Marcellus Drilling News

Energy Companies | Energy Services | Hilcorp Energy | Industrywide Issues | Mahoning County | NiSource | Ohio | Pipelines

Hilcorp & NiSource Approach OH Landowners About Pipeline
August 27, 2012

In July, Hilcorp Energy and NiSource announced a joint venture to combine their Utica shale acreage with Hilcorp doing the drilling. The jv also will build wet gas gathering pipelines in Ohio and Pennsylvania (see this MDN story). It looks like the pipeline part has begun. A Youngstown television station reported over the weekend that reps from Hilcorp and NiSource were going door to door in parts of Mahoning County asking landowners to sign waivers to allow the pipeline.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH

OH Muskingum Watershed Votes to Lease Land, Allow Pipeline
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

MDN reported in early June that the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (MWCD) board had caved to pressure from enviro-bullies and pulled back from selling water from its vast supply to Utica Shale drillers (see this MDN story).

The MWCD said at the time they would wait for the results of a study they commissioned with the U.S. Geological Survey to look at water sales from three of their reservoirs: Clendening, Atwood and Leesville (see this MDN story). The MWCD has not decided to sell more water (yet), but they did decide on Friday to lease some of their land for drilling. They also approved a right-of-way to extend a drilling pipeline. Both decisions have anti-drillers ticked off.

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Columbiana County | Lease & Royalty Payments | Ohio

Columbiana County, OH Sees Slowdown in Leasing – Good or Bad?
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

Leasing activity in Columbiana County, Ohio is slowing down. Is that a bad thing? Or a good thing?

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Energy Companies | Rex Energy

Rex Energy Begins 2nd Utica Well, Keeps Testing in OH & PA
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

Rex Energy continues to test the Utica and Marcellus Shale. A quick update on their progress:

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Belmont County | Brooke County | Jefferson County (OH) | Mahoning County | Marshall County | Ohio | Ohio County | Trumbull County | West Virginia

New OH/WV “Shale Play” Publication Debuts
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

For those living in eastern Ohio and along the border in West Virginia, be on the lookout for a new free publication called Shale Play, published by the Warren (OH) Tribune Chronicle and its sister publications.

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Statewide OH

Energy Group Says U.S. Can be Off Foreign Oil by 2020
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

The Consumer Energy Alliance says if legal and regulatory roadblocks were removed, the United States could be producing and meeting 95% of it’s own energy needs in the next eight years—by 2020. The Marcellus and Utica Shale play a role in such a plan.

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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Aug 27, 2012
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

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

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About MDN | Calendar

Calendar of Events for Aug 27 – Sep 9, 2012 [Free]
August 27, 2012August 27, 2012

Below are upcoming events for this week and next.

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Energy Companies | Exxon Mobil | XTO

Will Exxon’s Lack of Marcellus Drilling Lead to Expired Leases?
August 24, 2012August 24, 2012

An energy industry consultant and investment analyst writes an interesting article on Seeking Alpha about Exxon Mobil’s commitment to dry shale shale (“methane only”). Richard Zeits characterizes Exxon’s shift away from dry to wet gas (oil and natural gas liquids) as “radical,” citing Exxon’s onshore rig count decline from 71 to 50 rigs (a 30% drop) since the beginning of this year as evidence of the change. He estimates they use less than 10 of the remaining 50 rigs for drilling in dry gas areas.

Zeits says that Exxon may not be able to hold a sizable amount of leased acreage they hold in dry gas areas of the Marcellus and Fayetteville Shale basins because of the reduced rig count. That is, they won’t be able to drill on the leased acreage by the time the leases expire—especially in the Marcellus where they’re only operating four rigs on 660,000 acres of holdings.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg Supports Fracking
August 24, 2012August 24, 2012

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with the “father” of hydraulic fracturing, George Mitchell, jointly published an opinion piece in yesterday’s Washington Post that supports fracking. Or rather offers qualified support, provided fracking is done they way they want it done.

Bloomberg and Mitchell offer four reasons why fracking is good, and then say their individual foundations will work together to “encourage better state regulation of fracking around five key principles.” Here are those five principles:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Monroe County (NY) | New York | Regulation

Town of Perinton, NY to Vote on Fracking Ban in September
August 24, 2012August 24, 2012

Looks like the Town of Perinton in Monroe County, NY (near Rochester) is lined up to ban fracking. The town board passed a draft ordinance in July (three ordinances in fact). The proposed ordinances are currently under review and a final vote will be taken in late September.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

New DOE Study Says Natural Gas Best Choice for Now
August 24, 2012August 24, 2012

A report authored by the Dept. of Energy (DOE) and published at the end of June (but only now is being pushed by the DOE as a “new report”) takes a close look at natural gas and its role in the larger U.S. energy picture. The report, titled Role of Alternative Energy Sources: Natural Gas Power Technology Assessment (full 165-page copy embedded below), uses seven criteria to evaluate the role of natural gas and concludes that it’s the best current choice for powering electrical generating plants in the U.S.

But what about greenhouse gases—the so-called “fact” that methane leakage from shale gas drilling is contributing “dangerous” amounts of GHG to the atmosphere (as say Cornell profs Robert Howarth and Tony Ingraffea)? The report says fugitive methane escaping into the atmosphere is more than offset by reduced emissions from power plants burning clean natural gas as opposed to alternatives like coal and oil.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Protesters Bring Their Kids to “Toxic” Fracking Site
August 24, 2012August 24, 2012

Even though it didn’t happen in the Marcellus or Utica Shale area, this one is just too delicious not to share. The location was outside of Boulder, Colorado, but this story could just as easily have been in the Marcellus/Utica. The same kind of anti-drilling nutters inhabit the Eastern seaboard area too.

Some 30 protesters showed up last Saturday at a horizontal drilling/fracking site in Boulder County, CO where Encana is drilling five wells. Although the protesters claim that drilling and fracking create a toxic hell on earth, at least 10 of the “protesters” were their own children, one of them a one-year old. Brought along to a dangerous drilling site with “millions of gallons of industrial waste.” Must be it wasn’t so dangerous after all:

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Allegheny County | Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Pittsburgh Businesses Rapidly Expand from Marcellus Shale
August 24, 2012August 24, 2012

It’s a story that just keeps repeating: How the Marcellus Shale has led to businesses expanding, adding employees (i.e. jobs), providing more tax revenue to communities and ultimately an improvement in the standard of living for the entire community.

Here’s yet another story from the thousands of similar stories that abound in the Marcellus and Utica Shale. This one is a trucking company in southwestern Pennsylvania:

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Industrywide Issues | NG Vehicles

Trucking Companies Find CNG Cheaper than Diesel
August 24, 2012August 24, 2012

Even without government incentives, trucking companies are finding it makes economic sense to switch from burning diesel fuel to burning compressed natural gas (CNG). Case in point:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Licking County | Ohio

Licking County, OH Forms Fracking Advisory Committee
August 24, 2012August 24, 2012

Licking County, located in central Ohio, has not yet seen any fracking of shale gas wells, but a new committee sponsored by the county has been established to study fracking and to prepare for “someday” when it may happen. Most of the focus of the committee (so far) seems to be on road use agreements.

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