In an indication of things to come, pipeline construction firm Price Gregory has requested 50 RV spaces for its workers in a new RV/camper park located in Morristown, OH (Belmont County)—by June 1st!
Read More “RV Park for Shale Workers in OH Sees Strong Demand”
Two Ohio state Democrat representatives have introduced a new bill that would require an “audit clause” to be recorded in every oil and gas drilling lease in the state. The bill is an effort, according to its authors, to insert third party verification of production numbers reported by companies so landowners don’t have to rely on the driller’s “honesty” in reporting those numbers.
Read More “OH Bill Requires 3rd Party Verification of O&G Production”
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 7, 2012”
Dear MDN Reader,
Starting Monday, May 7, I will implement paid access for the Marcellus Drilling News website. If you would give me just a few minutes of your time, I would like to explain why, and how it will work.
The anti-drillers in New York are not content to block horizontal drilling. They increasingly have turned their attention to conventional, vertical natural gas drilling as their target, trying to shut down or otherwise harass an industry that has been safely operating in the state for decades.
The latest attempt is a sham “report” by the anti-drilling group Environmental Advocates of New York. This new “report” says wastewater disposal from conventional, vertical wells is too lax in the state. They want conventional drilling wastewater to be classified as a hazardous substance with cradle-to-grave tracking of all water used in any oil and gas drilling in the state—which is just another way of strangling an industry that has been an important part of the state’s economy for the past 100+ years.
From the AP:
Read More “Anti-Drillers Target Conventional NatGas Drilling in NY”
The sharks continue to circle around Chesapeake Energy. Yesterday, the company confirmed via a brief press announcement (below) that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has launched an informal investigation into the company and its founder/CEO Aubrey McClendan.
The Chesapeake announcement:
Read More “SEC Launches Informal Investigation of Chesapeake & McClendon”
Another day, another attempt by the anti-drilling left to scare people. Honestly, when will the general public wake up to these pathetic attempts to stop drilling?
The latest attempt is from two Cornell professors—from the veterinary department—who came to Endicott, NY to warn people that fracking will poison their cows and horses and chickens and dogs and cats, oh my! (Perhaps the good profs should make a trip to PA, just across the border, where fracking is everywhere and the animals are just fine.)
Read More “Cornell Veterinarians Say Fracking Poisons Animals & People”
A school board member from a district in western Pennsylvania that recently voted to allow Marcellus Shale drilling under, but not on top, of school property wrote a must-read article that appears on the American Thinker website today. He shares with readers the process the board went through, the agonizing, researching, questioning, and public hearings on gas drilling. And the board member came to a key conclusion about anti-drillers: at their core, they are unreasonable people. To wit:
Read More “Western PA School Board Member Speaks Out on Anti-Drillers”
Guess who’s now on board the anti-drilling bus? Peter Yarrow, of the sixties folk singing group Peter, Paul and Mary. Or as MDN editor Jim Willis used to call them back in the 1980s, “Peter, Paul and Commie.” Yeah, the singers of Puff the Magic Dragon have always been politically active—on the far left. In the 1980s they flew to Nicaragua to show their support for the brutal Socialist/Communist dictator Daniel Ortega. Why is it liberals love the commie dictators like Ortega and Castro? But we digress.
Read More “Folk Legend Peter Yarrow Joins Anti-Fracking Protest in NY”
MarkWest announced today two major new agreements to provide expanded natural gas processing and pipeline capacity for Chesapeake Energy and Antero Resouces in the Marcellus Shale. The deal with Chesapeake covers Brooke, Ohio and Marshall counties in WV, and Washington County, PA. The deal with Antero covers Doddridge and Harrison counties in WV. The new agreements, which include processing natural gas liquids, mean MarkWest will build new gathering pipelines and add compressor stations to their existing operations.
From the MarkWest press release:
Read More “MarkWest Inks Major New Deals with Chesapeake & Antero”
UGI Utilities, a regional gas and electric utility provider with offices in Reading and Wilkes-Barre, wants to be the first utility in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area to offer their customers natural gas exclusively from the Marcellus Shale. How? UGI’s subsidiary, UGI Energy Services, announced last fall they would spend $150 million to extend the Auburn Gathering Line into Luzerne County. The Auburn pipeline will bring natural gas from wells in Wyoming and Susquehanna counties to Luzerne where UGI has operations and offices.
As part of the extension project, on April 7 UGI made application with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to build a compressor station in West Wyoming, a small borough in Luzerne County:
Read More “Marcellus Shale Gas Coming to Scranton/W-B Customers”
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 4, 2012”
Yesterday was not a good day for Chesapeake Energy and its CEO Aubrey McClendon. By the end of the day, Chesapeake’s stock had slide to its lowest since September 2009, down 15 percent at $16.72 (see chart below). Why the drop? A number of reasons, but mostly because of a new revelation, “the other shoe dropping.”
On an earnings call with stockholders and analysts yesterday, McClendon laid out a plan for reducing a pile of debt the company has racked up that now totals $12.6 billion. Investors remain nervous about the mounting debt. The company earlier this week reported a net loss of $71 million, or 11 cents per share, for the first three months of this year. Several weeks ago Reuters reported that McClendon had been running up his own debt tab in order to supply cash for drilling wells in which he is a 2.5 percent stakeholder in a deal with the company. The company’s stock took a beating on that news.
Read More “Another Shoe Drops for Chesapeake – Aubrey’s Hedge Fund”
A month and a half ago it seemed imminent that Aither Chemicals would announce they would build a new ethane cracker plant at the Bayer CropScience plant site at Institute Industrial Park, located in Kanawha County, near Charleston, WV (see this MDN story). Bayer CropScience, owner of the site, and MarkWest Energy, a huge pipeline company, were named as potential partners in the deal. But the expected announcement never came, and all has been silent since.
An article in the Charleston Daily Mail caught MDN’s eye, an article that says the local city of Nitro, WV have filed a petition with Kanawha County to annex 44 properties surrounding the Bayer CropScience plant. The properties in that area of the county are unincorporated—no official town or city municipal government control—and if Nitro annexes the property surrounding the plant, it prevents any other communities from trying to annex the plant itself at some future date.
Read More “New Movement on the Aither Chemicals Cracker Plant in WV?”
Williams Partners and Cabot Oil & Gas are working on a new 120-mile natural gas pipeline, dubbed the Constitution Pipeline, that will stretch from Susquehanna County, PA through Broome County, NY, and on through Chenango County, Delaware County, and terminate in Schoharie County, connecting to the Iroquois Gas Transmission pipeline and the Tennessee Gas pipeline (see the map embedded below).
Read More “Williams & Cabot Partner on New 120-Mile PA to NY Pipeline”
EXCO Resources released their first quarter operational update on Tuesday. In the Marcellus Shale, EXCO is currently operating three drilling rigs with plans to drill 49 wells this year in the Marcellus. Most of EXCO’s drilling happens in Lycoming County, PA (Williamsport area).
The relevant portion of the EXCO update concerning the Marcellus:
Read More “EXCO Resources Marcellus Production Up 7% from 2011”