Marcellus Drilling News

Energy Companies | Gastar Exploration | Marshall County | West Virginia

Gastar 2Q12 Update: Production Up 87% Mostly from WV Marcellus
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

Gastar Exploration released their second quarter earnings and operations update yesterday. They report production increased 87% from second quarter 2011—to 34.8 MMcfe per day. Most of the increase comes from drilling in the Marcellus Shale in Marshall County, WV. Gastar says it would have been even better were it not for problems with processing capacity and pipeline issues.

Here are the relevant sections from the Gastar update dealing with the Marcellus Shale:

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Energy Companies | Epsilon Energy

Epsilon Energy 2Q12 Update: Scaling Back in the Marcellus
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

Canadian independent driller Epsilon Energy has released its 2Q12 update. Epsilon focuses on the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale, the Bakken Shale and Midale Dolomite in Saskatchewan, and the Brown Dense Limestone in Mississippi. Epsilon significantly scaled back its drilling activity in the Marcellus during the second quarter because of low natural gas prices. Instead, they are concentrating on oil drilling in the Bakken Shale region of Canada.

Epsilon also owns a 35% interest in the Auburn gas gathering system, located in the PA Marcellus. Relevant sections of the update pertaining to the Marcellus:

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Access Midstream Partners | Energy Companies | Energy Services

Access Midstream 2Q12 Update: Pipeline Throughput up 33.5%
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

The quarterly reports keep coming in. This one is from Access Midstream Partners, the newly named and former Chesapeake Midstream Partners. Access is a large pipeline company with major operations in the Marcellus Shale. The Marcellus, in fact, is largely responsible for an increase of 33.5% in throughput, or the amount of gas handled each day, by Access for the second quarter (over the second quarter of last year). Access reports hooking up 179 new wells to its gathering systems in 2Q12.

Here is the quarterly update press release:

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Energy Companies | Range Resources Corp

Podcast: Robert Mangino Talks with Range’s Matt Pitzarella
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

Pittsburgh KDKA 1020 Radio’s Robert Mangino talks with Matt Pitzarella of Range Resources and Gene Barr, president of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry. Robert Mangino hosts a Marcellus Shale hour on his radio talk show each Tuesday at 7 pm.

Listen to the latest show below:

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About MDN | Maryland | Statewide MD

Washington Post Catches Up to MDN
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

May we toot our own horn? Today the Washington Post printed a story about newly discovered shale basins in the State of Maryland (see this Washington Post story).

If you read MDN, you would have read about it 10 days ago (see this MDN story).

We don’t always break the news, but we usually report it quite early. And we report only what’s important and relevant for those of you interested in the Marcellus and Utica Shale region. Thanks for reading MDN!
Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Aug 8, 2012
August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

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

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research | Wastewater

New Study on Water Pollution Risk from Marcellus Drilling
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

A new paper is about to be published in a scientific journal that will no doubt get misrepresented and widely reported in the mainstream press about assessing the risks of Marcellus Shale drilling. The paper is titled “Water Pollution Risk Associated with Natural Gas Extraction from the Marcellus Shale,” written by a graduate student and his professor at SUNY Stony Brook. The published paper will appear in the August issue of the journal Risk Analysis, a publication of the Society for Risk Analysis (a preview copy of the full article is embedded below).

The paper looks at the theoretical probabilities of fracking fluids finding their way into the natural environment and polluting (contaminating) fresh water supplies. MDN will discuss what this paper does, and does not, say.

Read More “New Study on Water Pollution Risk from Marcellus Drilling”
Earthquakes | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Bloomberg (Once Again) Says Fracking Causes Earthquakes
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Bloomberg Businessweek is highlighting the publication of a new paper that looks at earthquake activity around injection wells in Texas and concludes that fracking causes earthquakes. The article starts this way:

Read More “Bloomberg (Once Again) Says Fracking Causes Earthquakes”
About MDN

Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook 2012 – Vol. 2 Just Released [Free]
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Hey, MDN is covering our own press release! We’re very excited to announce the release of Volume 2 of the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook 2012. Read all about it below.

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Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies

Chesapeake Energy 2Q12 Update: 3.1M Acres in Marcellus/Utica
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Chesapeake Energy, the second largest producer of natural gas in the U.S., released its second quarter earnings and operational update yesterday. Because of recent sales of their midstream division and other asset sales, second quarter profits for the company went up—rather dramatically. They reported a profit of $972 million, or $1.29 a share, up from $510 million a year earlier. That includes $584 million in an after-tax gain from the recent sale of Chesapeake Midstream Partners and $490 million in gains related to hedging. If you exclude the asset sales, adjusted earnings were $3 million, or 6 cents a share. Revenue increased 2.1% to $3.39 billion.

Chesapeake reports their lease holdings in the Utica Shale are now 1.3 million acres—the largest position of any driller. As of June 30, they’ve drilled 87 wells in the Utica. Chesapeake is also the largest lease holder in the Marcellus, with a whopping 1.8 million acres. They currently have 10 rigs operating in the “dry gas” portion of the Marcellus.

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Chenango County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation

NY Town with Permits wants Food Grade Fluids in Fracking
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

The Town of German, NY, located in Chenango County—one of the “Lucky Five” counties that may see limited fracking if Gov. Cuomo signs off on it—took a vote and sent a letter to both Gov. Cuomo and Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens asking them to require drillers to use “food grade fluids” when and if fracking begins. Why is that letter important for this tiny town with a population of 370? Because three permits to drill in the Utica Shale are pending for the Town of German, and the town board’s letter to the DEC may be interpreted as a “don’t drill here” indication.

Both Com. Martens and Gov. Cuomo have stated when and if drilling permits are issued, they’ll go only to “supportive” communities. Sure sounds like German is not being all that supportive with their letter.

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Want a Job in Ohio’s Utica Shale? There’s a Website for that! [Free]
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Energy in Depth – Ohio has just launched a new portal to connect job seekers with companies that have jobs working in the Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling industry in Ohio.

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El Paso | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Pipelines | Tennessee Gas Pipeline

Kinder Morgan Sells Tennessee Pipeline to Itself
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

Stories about pipelines are not very glamorous, but when the pipeline in question is one of the major pipelines that carries Marcellus Shale gas—it’s important nonetheless. This story is sort of inside baseball. Kinder Morgan, the country’s largest pipeline company, recently concluded the acquisition of another huge pipeline company—El Paso (for $21 billion). As part of the deal, for regulatory reasons, they are required to sell the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) and a half interest in the El Paso Natural Gas pipeline (EPNG). They just announced a deal to do so, selling it to Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, which is a subsidiary/related company to Kinder. So Kinder has sold a pipeline to itself, in essence.

Here’s the press release:

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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Aug 7, 2012
August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

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: Tue, Aug 7, 2012”
Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

The Marcellus becomes No. 1 Shale for Natural Gas in U.S.
August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

In four short years, the Marcellus Shale has gone from barley registering on national energy reports to becoming the number one most productive natural gas field in the United States, according to Powell Shale Digest and data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Read More “The Marcellus becomes No. 1 Shale for Natural Gas in U.S.”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

Is Big Oil & Gas Just Like Big Tobacco?
August 6, 2012August 6, 2012

MDN has observed that for weeks now news outlets have recycled the same story with variations on a common theme: Some university studies that have produced reports “favorable” to the drilling industry were partially funded by the drilling industry, or at some point a researcher worked for the industry, and that calls into question the findings of said studies. The latest example is on display in the left-leaning Buffalo News.

MDN is disturbed. Not because the energy industry—which by the way keeps your lights on, keeps your home warm in the winter and cool in the summer, keeps relatively cheap gas in your automobile’s tank, and has helped create the most prosperous country on earth—helps fund some of these scientific studies (who else will pay to defend them?). No, we’re disturbed because the same media so wholly devoted to picking apart anything to do with fossil fuels, willfully and (we would say) criminally ignores the other side of this debate.

Let us explain with a few examples from the latest Bloomberg article:

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