Marcellus Drilling News

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Monongalia County | Regulation | West Virginia

Morgantown, WV Passes New Marcellus Drilling Ban
July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

The Morgantown, WV City Council is at it again. You may recall they tried to ban hydraulic fracturing last year both inside and up to one mile outside of the city limits. A judge struck down the law (see this MDN story). Council members aren’t about to give up though. On Tuesday, they passed six new ordinances that will “limit” drilling to areas immediately surrounding the Morgantown Municipal Airport.

Read More “Morgantown, WV Passes New Marcellus Drilling Ban”
Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies

CJR Questions Reuters Sourcing of Emails Used in Hit Piece
July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

Less than two weeks ago, MDN asked the question, Did Reuters break the law with the latest Chesapeake story? (see this MDN story). We pointed out that the emails used by Reuters were private, and in order for Reuters to take possession of them, someone likely broke the law. None other than the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review is now essentially asking the same question about the source of those emails.

Read More “CJR Questions Reuters Sourcing of Emails Used in Hit Piece”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

When Will Fracking Begin in New York?
July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

When will fracking begin in New York? When MDN editor Jim Willis speaks with friends and family, perhaps that is the question he gets most often. Most New Yorkers and even most non-New Yorkers Jim talks with believe it’s going to happen, it’s just a question of when. Jim just has to shrug his shoulders when asked and says, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

The question on the minds of many New Yorkers is the object of endless speculation on radio talk shows and in newspaper articles. North Country Public Radio ran a segment yesterday speculating on the “when” question. They had some interesting points to make on the topic, pointing out that the New York legislature is now in recess for the rest of the year (sure wish we only had to work half a year!), and the legislature recessed without voting on key legislation that would need to be in place if drilling were going to begin this year:

Read More “When Will Fracking Begin in New York?”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

The Accidental Fracker – Stories from NC
July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

Typically MDN does not cover the (plentiful) news about shale gas drilling in other parts of the US or even the world—unless the story has a direct bearing somehow on drilling in the Marcellus or Utica Shale. Or unless it’s about fracking technology/issues in general, which of course do have a bearing on Marcellus and Utica drilling.

But every now and again we’ll throw in a story for pure entertainment value. This time, it’s a story about North Carolina, where the fracking debate has heated up. The NC legislature recently voted to allow fracking. The Democrat governor, Bev Perdue, vetoed the legislation. And a vote was just taken to override her veto. The veto, we’re happy to report, has been overridden, and the deciding vote was cast by a Democrat who had campaigned against fracking—Becky Carney. It seems it was past Ms. Carney’s bedtime and she was so sleepy she hit the wrong voting button by mistake. Oops.

Read More “The Accidental Fracker – Stories from NC”
Ohio | Statewide OH | Utica Shale

Ohio Utica Permits & Drilling for June 2012
July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

Even though natural gas prices remain low, drilling in Ohio remains red hot, largely because of the promise of natural gas liquids and oil. An article in Farm and Dairy magazine recaps the permitting activity for June, and includes this handy summary chart for the entire state, county by county, including where actively producing wells are located:

Read More “Ohio Utica Permits & Drilling for June 2012”
Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Jul 5, 2012
July 5, 2012July 5, 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: Thu, Jul 5, 2012”
Ohio | Statewide OH

OOGA Sees Tremendous Growth in Membership
July 5, 2012July 5, 2012

The Ohio Oil and Gas Association saw a doubling of their membership from June 2011 to June 2012, and they continue to add about 135 new members each month. Why? The Utica Shale.

Read More “OOGA Sees Tremendous Growth in Membership”
Energy Companies | New York | Norse Energy | Statewide NY

Norse Energy Special Shareholder Appeal – Sneak Preview
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

On July 5, Norse Energy Corp will hold what they call an “Extraordinary General Meeting” (EGM) for shareholders in Oslo, Norway. Norse Energy’s CEO Mark Dice will present to shareholders using the PowerPoint embedded below. MDN has included a rundown of what’s in the slides.

For better or worse, Norse has most of its investments in leases in New York State, and the now four-year long delay in adopting new drilling rules, called the SGEIS, has strained the company’s resources. They’ve refinanced debt, sold off assets, taken on investors and have done whatever they can to “hang in there” until drilling finally begins in New York. The slides in the presentation show just how key New York’s decision is to Norse’s future.

Read More “Norse Energy Special Shareholder Appeal – Sneak Preview”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Al “Crucify Them” Armendariz Goes to Work for Sierra Club
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

Where do former EPA officials go after they’ve been outted as extremist anti-drillers—so extreme even the head honchos in Obama’s EPA can’t stomach them anymore? Why, the Sierra Club, of course!

You may remember the rightful furor over comments made public by then-EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz about how his philosophy on the enforcement of EPA regulations against drillers is to find a few and make examples of them. You know, like the Romans used to do when they entered a village and crucified the first five men they found. His extremist comments, when finally revealed several years after the fact, led to his dismissal (see this MDN story).

Read More “Al “Crucify Them” Armendariz Goes to Work for Sierra Club”
BP | Carrizo Oil & Gas | CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies | Ohio | Trumbull County

Trumble County, OH Update: Drilling Won’t Start for 18 Months
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

According to Terry Fleming, executive director for the Ohio Petroleum Council, Trumbull County is “at least” 18 months away from any active drilling for oil and gas.

Fleming’s update for Trumbull County:

Read More “Trumble County, OH Update: Drilling Won’t Start for 18 Months”
Forced Pooling | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

NY and Compulsory Integration – MDN Agrees with Slottje (!)
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

David Slottje and his wife Helen are both lawyers funded in part by the Park Foundation (in Ithaca, NY) to run around trying to convince local town boards in New York to ban hydraulic fracturing. They are, in a word, the enemies of landowner property rights. They seek to deny landowners who want to lease their land for gas drilling the right to do so.

So when MDN read an editorial (not surprisingly) in the Ithaca Journal written by David Slottje that makes reference to the rumored plan by Gov. Cuomo to allow limited drilling in five counties as being “devastating” to landowner property rights, it was a laugh-out-loud moment. The height of hypocrisy and arrogance to say landowner rights will be devastated by the very person doing the most to devastate them.

But what wasn’t so funny was that getting beyond the rank hypocrisy and looking at the substance of what Slottje wrote, MDN had to agree with his viewpoint—on this one particular issue.

Read More “NY and Compulsory Integration – MDN Agrees with Slottje (!)”
Altela | Clarion County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | McKean County | Pennsylvania | Wastewater

Altela Set to Open 2 New Frack Wastewater Plants in PA
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

Two new fracking wastewater treatment plants will come online in Pennsylvania on August 1st—one in Clarion County, the other in McKean County. As MDN reported back in November, Altela Inc. will use a distillation process to purify fracking wastewater, a “green” alternative instead of chemically treating the water (see this MDN story).

The new news is that Altela is almost ready to open two new plants using their green technology.

Read More “Altela Set to Open 2 New Frack Wastewater Plants in PA”
Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies

Magnum Hunter’s Marcellus Production Curtailed from Storm
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

You may or may not have heard about the severe thunderstorms that moved through the mid-Atlantic region last Friday afternoon. It resulted in 1.3 million people in Washington, D.C., Maryland and northern Virginia losing power. Some of them still don’t have power and won’t until later this week.

But what you may not realize is that the same storm also had a noticeable effect on the Marcellus Shale industry. The storms didn’t just stop around D.C.—they kept on going—right into the heart of Marcellus country. And the power outage caused problems for at least one driller, Magnum Hunter, who issued a press release with an update on the status of their operations in the region.

Read More “Magnum Hunter’s Marcellus Production Curtailed from Storm”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Statewide WV | West Virginia

The Inverse Relationship of Coal and Natural Gas
July 3, 2012July 3, 2012

A heartrending editorial in the Charleston Gazette tells about recent massive layoffs in the West Virginia coal industry. While there’s mention of Obama’s war on coal (and make no mistake, it’s a real war on coal by the global warmists), the editorial puts most of the “blame” on the rise of cheap natural gas, brought about by hydraulic fracturing of shale.

Read More “The Inverse Relationship of Coal and Natural Gas”
Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Jul 3, 2012
July 3, 2012July 3, 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, Jul 3, 2012”
Berks County | Bucks County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Montgomery County | Pennsylvania | Regulation

Republicans Sneak SE PA Drilling Ban into Budget Deal
July 2, 2012July 2, 2012

An eleventh hour deal was snuck into the Pennsylvania budget signed into law by Gov. Tom Corbett late Saturday night. On Friday, an amendment was introduced to the budget that would establish a moratorium on drilling in southeastern Pennsylvania in the South Newark Basin, a small area which stretches from New Jersey through Bucks, Montgomery and Berks counties in PA.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed an evaluation of the South Newark Basin, which contains both shale and coal bed methane deposits, along with four other East Coast basins and issued a report showing how much natural gas each basin contains (a copy is embedded below). The report says the South Newark Basin contains a minimum of 363 billion cubic feet of natural gas deposits, and their best guess is it contains around 876 billion cubic feet. It’s much smaller than the Marcellus, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.

With all of the gas drilling in the rest of the state, and with new drilling laws now in place, why place a temporary moratorium that expires in 2018 on the southeast region of the state? That’s where politics rears its ugly head—and this time it’s the Republicans who are to blame.

Read More “Republicans Sneak SE PA Drilling Ban into Budget Deal”