APGA is Wrong on LNG Exports
September 17, 2012April 25, 2017

MDN reader and friend Chris Acker, who splits his time between northeast Pennsylvania and Savannah, Georgia, recently sent MDN a note about the American Public Gas Association (APGA) and their call to ban the export of natural gas from the U.S. The APGA has over 700 members in 36 states and is the only nonprofit trade organization that represents America’s publicly owned natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs).

In February, the APGA sent a letter to Congressman Edward Markey (D) supporting his legislation that would ban the export of domestically produced liquefied natural gas (see the letter here). Chris points out what he perceives are the fallacies in the APGA’s arguments to ban LNG exports. MDN has had mixed emotions on the topic of exporting natural gas, but Chris makes some compelling arguments.

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Broome County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Violence

NY State Senator Receives Death Threats from Anti-Drillers
September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

New York State Senator Tom Libous, from Binghamton, a leading politician in New York who supports shale gas drilling, reports he’s received death threats by out-of-control anti-drillers. You know, those peace-loving “civil” disobedient types? Yeah, those people.

From the New York Post:

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Athens County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio

Civil Disobedience, or Eco-Terrorism? Go Climb a Tree
September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

Somewhere, at an undisclosed location “just outside Athens, Ohio” starting on Saturday of this week, anti-drillers will go to camp to learn how to…climb trees? Yeah, climb trees. Apparently people with the anti-drilling gene missed out in their early years and now need corrective instruction to teach them how to “go climb a tree.”

After you stop laughing (like we did), and read a bit further, you’ll find out the intent of the anti-driller tree-climbing camp is a bit more nefarious. It’s to teach people how to engage in civil disobedience (we call it eco-terrorism) by climbing trees, stretching ropes between trees, and oops, guess that nutjob protester just happened to fall on the road right in front of that truck on the way to a drill site. Isn’t that a shame/coincidence? (Yes, that’s exactly what they planned to do near a drill site in central Pennsylvania before it was stopped by the police, read this MDN story.)

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Broome County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York

Anti-Fracking Hippies Gather at Otsiningo Park Last Saturday
September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

A group of 60s hippies and hippie wannabes gathered at Otsiningo Park (in Binghamton, NY) over the weekend to hold a press conference and make noise about fracking—anti, of course. Among them were failed Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan, his failed sidekick (running for County Executive in a laughable campaign), Tarik Abdelazim, socialist Binghamton Council member Leah Webb and others. Read more about the event by clicking for the Press & Sun-Bulletin article the link below.

However, the better and frankly more perceptive coverage of the event, came from a former Press & Sun-Bulletin reporter who’s also anti-fracking, Tom Wilbur. Tom points out the rather small group assembled (maybe 100 people total, out of a metro area of 125,000), are signing pledges that if fracking is allowed in New York, they’re going to try and stop it using so-called “civil” disobedience (we’ve personally never seen the anti crowd act civilly!). In his coverage, Wilbur reaffirms what MDN has said for years now: These people are lost in the 1960s.

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Education | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Tompkins County

Cornell University’s Anti-Fossil Fuel Brainwashing Sessions
September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

The Cornell University Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences along with the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (also a Cornell group) have launched a lecture series for undergraduates they call “Sustainable Earth Energy and Environmental Systems” (see the flier embedded below).

MDN calls it brainwashing sessions for young students to ensure they’re properly indoctrinated into the cult of hating fossil fuels.

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Columbia Pipeline Group | Columbiana County | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Hilcorp Energy | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Litigation | Ohio

Columbia Gas & Hilcorp Meet with Landowners in Brinker Field
September 17, 2012September 17, 2012

More than 50 years ago, landowners in a 35,000 acre area of Columbiana County, Ohio signed a lease with Columbia Gas that allows Columbia to store natural gas supplies in the Berea Sandstone formation. Known as the Brinker property back then, today it’s referred to as the Brinker Storage Field. The lease that was signed, and passed on to new landowners purchasing “Brinker” property, means landowners won’t see a penny from drilling that’s about to begin on their property by Hilcorp Energy (see this MDN story for more background). Columbia Gas will keep all of the signing bonus and royalty money for itself. Unless…

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