What’s the Reason Natural Gas Prices are So Low?
Why are natural gas prices at historically low prices? According to gas pricing experts, you can sum it up in a single word: Marcellus.
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New Deal Brings Midwest Sand to Marcellus/Other Shale Areas
Sand is a key ingredient in the hydraulic fracturing process. A special kind of sand, referred to as crystalline sand, is injected into cracks made during fracturing and stays in the cracks, propping them open so the gas can continue to come out (which is why it’s called a “proppant”). More sand will be on the way to the Marcellus and Utica region due to a new agreement between U.S. Silica, the nation’s second-largest sand producer, and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). CP will be the exclusive rail shipper for U.S. Silica’s new frack sand facility being constructed in Wisconsin.
From the CP press release announcing the exclusive deal with U.S. Silica:
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CNBC Special Report on Natural Gas and Shale Fracking
A CNBC “special report” asks the question: Who’s Winning the Natural Gas Game? The special report is actually a series of articles they’ve posted looking at various aspects of natural gas, including the controversy over the hydraulic fracturing of shale gas.
Part of the special report includes a poll. The poll itself, although an unscientific sample, illustrates the ongoing split in opinion of the general population on the issue of fracking. The poll asks, “Is Shale-Gas Fracking Environmentally Safe?” Here’s the results as of this morning when MDN voted:
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, Jun 22, 2012
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Wildlife Federation Sounds Alarm on Fracking in OH, MI
Sadly, we have to add the National Wildlife Federation to the list of rabid anti-drilling groups. In fact, a check of the NWF website shows they’ve drunken so deeply from the anti-everything pool they’re beyond redemption. The latest “wild” charge they’re making (pun intended) is that natural gas drilling, specifically fracking in Ohio and Michigan, will use excessive amounts of water from the Great Lakes and is an imminent danger to people and animals.
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Columbiana County Lease with Chesapeake, Highest Bonus Ever
Columbiana County, OH has just signed a deal with DPS Penn (an agent for Chesapeake Energy) to lease 548 acres for Utica Shale drilling. And they astutely doubled their money from the original offer from DPS a year ago. The new terms of the deal, just signed, are for $5,850 per acre and a 20 percent royalty. Columbiana also negotiated the lease term down to three years. A typical lease is five years.The deal makes Columbiana breaks the record as the highest signing bonus granted to any government body for a Utica (or Marcellus) Shale lease deal.
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Local Politicians Gather in Albany, NY to Support “Home Rule”
A number of New York State local government officials gathered in Albany on Monday, June 18 to talk about and support a new initiative to grant local municipalities the legal right to control oil and gas drilling in their borders. The concept is referred to as “home rule” and it’s gathering momentum with both Democrats and even with some Republican state legislators.
The event was sponsored by a group of anti-drilling groups, including Sustainable Otsego, Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, and Otsego 2000. The anti-drilling group Shaleshock was also present and videoed the speakers. They offer the video on their website (click the link below to view it).
This was the press release about the home rule gathering:
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Utica Shale Drilling Causes Unemployment Drop in Eastern OH
The Coshocton County, Ohio unemployment rate has been stubbornly high, but now it’s starting to move lower. In May of this year the unemployment rate for Coshocton stood at 9.3 percent. It was 10.2 percent in April, one month earlier. And if you go back a year to May 2011, it was 11.3 percent. In fact, the current 9.3 percent rate is the lowest rate seen in Coshocton County since 2008.
What’s caused the Coshocton unemployment rate to go 2 percent lower in just one year? Yep, much of it can be credited to Utica Shale drilling.
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Economic Impact | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Pennsylvania | Shell | Statewide PA
PA Gov. Corbett Press Conference on Shell Cracker Plant
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett continues to push hard to get his package of tax incentives for a Shell ethane cracker plant passed before the state legislature goes on summer break at the end of June. Looks like it’s paid off. Word has come out the legislature will pass his proposed package.
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Bregal Invests Undisclosed Amount in Inflection Energy
Bregal Energy announced yesterday they have increased their investment in Inflection Energy. Inflection was founded in 2008 as a drilling company focused on the Marcellus Shale. They hold leases in both Pennsylvania and New York. Bregal is an investment company focused on the energy industry. The amount of the new investment and the terms of the deal were not disclosed in the press announcement.
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Josh Fox Releases Short Movie Targeting Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Josh Fox, a talented movie-maker and master purveyor of half-truths and outright lies in the mostly fictional movie Gasland, has just released a new short “documentary” called The Sky is Pink aimed squarely and solely at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. It seems the anti-drilling movement is desperate to prevent any kind of high volume hydraulic fracturing from getting a fair evaluation in New York State—so they’re pulling out all the stops to try and make sure it doesn’t.
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Statoil Shifts it Focus from Marcellus to Bakken
Norwegian company Statoil continues to change its focus away from the Marcellus Shale region and instead concentrate on “oily” shale areas of the country, like the Bakken Shale in North Dakota. Why? Natural gas prices continue to bump around at historically low prices, making it a challenge to be profitable.
Statoil has cut the number of drilling rigs in the Marcellus nearly in half from one year ago and the wells they’re drilling now are simply to hold acreage. That is, they drill on acreage for which leases are about to expire to hold that acreage.
According to Bill Maloney, president of Statoil North America:
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Jun 21, 2012
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Rochester, NY Votes to Ban Fracking for 1 Year
Et tu Rochester? Rochester, NY is the latest New York municipality to ban hydraulic fracturing. Their ban is for one year.Seems Cuomo’s trial balloon to allow fracking (nowhere near Rochester) and the soon-to-be-released new drilling rules from the state DEC have scared some uninformed politicians, like those in Rochester, into acting rashly.
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Just How Big Will Shale Oil/Gas Drilling Get in Ohio?
The Tuscarawas Oil and Gas Alliance (TOGA) Summit was held on Tuesday, June 19 at the Performing Arts Center at Kent State Tuscarawas, Ohio. One of the speakers was Rhonda Reda, executive director of the Ohio Oil and Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP). She said in 2011 there were 33 shale wells drilled with 5 in production, and by 2015 eastern Ohio will see some 4,000 new shale wells, mostly in the Utica Shale.
Reda had a number of statistics and predictions for how large the drilling boom will get in Ohio. Among the statistics she highlighted:
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BlackRock’s Screw-up with Dan Rice & Rice Energy
Time for a brief distraction from the troubles Chesapeake has had of late—so let’s focus on a new “problem.” That would be the public relations kerfuffle Rice Energy and its founder Dan Rice are facing in the press.
Dan has been the single most successful mutual fund manager in the United States over the past 10 years. He is co-manager of five energy-related funds for BlackRock. But not any more.
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Columbiana County, OH has just signed a deal with DPS Penn (an agent for Chesapeake Energy) to lease 548 acres for Utica Shale drilling. And they astutely doubled their money from the original offer from DPS a year ago. The new terms of the deal, just signed, are for $5,850 per acre and a 20 percent royalty. Columbiana also negotiated the lease term down to three years. A typical lease is five years.
Et tu Rochester? Rochester, NY is the latest New York municipality to ban hydraulic fracturing. Their ban is for one year.