Testing Your Water – Advice for Landowners in the Marcellus Shale

WaterWorld (undated, accessed Feb 24)
Testing the waters

Drilling activity is tightly regulated everywhere it’s done, including Pennsylvania. Water supplies located near drilling are regularly tested to ensure the water is not being contaminated. If a resident lives within 1,000 feet of a well being drilled, the cost of testing is funded by the drilling company. Local testing company Benchmark Analytics from South Waverly, PA had these useful remarks for landowners in an article published on the WaterWorld website:

Many residents have contacted Benchmark to establish a "baseline" prior to gas drilling activity. The baseline tests are important to establish the water quality at a specific site prior to any gas well activity, [Laboratory Manager Kay] Shimer said. Natural gas producers are required to establish a baseline for any water source within 1,000 feet of a gas well, she said, though some companies test residents’ water within 1,500 or 2,000 feet. If people have any questions about whether they qualify for testing through a gas producer they should contact the well drilling company in their area, she said. The sampling and testing is done by an independent laboratory, she said, and Benchmark has completed some testing for gas producers.

Homeowners should not collect their own water samples, Shimer said; an independent third-party sampling agency or field technicians from a certified laboratory should do the sampling. Benchmark field technicians do some sampling, Shimer said, though gas producers typically hire independent agencies to sample water sources near their well projects.

Shimer also recommends landowners read the publication by Penn State University called Water Facts #28 – Gas Well Drilling and Your Private Water Supply (available for free download on the MDN Links & Resources page).

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Atlas Looking for a Partner, Multi-Billion Dollar Deal Likely

Reuters News – via FOREXYARD (Feb 25)
Atlas looking for partner in Marcellus

Atlas Energy is looking for a partner to help fund its operations in the Marcellus Shale. Atlas currently holds leases on 266,000 acres, in mostly southwestern Pennsylvania. According to the Reuters story:

Bidders for the Atlas position should include large international integrated oil and gas companies as well as domestic independent oil and gas companies, the sources said.

Still, it was not clear how much the joint venture would bring in for Atlas.

As MDN recently reported, Mitsui & Co (from Japan) invested $1.4 billion in Anadarko Petroleum. Anadarko controls 100,000 acres in the Marcellus, so that works out at $14,000 per acre investment. It is rumored a similar price might be expected for Atlas. If that’s the case, we can expect a deal on the order of $3.7 billion. In 2008, Chesapeake Energy sold 32.5 percent of its interests to Statoil (from Norway) for $3.4 billion. Chesapeake at the time held rights to 590,000 acres.

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Range Resources Will Drill 150 Horizontal Wells in PA in 2010

Range Resources Press Release (Feb 24)
Range Announces 2009 Results

Range Resources held an investors conference call today, and released a report on the health of the company for 2009, with predictions for 2010. In advance of the call, they issued a comprehensive press release detailing all of their operations. Below is the portion of the release dealing with Range’s drilling activities in the Marcellus Shale. Although originally the information below was in one large paragraph, MDN has formatted it to be more readable.

From the press release:

During the fourth quarter, the Marcellus Shale division continued to make outstanding progress. Most notably, we drilled and completed our first two horizontal wells in the northeastern portion of the play in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania. The average seven-day test rate for the first well was 13.3 Mmcfe per day, while the average seven-day test rate for the second well was 13.6 Mmcfe per day. These two wells are now shut-in awaiting pipeline hook-up. The pipeline to the first well is expected to be completed late in the fourth quarter of 2010 with the pipeline to the second well expected to be completed in 2011.

We also drilled our first horizontal Upper Devonian Shale well and our first horizontal Utica Shale well. The Upper Devonian well has been completed and is testing, and the Utica well has been drilled and cased and is awaiting completion.

Currently, Range’s net production in the Marcellus is approximately 115 Mmcfe per day. We have 31 horizontal wells that have been drilled, of which 26 are awaiting completion and five are awaiting pipeline hook up. In the southwest portion of the play, where we have drilled the majority of our wells and have been accumulating data for the past 2.5 years, the average estimated ultimate recovery for a Marcellus horizontal is 4.4 Bcfe gross.

Prior to August 2009, typical Range Marcellus wells had horizontal laterals that averaged 2,200 to 2,800 feet and were typically fraced with eight stages. Since then, we have been experimenting with longer laterals and more frac stages. The longer laterals range from 2,900 up to 5,000 feet and the higher frac stages range from nine stages up to 17 stages. As has been demonstrated in other shale plays, it appears that the longer laterals result in higher initial production rates, higher EURs and improved economics.

Currently we are running 13 drilling rigs in the play. Plans are to add more rigs in the fourth quarter and exit at 16 rigs. During 2010, we expect to drill and case 150 horizontal Marcellus Shale wells. For 2011, we plan to increase our rig count and exit the year with 24 rigs running. Finally, the build out of the Marcellus midstream infrastructure is progressing as scheduled. In the high Btu portion of the play, gross cryogenic processing capacity increased to 155 Mmcf per day in the fourth quarter of 2009, and an additional 30 Mmcf per day is expected to be added in mid-2010. Another 150 Mmcf per day has been requested for first quarter 2011, which will bring gross cryogenic processing capacity to 335 Mmcf per day. In the dry gas portion of the play, we have 160 Mmcf per day of pipeline tap capacity with 20 Mmcf per day of compression capacity in place currently. Plans are in place to steadily increase dry gas pipeline compression capacity to meet our needs.

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Engineer Explains Why Hydraulic Fracturing in the Marcellus Shale is Safe

The Energy Collective (Feb 23)
Shale Gas and Drinking Water

In an article posted on The Energy Collective website, Geoff Styles, who has a degree in chemical engineering (U.C. Davis) and worked for Texaco for 22 years, in addition to working for NASA, explores just what hydraulic fracturing is, how it’s done, and why it’s safe, particularly in the Marcellus Shale deposit. It is an extremely well written and enlightening article—please read it!

Here is a brief extract:

[F]or the purposes of this discussion let’s take a quick look at one of the shale regions at the heart of this controversy, the Marcellus Shale in the Appalachian region of New York, Pennsylvania and the Virginias. In the course of my research I ran across a handy document on groundwater from Penn State. Aside from surface water (lakes, rivers and streams), it identifies the various aquifers in Pennsylvania by type in Figure 4. The key fact from the perspective of fracking safety is that the deepest of these aquifers lies no more than about 500 ft. below the surface, and typically less than a couple of hundred feet down. By contrast, the Marcellus Shale is found thousands of feet down–in many areas more than a mile below-ground–with a thickness of 250 feet or less. In addition, the gas-bearing layers are sealed in by impermeable rock, or the gas would eventually have migrated somewhere else. In other words, the shale gas reservoirs are isolated by geology and depth from the shallower layers where our underground drinking water is found.

He covers many other issues, including the relatively SMALL amount of water used to frack a well with horizontal drilling—compared with water used in a “traditional” oil or gas well. And how the aquifer is protected when the drilling begins, before any water and chemicals are pumped into the well.

Bottom line?

Thus, whether intentionally or as a result of a basic misunderstanding of how this technology works, we are being presented with a false dichotomy concerning shale gas and fracking. The real choice here isn’t between energy and drinking water, as critics imply, but between tapping an abundant source of lower-emission domestic energy and what looked like a perpetually-increasing reliance on imported natural gas just a few years ago.

Well said Mr. Styles. Well said.

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Sierra Club National Organization Supports Gas Drilling, Local Chapters Do Not – Tension Brewing

NPR Morning Edition (Feb 23)
Natural Gas As A Climate Fix Sparks Friction

In a surprisingly balanced report by NPR, we learn of the infighting that is taking place in the Sierra Club, between the national organization and the state and local chapters. It seems the national organization believes natural gas and gas drilling are a good and acceptable alternative to coal. But local chapters are concerned about drilling’s effect on the the landscape and on water supplies.

Click through on the link above to read the transcript or listen to the four minute segment, which includes the Sierra Club attending a ribbon cutting ceremony at a plant at Cornell University to celebrate their conversion from coal to natural gas.

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Engineering Firm in Luzerne County, PA is Hiring Engineers for Marcellus Drilling

Wilkes-Barre Times Leader (Feb 23)
Natural gas industry has engineering firm hiring

More jobs are coming to the Marcellus Shale region because of drilling activity. An engineering firm in Plains Township (Luzerne County), Pennsylvania is hiring:

Borton-Lawson has been advertising for seven engineering, design and surveyor positions. Chris Borton, company president, said the marketplace is unlike anything he’s seen in the 22 years since he and Tom Lawson teamed up.

“It’s a tough economy. There are still things that are going on out there,” said Borton on Tuesday.

The influx of companies exploring and drilling in the Marcellus Shale region has created work for Borton-Lawson and others. It’s opened a branch office in the Pittsburgh area.

New Anti-Drilling Movie GASLAND Takes Aim at Hydrofacking

gaslandlogo Coming soon to an art house theater near you is… GASLAND, winner of the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. From the GASLAND official website:

When filmmaker Josh Fox discovers that Natural Gas drilling is coming to his area—the Catskillls/Poconos region of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, he sets off on a 24 state journey to uncover the deep consequences of the United States’ natural gas drilling boom. What he uncovers is truly shocking—water that can be lit on fire right out of the sink, chronically ill residents of drilling areas from disparate locations in the US all with the same mysterious symptoms, huge pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation well blowouts and huge gas explosions consistently covered up by state and federal regulatory agencies. These are just a few of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND.

Michael Moore, writer/producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story among others, has pioneered this kind of “documentary” that’s long on innuendo and short on facts, perfecting it as an art. It seems Mr. Moore has spawned imitators, including Josh Fox.

The drumbeat will only grow louder from the anti-drilling movement. Their two-pronged attack is to claim: 1) Hydraulic fracturing as a mining technique is unsafe, and 2) Your water will become contaminated with nasty chemicals and/or methane gas if there’s a drill anywhere near you. Both claims are false.

Look, no one wants people’s water to become polluted, or livestock to become ill, or water to become contaminated. Painting energy companies as the Great Satan, as films like this try to do, is simply childish and simplistic at best. There are safeguards in place. Drilling IS happening in a lot of places—with no negative consequences. We need to stay vigilant, of course. But drilling can happen safely, and it should. To ban all natural gas drilling and hydrofracking as a technique is unreasonable.

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PA Marcellus Shale Gas is Getting a Pipeline – To Canada!

Vancouver Sun (Feb 22)
Tertzakian: Lessons from a green ice resurfacer’s failure

Will Marcellus Shale gas find a market over the border in Canada? It sure looks that way. An excerpt from an article published in the Vancouver Sun, says, in part:

In fact, the real Energy Story of the Week came in the form of a couple of announcements: two corporate proposals hoping to bring natural gas and liquids from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale into Canadian markets. First Nova Chemicals and Buckeye Partners announced a joint memorandum of understanding to develop an NGL pipeline from Pittsburgh to Sarnia. Then, Union Gas announced that they would conduct an open season for a pipeline service that would allow for the shipping of up to 0.75 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Marcellus into Kirkwall, Ontario and through to Dawn.

While there have been countless pipeline expansions and extensions announced recently to transport Marcellus gas into the US Northeast, this is the first major export proposal to pit Pennsylvania gas head-to-head with western Canadian gas, on Canadian soil.

New York State shares one-third of its border with Canada! Unfortunately the Powers That Be in Albany are still diddling away while enterprising states like Pennsylvania are making money.

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Delaware River Basic Commission to Hold Public Hearing on Requests from Stone Energy

On Wednesday, Feb. 24, the Delaware River Basin Commission will hold a public hearing in Matamoras, PA on two applications from Stone Energy Company. The first application is a request to withdraw 700,000 gallons of water a day from the West Branch of the Lackawaxen River in Mount Pleasant Township, Wayne County, PA. The water would be used by Stone Energy in Marcellus drilling activities.

The second application is for Stone Energy to use hydraulic fracturing in a gas well already drilled (in 2008). The gas well is located in Clinton Township, Wayne County. If approved, this is the would be the first Marcellus drilling activity in the Delaware River Basin.

Environmental group Delaware Riverkeeper Network is planning to take 50 of its members to the hearing to speak against the applications. Although Stone Energy only plans to draw water from the Lackawaxen, and the resulting wastewater would be treated at approved facilities, the Riverkeepers believe any drilling activity in the region would be dangerous.

For more information, see:

Pike County Courier (Feb 22)
UPDATE: Basin commission hearing for gas drilling water withdrawal permit

PhillyBurbs.com (Feb 22)
Get on the bus, says Delaware Riverkeeper

Delaware River Basin Commission – Notice of Public Hearing
Stone Energy Corporation Proposed Surface Water Withdrawal and Natural Gas Well Site

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Swamp Angel Energy Guilty of Illegally Dumping 200K Gallons of Brine in PA

Mother Nature Network (Feb 22)
Gas drillers plead guilty to felony dumping violations

Two people from Swamp Angel Energy pled guilty last week to dumping 200,000 gallons of brine in an abandoned oil well in McKean County, Pennsylvania.

According to the article:

[P]art-owner Michael Evans, 66, of La Quinta, Calif., and John Morgan, 54, of Sheffield, Penn., admitted dumping 200,000 gallons of brine – salty wastewater that’s created in the drilling process – down an abandoned oil well. The maximum penalty for both Evans and Morgan is three years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both. Sentencing will be June 24.

Swamp Angel Energy was (and is currently) drilling in the Allegheny National Forest, located in McKean County. Also according to the article:

Swamp Angel has 77 active, permitted wells in Pennsylvania, all of them in McKean County.

Fellow drillers and those in the drilling industry have swiftly and rightly condemned the illegal dumping. The article is anti-drilling with a smug “See, I told you so,” kind of tone, which is to be expected coming from MNN. However, the illegal actions of a few should not be used to paint all drilling companies with the same broad brush.

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Vestal, NY Landowner Coalition Still Shopping for a Deal, Comes Down on Their Price

Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (Feb 20)
Vestal Coalition gives broker an extension to get deal on Marcellus Shale drilling sites

A Vestal, NY landowner coalition with some 550 people has given their designated broker another few months to try and negotiate a lease on behalf of the group. According to the article:

Members of the group, called the Vestal Coalition, have agreed to settle for a minimum of $5,750 an acre, plus 20 percent royalties, for a five-year lease of mineral rights, and a three-year extension.

The opening offer was $7,500 an acre and 25 percent royalties. There were a few counter offers, but no deals for those terms.

Drilling companies, for now, are in a holding pattern for New York deals until the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issues drilling guidelines. Once that happens, and once permits start to be issued, the Vestal Coalition expects to get a deal done.

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New Marcellus Wastewater Treatment Plant Coming to Elk County, PA

DuBois Courier-Express/Tri-County (Feb 20)
Marcellus shale drilling water may be treated at local acid mine treatment site

Drillers in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania will soon have a new plant to treat wastewater, called flowback, from drilling activities. The new plant will be located in Brandy Camp (Elk County), PA. From the article:

The project will be located at the existing Blue Valley acid mine drainage treatment and fish culture station in Brandy Camp, which is operated by the Toby Creek Watershed Association, according to a Friday news release.

The project, to be known as the Blue Valley Hydrofrac Plant, will be owned and operated by Flowback Wastewater Development Group, which has Frank Nickens as director of operations.

As for capacity of the plant:

The first phase will provide for treatment of up to 300,000 gallons per day of hydrofracture flowback and production brine wastewaters. The output will be 1.2 million gallons per day of recycled hydrofracture makeup water or 720,000 gallons per day of treated acid mine drainage water.

The second phase will add an additional 1.15 million gallons per day of treated acid mine drainage.

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Chesapeake Withdraws Application to Store Millions of Gallons of Wastewater near Keuka Lake

Syracuse Post-Standard (Feb 21)
Plan to truck hydrofracking wastewater to Finger Lakes shelved, for now

Readers of Marcellus Drilling News know that we advocate for landowners, and that we support safe drilling. But, drilling companies sometimes do themselves no favors and deservedly receive suspicion and condemnation. Case in point: Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest drillers in the U.S., is looking for a place to store millions of gallons of wastewater from their drilling operations in Pennsylvania. They thought they may have found a spot in the Steuben County (New York) town of Pulteney, in an old gas well no longer in use. They wanted to store up to 663 million gallons of wastewater—called “flowback” in the drilling business—in the old gas well, and they filed an application to do so.

Flowback, which is water combined with sand and unspecified chemicals, is what’s leftover after it’s been pumped into the ground and brought back out again. The problem is, the chemicals used by drilling companies are a closely guarded trade secret—something that gives them an edge over competitors when drilling. So no one knows what, exactly, is in the flowback, nor in what proportions. This makes people uneasy when you want to store millions of gallons of it close to homes with water wells, and close to their vineyards. The old gas well sits next door to an active vineyard.

It’s also bone-headed of Chesapeake to want to store it in this particular abandoned gas well, as the location is just one mile away from Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in Central New York. The proposed underground storage by Chesapeake “would not be lined or contained.” If, by some unfortunate event, the stored flowback were to leak into Keuka Lake, the resulting contamination could be catastrophic. It appears to be a risk just not worth taking. Much better for Chesapeake to look for a facility that will treat the flowback and return it to them to be reused for more drilling.

Chesapeake has withdrawn its application for now. Although not a popular subject with drillers, if drilling companies were to disclose the chemicals used in the drilling process, it would go a long way to silencing the critics that there is no safe way to drill.

The article from the Syracuse Post-Standard is fair and balanced (more or less) with a video interview of a local landowner who lives across from the abandoned gas well. It’s worth your time to read the article and watch the video interview.

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Cabot Oil & Gas Reports Increase in Production, New Wells Coming Online in 2010 in PA

PR Newswire (Feb 21)
Cabot Oil & Gas Provides Operations Update Current Marcellus Production Over 100 Mmcf per Day!

From a press release just issued by Cabot Oil & Gas, we get the following update on their Marcellus drilling activities (below is exact wording from the release):

During the third quarter call, Cabot announced its intent to complete one well per week through the end of the year in its Marcellus operation.  This effort was successful although weather at year-end and a stream-crossing delay slowed several wells from being turned in line.  During this period ten wells were completed with five wells flowing to sales and five wells waiting on pipeline.  "These five wells, that were turned in line, had an average 30 day production rate of 6 Mmcf per day," stated Dinges [Dan O. Dinges, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer].  "Included in this population was the Company’s first horizontal Purcell Limestone test that had a 30 day production rate of 7.3 Mmcf per day.  The Purcell is located between the Upper and Lower Marcellus under our acreage position in Susquehanna County, PA."  Dinges added, "This success potentially opens up additional locations and prospectivity."

In total for 2009, the Company drilled 30 horizontal wells with 14 being completed and turned in line.  The average initial production (IP) rate for these wells was 7.5 Mmcf per day with an average 30 day production rate of 6.9 Mmcf per day.  "Because of the production history and the consistency of results, we are now estimating ultimate reserves of 5.5 Bcf per well, up from our original disclosure of 4.5 Bcf per well," commented Dinges.

The enhanced pace of completions has carried through to 2010 with three more horizontal wells turned in line and gross production over 100 Mmcf per day as of February 19, 2010.  Since January 1, the range of 24-hour IP rates for the 2010 completions has been from 2.6 Mmcf to 16.1 Mmcf per day.  "We currently have 17 horizontal wells waiting on completion with five rigs running and two completions underway in Susquehanna County.  We also have a significant pipeline laying operation ongoing," said Dinges.  "One year ago in the Marcellus we were producing 16 Mmcf per day and now our rate is just above 100 Mmcf per day."

In terms of infrastructure, Cabot recently executed binding Agreements to anchor a new 20" high pressure gathering line.  Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE: WPZ) will construct and operate the 28-mile gathering line, which will run from Cabot’s Susquehanna County operating area south to Williams Partners’ Transco interstate gas pipeline.  The new line is expected to be in service by mid-summer 2011.  Cabot will be the majority capacity holder and this firm service will add additional flexibility to its current takeaway position. "This firm takeaway commitment goes a long way to providing the next wedge of needed capacity for the Company," stated Dinges.

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DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman Visits Binghamton – Marcellus Drilling News was There

This will necessarily be a long article. As a regular reader of Marcellus Drilling News, you have come to expect brief articles highlighting information useful for landowners and other interested parties in the Marcellus Drilling debate. Last night, your faithful scribe attended a local meeting in Binghamton, NY at Binghamton’s East Middle School, to hear DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman and his views on natural gas drilling. I went with an open mind to evaluate whether Mr. Tillman and the other speaker of the evening—lawyer Helen Slottje from Ithaca—would present information that would challenge my views that drilling can be done safely when it’s done right.

I would say it’s a fair statement that if you went to the meeting as a supporter of drilling, or as an opponent, your view was not changed by the presentations. I attended on behalf of the average landowner, even though I do not have land for lease in the Marcellus myself. I tried to be your eyes and ears at the meeting. Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with, nor compensated by, anyone in the drilling debate on either side of the debate. I’m just an interested blogger and advocate for landowners and the rights of private property owners.

This is an account of what happened last night…

Read More “DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman Visits Binghamton – Marcellus Drilling News was There”

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Patriot Water Treatment Plant in Owego Gets a Yellow Light

Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (Feb 17)
Owego wastewater plan hits snag

Patriot Water Treatment wants to build a wastewater treatment plant in Owego, NY. The plant would take in fracking water from drilling operations in the region, treat it, and return the water back to drillers to be used again. According to Andrew Blocksom, of Patriot, the resulting treated water is “cleaner than my tap water.” This new plant will bring 20 fulltime jobs and tax revenues to the community, and is needed for area drillers. But, it also will bring traffic, which is a concern:

Approximately four trucks per hour for 24 hours a day would enter the facility with fracking water. The facility would treat the water, distilling it in a vacuum, and provide distilled water back to trucks to return it to natural gas drilling sites.

Neighbors of the facility and those that live along proposed truck routes voiced concerns about spills and the toxicity of the incoming fracking water.

And this:

“I don’t think 24 hours, seven days a week is reasonable,” Village of Owego Mayor Ed Arrington said. “If there was another way, I wouldn’t oppose it.”

The Tioga County Planning Board was due to make a recommendation on whether or not the Village of Owego Planning Board should accept the plan. Unfortunately, five of the Tioga County Planning Board members were AWOL from the meeting, so the final vote was 5 to 2 to recommend, but not the required 6 affirmative vote minimum that would be needed for an official recommendation. Marcellus Drilling News wants to know why five members were missing from such an important meeting? For or against the facility is not the issue—Planning Board members are supposed to be present and represent the people. This is dereliction of duty in our humble opinion.

No word on who was absent, and no word on what the next step is for Patriot now that it appears the process is stalled.