Marcellus Drilling News

Energy Companies | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Yaterra Ventures

New Driller Arrives in the Marcellus – Hunting for Oil
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

There’s a new name in drillers coming to the Marcellus Shale: Yaterra Ventures. In a press release yesterday (see below), Yaterra announced they they are close to concluding negotiations to take over the leases for 150 wells on 1,600 acres in western Pennsylvania. Yaterra does not mention who the potential seller is. It strikes MDN as unusual that Yaterra would issue a press release prior to the deal closing, but sometimes these high finance deals escape our understanding!

One thing we do understand from the release: Yaterra is not after natural gas in the Marcellus. They’re after shale oil.

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Statewide VA | Virginia

Will VA Drill the Marcellus Shale Any Time Soon?
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

A topic we don’t write very much about is Marcellus Shale drilling in Virginia. The reason? Two reasons really: There’s only a small sliver along the western edge that sits in the Marcellus play, and most Virginians are dead set against fracking (even though it’s already in use in the state today). So there has been no Marcellus drilling in VA to date. Will that change?

A wide-ranging article in Virginia Business titled “Virginia’s Burning Question” addresses the issue of whether, and when, drilling will take place in the state. A small section of that article:

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CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies | Hess | Mahoning County | Noble County | Ohio | Portage County | Trumbull County | Tuscarawas County

CONSOL’s Plans for Ohio Utica Shale Have Begun
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

CONSOL Energy’s drilling in Ohio’s Utica Shale is now under way and ramping up rapidly, according to CONSOL’s Harry Schurr who spoke Wednesday at a workshop on the campus of Kent State University. They’ve already drilled their first Utica well in Tuscarawas County, and they plan to drill 15 more this year. CONSOL also has a joint venture with Hess. Hess plans to drill six Utica wells this year.

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Delaware County (PA) | Economic Impact | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Sunoco Logistics

Will Marcellus Shale Save Philly Marcus Hook Refinery?
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

Last year the Philadelphia region was hard-hit when both Sunoco and ConocoPhillips announced they would shut down a combined three refineries in the area. Since then, ConocoPhillips sold its refinery for $180 million to Delta Air Lines which will convert and use the plant for jet-fuel production. Sunoco is in talks to sell its one of two refineries (in Philly) to a joint venture headed by the Carlyle Group—but if that doesn’t develop, they’re going to shut it down.

And then there’s the Marcus Hook refinery, which closed it doors “for good” in April. Officials from the town of Marcus Hook and Delaware County are working hard to get it reopened. As part of that process, they commissioned a $100,000 study, just released, from IHS Consulting. The study identifies seven possible uses for the idled refinery, and pegs its best chances of reopening based on the abundance of natural gas and gas liquids coming from the Marcellus and Utica Shale region.

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Energy Companies | Exxon Mobil | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

ExxonMobil CEO Delivers Major Speech on U.S. Energy
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

In a speech delivered at the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson said fears about climate change, drilling and even energy dependence on other countries are all overblown. He said he believes burning fossil fuels does lead to global warming, but it’s no big deal and certainly not an impending cataclysm. He also said the press and environmentalists are manufacturing fear about fracking and fossil fuels.

Perhaps the most controversial thing he said is that the general public is “illiterate” when it comes to science and math.

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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Jun 28, 2012
June 28, 2012June 28, 2012

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:

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Accidents | Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

Yale Study Finds Shale Gas Benefits Outweigh Costs 400 to 1
June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

Oh oh, this isn’t supposed to happen…A group of Yale economics graduates together with a Yale professor have written a detailed and well-researched paper refuting the mighty New York Times and concluding that the benefits of shale gas are enormous and should continue.

The 12-page paper, titled “The Arithmetic of Shale Gas” is embedded below. The authors of the paper consider both the economic benefits and the costs, including environmental damage, and make the following observation:

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Regulation

DC Court Clears Way for EPA to Regulate Methane
June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

Welcome to the USSA – the United Socialist States of America. Just think USSR updated, because that’s what we’ve now become.

The reason for this latest MDN tirade? Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. ruled in favor of the rogue, power-hungry so-called Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a case that will allow unelected bureaucrats inside the EPA to regulate everything—all human activity—under the guise that said activity produces greenhouse gas emissions (a copy of the ruling is embedded below).

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Economic Impact | Industrywide Issues | New York | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Statewide NY | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Energy Execs Rank Drilling Locations Including WV, OH, PA, NY
June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

Each year, the Canadian-based Fraser Institute surveys petroleum industry executives and managers (623 of them for 2012) asking them their opinions on the barriers to investing in exploration and production in various geographies across the globe. That is, what makes them more likely or less likely to spend money drilling in a particular location?

The Global Petroleum Survey, as it’s called, tallies the survey responses and ranks each geography from most desirable place to invest, to least desirable. The rankings for this year are interesting and illustrative that politicians’ words and legislation have a direct bearing on where, and how much, drilling companies are willing to spend.

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Energy Companies | Energy Services | EQT Corp | Equitrans/EQT Midstream

EQT Midstream IPO Rakes in the Cash
June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

EQT Corp, one of the larger drillers in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, has spun off its midstream (pipeline and processing plant) operations into its own company. Shares of the new EQT Midstream started selling yesterday in an initial public offering (IPO), and today those shares will start to be publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbol EQM).

What does it mean? It means EQT’s midstream activities will have a nice new pot of cash to expand with—somewhere around $260 million (put another way—over a quarter of a billion dollars). EQT’s drilling activities will now be serviced by a bigger, more robust midstream operation to get their gas to market.

From the EQT press release:

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

USA Today Asks, Is Your State Next for Gas Drilling?
June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

Today’s issue of USA Today sports a major article on shale gas drilling. It mostly points out the negatives, although for USA Today it’s about as “balanced” as it can get (with a few paragraphs about the benefits of drilling).

The article starts this way:

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Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Jun 27, 2012
June 27, 2012June 27, 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: Wed, Jun 27, 2012”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

NY Anti-Frackers Take Aim at Pro-Drilling Town Boards
June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

In a preview of things to come for New York should fracking be allowed by Gov. Cuomo, an article in today’s Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin asks whether or not town board members who own land and stand to profit from leasing have a conflict of interest. The unstated answer, according to the article, is that they do.

It is the anti-drillers in New York who a) want fracking banned completely, and if that doesn’t work, b) want local municipalities to have the right to ban it. Either way they figure they’ve got their bases covered—except there are a number of municipalities where the town boards are in favor of drilling.

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Chesapeake Energy | Encana Energy | Energy Companies

Did Reuters Break the Law with Latest Chesapeake Story?
June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

Another week, another “cut” at Chesapeake Energy and its flamboyant CEO Aubrey McClendon. Death by a thousand cuts will work, as long as in the end it’s death, right? And that’s exactly what the mainstream media is clamoring for.

A new hit piece by Reuters attempts to smear McClendon and in the process snags Canadian company Encana. The article, published yesterday, tries to portray McClendon and the president of Encana USA, Jeff Wojahn, as colluding to divvy up Michigan state oil and gas leases auctioned in 2010. It was an attempt to suppress prices and control the outcome of the auction, according to Reuters, and if that indeed happened, it would be a violation of federal and state laws.

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Industrywide Issues | Jobs | Ohio | Statewide OH

New OH Drilling Law Tracks Jobs by Resident/Non-Resident
June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

Drillers who operate in Ohio are put on notice that the state is now watching how many Ohio residents are hired by the industry. Ohio State Senator Lou Gentile, Democrat from Steubenville, had the only amendment from his party to be included in the new drilling law signed by Gov. John Kasich earlier this month.

The amendment, called “Ohio Workers First,” requires the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services to track hiring of residents and non-residents and create an annual report showing employment figures for the oil and gas industries in the state. The purpose? To show the “real economic impact” of drilling in the state. And to send a very loud and clear message to the industry.

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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Supreme Court Rules Industry Can’t Join Act 13 Lawsuit
June 26, 2012June 26, 2012

Last Friday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied a request by the Marcellus Shale drilling industry to participate in the lawsuit brought by seven towns, a few individuals and “a non-profit organization” against the new Act 13 drilling law in Pennsylvania. The lawsuit seeks to overturn a portion of Act 13, the part that substitutes statewide zoning regulations for local zoning regulations when it comes to the oil and gas drilling industry.

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