First announced back in early April, Penn Virginia Resource Partners (PVR) deal to buy Chief Gathering for $1 billion has officially closed on Friday. The deal creates a very large presence in the Marcellus Shale midstream space for PVR.
From the PVR press release:
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: Mon, May 21, 2012”
An unnamed driller in Ohio has asked Canadian company GASFRAC to use its waterless fracking technology to drill two trial wells in the Utica Shale. You may recall that a group of Tioga County, NY landowners with a collective 135,000 Marcellus Shale acres were set to use GASFRAC’s LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) technology to jump start drilling in New York, but the lease and royalty deal with the driller, eCORP, fell through (no fault of GASFRAC, see this MDN story).
Will GASFRAC’s innovative technology do the trick in Ohio’s Utica Shale? There’s some disagreement on that point.
Read More “GASFRAC Waterless Fracking Technology Debuts in Utica Shale”
Carrizo Oil & Gas has just received a permit for drilling in the Utica Shale in Trumbull County, Ohio. But the company says it’s not going to start its exploratory drilling for the foreseeable future, at least in Trumbull because Trumbull has more restrictive road repair demands, so instead Carrizo will drill its first Utica exploratory well in neighboring Mercer County, PA where the demands on road repair are not as restrictive.
Read More “Carrizo Gets Utica Permit for Trumbull County, OH”
Chesapeake Energy stockholders have seen the stock slide 44 percent in the past six months. Chesapeake’s largest outside investor, Southeastern Asset Management, recently encouraged the board to sell the company (see this MDN story). But who would buy?
A wide-ranging article in yesterday’s Financial Times about Chesapeake tosses out the names of a few companies that would be the likely buyers if Chesapeake were sold.
One of the more interesting stories (to MDN anyway) over the past several years has been that of how short line railroads are seeing a comeback because of shale gas drilling. Perhaps it’s the romanticism of a bygone era that appeals. Some of the uses for old short line railroad beds have been innovative—things like “dual use” corridors where rail trails and pipelines have been run together.
But there’s a very new and interesting twist on this story MDN has just noticed. In at least one Ohio location, an energy company wants to lease an abandoned rail line, but not for pipelines and not to run trains on it…
Read More “Ohio Driller Eyes Abandoned Railroad for Innovative Use”
Yesterday MDN wrote a story about a newly released study by Ernest & Young that purports to show that Ohio’s oil and gas taxes are the lowest in the country, and would remain the lowest even if Gov. John Kasich’s plan to boost those taxes were to be adopted (see this MDN story). MDN stated that we could not find a copy of that study to review the data. Thanks to two intrepid MDN readers, we now have a copy (embedded below).
Read More “Ernst & Young’s Analysis of Ohio Proposed Severance Tax”
Eureka Resources announced yesterday it will build a brand new “world-class” shale wastewater treatment facility in Bradford County, PA (near Towanda, PA). The first phase of the construction will be complete by the end of this year, and the second phase by the end of next year. According to Eureka, the facility will reduce the need to dispose of concentrated brine, or salty wastewater, that normally is disposed of via injection wells. When completed, the facility will operate 24/7 and employ 16 full-time employees.
From the Eureka press release:
Read More “Bradford County, PA Gets New Shale Wastewater Treatment Plant”
On March 1, a little over two months ago, UGI Penn Natural Gas, a utility which serves approximately 158,000 customers in 13 counties in northeastern and central Pennsylvania, announced it was immediately reducing natural gas rates for its customers by 4.5 percent (see this MDN story). UGI announced yesterday it would file its annual rate on June 1 and it will request yet another 4.5 percent rate reduction on its annual rate which would take effect December 1. That’s a total of 9 percent in one year—thanks to the abundance of PA’s Marcellus Shale gas.
Read More “PA Utility Announces Second NatGas Rate Cut This Year”
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: Fri, May 18, 2012”
Landowners in Trumbull County, Ohio—some 50 to 60 families—are now collectively $7 million richer since receiving their lease signing bonus checks. Including Richard and Ida Faber, who received a check yesterday for $701,580—almost $3,000 per acre.
Read More “Trumbull County, OH Landowners Receive Lease Checks”
Carroll County, Ohio is starting to feel the negative effects of Chesapeake Energy’s troubles, as noted in a story yesterday in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Because of recent revelations of debt financing, private hedge funds and other practices by Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon, and a resulting fall in Chesapeake’s stock price and credit rating, drilling industry activity in Carroll County has slowed down—a lot.
It seems a lot of today’s news is about fracking, so here’s one more story about fracking—not Marcellus or Utica related—but important all the same. Our ultra-environmentally conscious friends from across the pond have decided that fracking is a safe technology. Take note Vermont!
From a press release issued by British Gas:
In contrast to closed-minded Vermont (see this MDN story), North Carolina and its Democrat governor are also considering adopting new legislation with regard to hydraulic fracturing—but North Carolina’s legislation would make fracking legal, not ban it.
Read More “NC Law to Legalize (and Encourage) Fracking Advances”
In a purely symbolic gesture, Vermont has become the first (and likely only) state in union to ban hydraulic fracturing. Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the law yesterday with a crowd of grade school students from Twinfield Union School who have been brainwashed by their teachers into thinking fossil fuels are evil. The ban is symbolic because there is no oil or gas underneath Vermont to drill for.
A new study released by the accounting firm Ernst & Young says that even if Ohio Gov. John Kasich gets his way and boosts the severance tax in the state on oil and gas drilling, Ohio’s severance tax rate would still be less than other states. Kasich wants to rob Peter to pay Paul, taking even more money from energy companies and landowners in the form of higher severance taxes in order to reduce the state income tax for everyone.
Apparently the Ohio Business Roundtable is in Kasich’s hip pocket because they are the ones who commissioned the study. This is the first time MDN has ever heard of a “business group” who wanted higher taxes.
Read More “New Study Says Ohio’s Gas Severance Tax Lowest, Even If…”