Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Jul 5, 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: Thu, Jul 5, 2012”
-
-
OOGA Sees Tremendous Growth in Membership
The Ohio Oil and Gas Association saw a doubling of their membership from June 2011 to June 2012, and they continue to add about 135 new members each month. Why? The Utica Shale.
Read More “OOGA Sees Tremendous Growth in Membership”
-
Norse Energy Special Shareholder Appeal – Sneak Preview
On July 5, Norse Energy Corp will hold what they call an “Extraordinary General Meeting” (EGM) for shareholders in Oslo, Norway. Norse Energy’s CEO Mark Dice will present to shareholders using the PowerPoint embedded below. MDN has included a rundown of what’s in the slides.For better or worse, Norse has most of its investments in leases in New York State, and the now four-year long delay in adopting new drilling rules, called the SGEIS, has strained the company’s resources. They’ve refinanced debt, sold off assets, taken on investors and have done whatever they can to “hang in there” until drilling finally begins in New York. The slides in the presentation show just how key New York’s decision is to Norse’s future.
Read More “Norse Energy Special Shareholder Appeal – Sneak Preview”
-
Al “Crucify Them” Armendariz Goes to Work for Sierra Club
Where do former EPA officials go after they’ve been outted as extremist anti-drillers—so extreme even the head honchos in Obama’s EPA can’t stomach them anymore? Why, the Sierra Club, of course!
You may remember the rightful furor over comments made public by then-EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz about how his philosophy on the enforcement of EPA regulations against drillers is to find a few and make examples of them. You know, like the Romans used to do when they entered a village and crucified the first five men they found. His extremist comments, when finally revealed several years after the fact, led to his dismissal (see this MDN story).
Read More “Al “Crucify Them” Armendariz Goes to Work for Sierra Club”
-
Trumble County, OH Update: Drilling Won’t Start for 18 Months
According to Terry Fleming, executive director for the Ohio Petroleum Council, Trumbull County is “at least” 18 months away from any active drilling for oil and gas.
Fleming’s update for Trumbull County:
Read More “Trumble County, OH Update: Drilling Won’t Start for 18 Months”
-
NY and Compulsory Integration – MDN Agrees with Slottje (!)
David Slottje and his wife Helen are both lawyers funded in part by the Park Foundation (in Ithaca, NY) to run around trying to convince local town boards in New York to ban hydraulic fracturing. They are, in a word, the enemies of landowner property rights. They seek to deny landowners who want to lease their land for gas drilling the right to do so.
So when MDN read an editorial (not surprisingly) in the Ithaca Journal written by David Slottje that makes reference to the rumored plan by Gov. Cuomo to allow limited drilling in five counties as being “devastating” to landowner property rights, it was a laugh-out-loud moment. The height of hypocrisy and arrogance to say landowner rights will be devastated by the very person doing the most to devastate them.
But what wasn’t so funny was that getting beyond the rank hypocrisy and looking at the substance of what Slottje wrote, MDN had to agree with his viewpoint—on this one particular issue.
Read More “NY and Compulsory Integration – MDN Agrees with Slottje (!)”
-
Altela | Clarion County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | McKean County | Pennsylvania | Wastewater
Altela Set to Open 2 New Frack Wastewater Plants in PA
Two new fracking wastewater treatment plants will come online in Pennsylvania on August 1st—one in Clarion County, the other in McKean County. As MDN reported back in November, Altela Inc. will use a distillation process to purify fracking wastewater, a “green” alternative instead of chemically treating the water (see this MDN story).
The new news is that Altela is almost ready to open two new plants using their green technology.
Read More “Altela Set to Open 2 New Frack Wastewater Plants in PA”
-
Magnum Hunter’s Marcellus Production Curtailed from Storm
You may or may not have heard about the severe thunderstorms that moved through the mid-Atlantic region last Friday afternoon. It resulted in 1.3 million people in Washington, D.C., Maryland and northern Virginia losing power. Some of them still don’t have power and won’t until later this week.
But what you may not realize is that the same storm also had a noticeable effect on the Marcellus Shale industry. The storms didn’t just stop around D.C.—they kept on going—right into the heart of Marcellus country. And the power outage caused problems for at least one driller, Magnum Hunter, who issued a press release with an update on the status of their operations in the region.
Read More “Magnum Hunter’s Marcellus Production Curtailed from Storm”
-
The Inverse Relationship of Coal and Natural Gas
A heartrending editorial in the Charleston Gazette tells about recent massive layoffs in the West Virginia coal industry. While there’s mention of Obama’s war on coal (and make no mistake, it’s a real war on coal by the global warmists), the editorial puts most of the “blame” on the rise of cheap natural gas, brought about by hydraulic fracturing of shale.
Read More “The Inverse Relationship of Coal and Natural Gas”
-
Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Jul 3, 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: Tue, Jul 3, 2012”
-
Berks County | Bucks County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Montgomery County | Pennsylvania | Regulation
Republicans Sneak SE PA Drilling Ban into Budget Deal
An eleventh hour deal was snuck into the Pennsylvania budget signed into law by Gov. Tom Corbett late Saturday night. On Friday, an amendment was introduced to the budget that would establish a moratorium on drilling in southeastern Pennsylvania in the South Newark Basin, a small area which stretches from New Jersey through Bucks, Montgomery and Berks counties in PA.The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently completed an evaluation of the South Newark Basin, which contains both shale and coal bed methane deposits, along with four other East Coast basins and issued a report showing how much natural gas each basin contains (a copy is embedded below). The report says the South Newark Basin contains a minimum of 363 billion cubic feet of natural gas deposits, and their best guess is it contains around 876 billion cubic feet. It’s much smaller than the Marcellus, but certainly nothing to sneeze at.
With all of the gas drilling in the rest of the state, and with new drilling laws now in place, why place a temporary moratorium that expires in 2018 on the southeast region of the state? That’s where politics rears its ugly head—and this time it’s the Republicans who are to blame.
Read More “Republicans Sneak SE PA Drilling Ban into Budget Deal”
-
Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Processing Plants | Statewide PA | Sunoco Logistics
Sunoco & Carlyle Group Ink Joint Venture for Philly Refinery
Apparently the merger underway between Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco is going well enough, and the promise of Marcellus and Utica Shale big enough, that Sunoco has inked a deal with The Carlyle Group to form a joint venture to keep the Philadelphia refinery operating. The new joint venture will save 850 jobs at the plant. Wording in the extensive press release below indicates that shale—Marcellus, Utica and Bakken—will all play an important role for the refinery moving forward.
This is good news for the workers at the refinery, and good news for consumers who will continue to have access to low-cost oil, natural gas and other petrochemical products that will be produced by the refinery. Here’s the press release announcing the deal:
Read More “Sunoco & Carlyle Group Ink Joint Venture for Philly Refinery”
-
Devon Energy Receives First Utica Permit for Wayne County, OH
Devon Energy has just received the first permit to drill a Utica Shale well in Wayne County, Ohio. No timeline is set for when the drilling will begin, but Devon hopes the well will yield not only methane but oil too.
Read More “Devon Energy Receives First Utica Permit for Wayne County, OH”
-
Exterran Wins Contract to Build 3 WV NatGas Processing Plants
A big “get” for Exterran Holdings. They’ve won the contract to build three natural gas processing plants being built by Williams Partners in West Virginia.
From the Exterran press release:
Read More “Exterran Wins Contract to Build 3 WV NatGas Processing Plants”
-
PA Budget with Shell Cracker Plant Tax Credit Passes
At 11:45 pm Saturday, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, for the second year in a row (and his second year in office), signed into law an on-time budget for the state—a budget that does not raise taxes. No small feat given the current sad state of the economy.
One of the biggest victories for Corbett in this year’s budget (supported by both Republicans and Democrats) was the passage of a tax credit for Shell and other companies who invest in an ethane cracker plant for the state:
Read More “PA Budget with Shell Cracker Plant Tax Credit Passes”
-
Delaware Riverkeeper Launches Anti-Fracking Ad Nationally
The anti-drilling Delaware Riverkeeper has launched a new anti-gas ad airing on Lifetime, MSNBC, CNBC, and FOX News. Yes, Fox News too. No doubt using the deep pockets of Hollywood types (like Mark Ruffalo) and money from billionaires (like the lefty George Soros), the ad tries to turn up the fear factor on gas drilling and smear the miracle of hydraulic fracturing. Perhaps you’ve seen the new ad? MDN editor Jim Willis watched it online here (he kicked the time-wasting TV habit years ago).
MDN notices that some lazy (obedient?) news outlets have picked up the Riverkeeper press release and printed it word for word as actual news, not even bothering to identify it as a biased press release (like the Hunterdon County Democrat).
Here’s the press release as issued by Riverkeeper (and as found in the Hunterdon County Democrat):
Read More “Delaware Riverkeeper Launches Anti-Fracking Ad Nationally”
On July 5, Norse Energy Corp will hold what they call an “Extraordinary General Meeting” (EGM) for shareholders in Oslo, Norway. Norse Energy’s CEO Mark Dice will present to shareholders using the PowerPoint embedded below. MDN has included a rundown of what’s in the slides.
An eleventh hour deal was snuck into the Pennsylvania budget signed into law by Gov. Tom Corbett late Saturday night. On Friday, an amendment was introduced to the budget that would establish a moratorium on drilling in southeastern Pennsylvania in the South Newark Basin, a small area which stretches from New Jersey through Bucks, Montgomery and Berks counties in PA.