Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, Apr 20, 2012
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Is Chesapeake the New Enron? Or Unfairly Targeted?
Take a few days off, and the news comes fast and furious. Big, complex stories are not what blog sites like MDN are usually geared for, but we have a big, complex story to deal with: Chesapeake Energy. In case you’ve missed it in the business pages, a new “controversy” has erupted over Chesapeake’s financial situation. They carry a heavy debt load, and with the commodity price of natural gas at 10-year lows, Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon is doing new deals (it seems) almost weekly in a bid to keep the money coming in to the company to fund continuing exploration and production. Some of the Chesapeake deals are of the joint venture nature as in “give us money and you’ll get part of the profits from this set of wells in this particular shale play,” and other deals sell off company assets outright, like the announcement on Monday that Chesapeake is spinning off its Oilfield Services, Inc. division into a separate company and will float an initial public offering (IPO) hoping to raise more than $850 million in cash (see this Chesapeake press release).
The Oilfield Services IPO seemed to be the straw that broke the financial analyst camel’s back. A very intense scrutiny began. Leading industry publication NGI’s Shale Daily (an advertiser on MDN) ran a story looking at the deal. Part of that story contains an analysis that shows Chesapeake’s long-term debt load is more than Exxon Mobil’s long-term debt, and Exxon is 32 times bigger in market capitalization than Chesapeake:
Read More “Is Chesapeake the New Enron? Or Unfairly Targeted?”
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EPA Issues New Air Pollution Standards for Fracking
In response to a court order, the federal Environmental Protection agency has issued a set of new rules (i.e. laws) that will govern air pollution standards at oil and gas drilling sites throughout the country, in particular at wells sites that use hydraulic fracturing. A copy of the 588 pages of new rules is embedded below. A five-page summary of which new rules will apply to gas drillers is also embedded below.
The EPA is trying to sell this as a cost savings for drillers—that they will capture more of the natural gas that currently escapes into the atmosphere—meaning they can sell that gas and profit from it, making the cost to implement the new rules revenue neutral. Of course the opposite is true—as with all things government, the new rules will cost drillers, and by extension landowners, more money to implement. And it gives EPA more control over fracking—something they’ve lusted after for years. Fracking comes under the purview of the individual states. The states alone have the right to regulate oil and gas drilling within their borders. But the federal government, like moths drawn to a flame, can’t help themselves. They want to regulate it.
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Obama Issues Executive Order on Hydraulic Fracturing
On Friday, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order (EO) called “Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources” (a copy of the EO is embedded below). The new EO is being touted as Obama’s EO on fracking—an attempt by Obama to coordinate the efforts of many federal agencies so the federal government will speak with one voice on the topic of hydraulic fracturing.Read More “Obama Issues Executive Order on Hydraulic Fracturing”
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Three Federal Agencies Announce Partnership to Study Fracking
At the same time The White House was announcing President Obama’s new interagency working group on fracking last Friday, three executive branch agencies were making an announcement of their own. The Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Interior and Department of Energy all released their own press releases with nearly identical language (read it below). The release announces that the three agencies have formed a formal partnership “to coordinate and align all research associated with development of our nation’s abundant unconventional natural gas and oil resources.” That is, all three agencies will share research on shale gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing, with an eye to how they can regulate it.
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Park Foundation Admits Anti-Fracking Advocacy
Kind of interesting that the anti-drilling Park Foundation has outted itself as one of the major funding sources of anti-fracking movement. An article in the Sunday Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (and run in other Gannett newspapers) chronicles that the Park Foundation, a foundation started by Roy Park, media mogul, has funneled more than $3 million to anti-drilling groups since 2009. Energy in Depth has long exposed the Park Foundation, headquartered in Ithaca, NY as a major source of funding for anti-drilling groups. Apparently the mainstream media can no longer ignore this 800 pound gorilla in the room, and so has spun a story about how wonderful it is that the tiny Park Foundation is doing this bit of community work as an antidote to the evil, nasty behemoth drilling industry. Nice try MSM.
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Maryland Legislature Fails to Act on Fracking Bill
Forgive the editorial smirk, but MDN always enjoys reading about the status of fracking in Maryland because Maryland is the only place even more dysfunctional than New York (MDN’s home turf) when it comes to the issue of hydraulic fracturing. The Maryland General Assembly meets in session for 90 days each year to pass new legislation. The session for 2012 has just ended and several bills dealing with hydraulic fracturing did not receive enough support to come to a vote.
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PennFuture Targets Entire Oil & Gas Industry in PA
Anti-drilling “environmental” group PennFuture’s newly appointed President and CEO George Jugovic, formerly the PA Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) southwest regional director, is wasting no time in going after the oil and gas industry. Current DEP Secretary Michael Krancer got the drilling industry to stop using municipal sewage treatment plants to process Marcellus drilling wastewater without so much as an edict or lawsuit. Conventional (non-Marcellus) gas drillers have now come under the scrutiny by PennFuture and other anti-drilling groups. They want conventional drillers to stop processing their drilling wastewater via treatment plants that discharge into rivers and waterways.
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Accidents | Clearfield County | Energy Companies | EXCO Resources | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Wastewater
EXCO Resources Fined $160K by EPA for Injection Well Incident
EXCO Resources was fined $160,000 last week by the federal Environmental Protection Agency for an incident that occurred at an injection well last year in western Pennsylvania.
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Apr 16, 2012
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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Fracktivists to Descend on Columbus, OH in June
With dire claims that Ohio is “poised to become a sacrifice zone” and will experience “dead creeks” like those “in Pennsylvania and West Virginia” and “wells poisoned to the point where residents can’t drink from their faucets” if widespread hydraulic fracturing is allowed to happen in the state, the group 350.org is convening a hippie-festmeeting in Columbus June 14th-17th, called “Don’t Frack Ohio.” Luminaries like Josh Fox will attend—no doubt pedaling his latest propaganda efforts (Gasland Deux) to what will be a receptive (if not mind-altered) crowd. Here’s your personal invite:Read More “Fracktivists to Descend on Columbus, OH in June”
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Anti-Drillers Organize to Oppose LPG Fracking in NY
It’s time for MDN to say, “I told you so.” More than two weeks ago MDN said the following when it was announced a group of New York landowners are about to sign a lease and move forward with waterless LPG fracking technology:
So MDN asks, what will the enviro-left do when all of their stated reasons for opposing fracking are gone? That’s right, they’ll invent new reasons to continue covering the ugly fact that they are prejudiced against fossil fuels and that anything not “sustainable” and “alternative” is not acceptable in their worldview. It will be fascinating to watch how this develops. (MDN: Alternative Fracking Method May Soon Debut – in New York!)
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Bucks County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Public Opinion | Regulation
Anti-Drillers Behave Badly at Act 13 Meeting in Nockamixon
As is typical—and has been the experience of MDN many times—it is the anti-drillers at public meetings who are loud, unruly, offensive and just plain uncivil. The latest example on full display was last night at an educational forum at Palisades High School in northern Bucks County, Pennsylvania where a panel of twelve people had gathered to discuss and answer questions for residents on the new PA Marcellus drilling law called Act 13. Palisades High School is located in Nockamixon Township, one of seven PA townships that recently sued the state over Act 13 provisions that preempt local zoning laws for oil and gas drilling.
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PA Act 13 Author Responds to Charge “Doctors Will be Gagged”
Anti-drillers who oppose the new Act 13 drilling legislation in Pennsylvania have focused on a provision in the law that they claim “gags” doctors and health care workers, preventing them from sharing information about the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing if they learn what those chemicals are in the course of treating a patient. Yes, the anti-drilling claims are convoluted and trumped up, but its all about the headlines, and the headlines (courtesy AP and others) almost all manifestly read that “Act 13 gags doctors and enforces secrecy” or some such. The legislative author of Act 13, PA Speaker of the House Sam Smith, called the allegations “outrageous” and issued the following statement yesterday:
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Comments from an Environmentalist Oil Industry Geologist
A very interesting interview with someone who works as an exploration geophysicist for the oil and gas industry who considers himself to be an environmentalist—or rather, a “realistic environmentalist”—recently appeared on the Adventure Journal blog. The interviewee, who asked to remain anonymous, responded this way when asked if other environmentalists give him a hard time about his choice of career:
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, Apr 13, 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: Fri, Apr 13, 2012”
Take a few days off, and the news comes fast and furious. Big, complex stories are not what blog sites like MDN are usually geared for, but we have a big, complex story to deal with: Chesapeake Energy. In case you’ve missed it in the business pages, a new “controversy” has erupted over Chesapeake’s financial situation. They carry a heavy debt load, and with the commodity price of natural gas at 10-year lows, Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon is doing new deals (it seems) almost weekly in a bid to keep the money coming in to the company to fund continuing exploration and production. 
On Friday, President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order (EO) called “Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources” (a copy of the EO is embedded below). The new EO is being touted as Obama’s EO on fracking—an attempt by Obama to coordinate the efforts of many federal agencies so the federal government will speak with one voice on the topic of hydraulic fracturing.
With dire claims that Ohio is “poised to become a sacrifice zone” and will experience “dead creeks” like those “in Pennsylvania and West Virginia” and “wells poisoned to the point where residents can’t drink from their faucets” if widespread hydraulic fracturing is allowed to happen in the state, the group 350.org is convening a