Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Jan 18, 2012
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading:
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NY Gov. Cuomo Signals Drilling Not Likely to Happen in 2012
Although pro-drilling groups in New York are attempting to put a positive face on it, yesterday NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state has not yet made a determination on whether fracking will be allowed. Not “when” it will be allowed, but “whether” it will be allowed. He said, “We haven’t made that determination.” His remarks in context were about whether the state will add funding in this year’s budget (being released today) for an estimated 140 regulators that would be needed if fracking were to begin.At a minimum, it seems Cuomo is saying that fracking won’t be a resolved issue during this budget year, although his remarks are not exactly clear.
Read More “NY Gov. Cuomo Signals Drilling Not Likely to Happen in 2012”
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WV Gov. Tomblin Proposes 25-Year Tax Break for Cracker Plant
West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin has sent proposed new legislation to lawmakers asking for a 25-year break from business property taxes for any company investing at least $2 billion to build an ethane cracker plant in the state. There is a bidding war going on among West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania to attract the plant, a facility that processes ethane from shale gas drilling into ethylene, a raw material used to make plastics.
Read More “WV Gov. Tomblin Proposes 25-Year Tax Break for Cracker Plant”
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M&A Activity in 2011 Set New Records, including Utica Shale
Last year’s mergers and acquisitions activity in the oil and natural gas sector set new records, both in the total value of deals and the total number of deals. Although the Marcellus Shale was responsible for a great deal of M&A activity in 2010, for 2011, the Utica Shale, considered an emerging shale play, ranked higher than the Marcellus in M&A activity. For 2011, the Utica saw 12 deals worth a combined $5.3 billion.
Read More “M&A Activity in 2011 Set New Records, including Utica Shale”
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PA Bill Requiring EMS Plan for Marcellus Wells Nears Passage
Although a comprehensive bill to tighten regulations on Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania along with an impact fee has still not passed the PA legislature, a separate, smaller bill is about to. The smaller bill requires Marcellus Shale well operators to provide geographic siting information to local, county and state EMS officials and to develop an emergency response plan.
Read More “PA Bill Requiring EMS Plan for Marcellus Wells Nears Passage”
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Canadian Pembina Pipeline Buys Provident Energy for C$3.2B
Pembina Pipeline Corp., a Canadian oil and gas pipeline operator (based in Calgary), just announced an agreement to buy Provident Energy Ltd. (another Calgary-based company) for C$3.2 billion to add natural gas liquids assets. The combined company will have a market cap of C$7.9 billion and a total enterprise value of C$10 billion, making it one of Canada’s largest energy infrastructure companies. Although the combined company will have far-ranging operations, part of their portfolio includes pipeline capacity to transport shale gas from the Marcellus and Utica Shales into Canada.
Read More “Canadian Pembina Pipeline Buys Provident Energy for C$3.2B”
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Jan 17, 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, Jan 17, 2012”
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The Two Faces of Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) on Shale Drilling
U.S. Sen. Robert Casey (Democrat, Pennsylvania) has been an outspoken critic of fracking and Marcellus shale gas drilling. He introduced and is lead sponsor of legislation in the Senate called the FRAC Act—Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (see this MDN story). The title sounds nice with words like “responsibility” and “awareness” in it, but in reality the FRAC Act is a massive power transfer, stripping the right to regulate oil and gas drilling from the individual states and handing it over to the Environmental Protection Agency in the federal government. It’s bad legislation that would gut oil and gas drilling in the United States.Read More “The Two Faces of Sen. Robert Casey (D-PA) on Shale Drilling”
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Accidents | Chief Oil & Gas | Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Wyoming County (PA)
Possible New Case of Methane Migration in Wyoming County, PA
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) sent a violation notice to Chief Oil & Gas on Jan. 4 for three gas wells in Nicholson Township (Wyoming County) saying there is 100 percent combustible gas between the cemented steel casings, which the DEP uses as a sign of flaws in construction of the well. The investigation began after a nearby resident complained of high methane levels in well water supplies. The DEP is still investigating two nearby water wells with high levels of methane and has not yet determined if Chief’s wells are the cause.
Read More “Possible New Case of Methane Migration in Wyoming County, PA”
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Is the Shale Rush Almost Over? One Analyst Says Yes
Jack Barnes, writing for Money Morning, analyzes the price of natural gas and why it’s so low—and what it ultimately means. He says that numerous shale plays in the U.S. do contribute to an overabundance of supply. But the real culprit, according to Barnes, is that major drillers are going after natural gas liquids (NGL), which can be used in a variety of ways. NGL are closely aligned with the higher price of oil and more valuable. In the process of going after NGL, “dry gas” (or methane) is recovered in the process too. It is the scramble for NGL that leads to an oversupply of methane, and that oversupply keeps natural gas prices low.
Read More “Is the Shale Rush Almost Over? One Analyst Says Yes”
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PA DEP Fines TerrAqua for Frack Water Spill in March 2011
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has finally gotten around to assessing a fine for a fracking water spill that happened in March 2011—a spill of 800-1,000 gallons of fracking water that the DEP says was preventable.
Read More “PA DEP Fines TerrAqua for Frack Water Spill in March 2011”
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Mon, Jan 16, 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: Mon, Jan 16, 2012”
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MDN Weekly Update – Jan 15, 2012: Drilling in NY?
Last week’s MDN poll asked if it’s now time to force the issue with New York’s DEC by suing the state to force them to release drilling regulations and allow fracking to begin. A surprising number of MDN readers think it is time to sue. Is it time for NY landowners & drilling supporters to sue NY state to allow drilling to begin?
Yes (78%, 233 Votes)
No (17%, 50 Votes)
Not sure (5%, 17 Votes)Total Voters: 300
This Week’s Poll: Drilling in NY – When?
Wednesday of this past week saw the “final” deadline to file comments with New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on proposed new drilling regulations, called the SGEIS (see this MDN story). According to Joe Martens, Commissioner of the DEC, it will take as much as five months to analyze and respond to the all of the comments received. And he said that about a month ago when there were fewer than 20,000 comments. The final number of comments that were filed by Wednesday midnight turned out to be more than 40,000, including a 26-page critique by none other than the federal EPA (see this story).
In June 2011 MDN conducted a poll asking readers when they thought horizontal hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale would begin in New York. At that point, the year 2011 was one of the choices and 19 percent of intrepid MDN readers picked it (see this recap of the voting). Now that the final final final DEC comment period is over (pretty soon we’ll need to use exponents after the word “final” to denote how many times it’s been called final), it’s time to ask readers once again to prognosticate on when they believe drilling will begin. Will it be 2012? 2013? Never? Register your vote on the right-hand side of any page.
Below are the most recent “top 5” lists and the calendar of Marcellus-related events for the next two weeks.
Happy reading,
Jim Willis, EditorP.S. MDN is working on a new permits report that will be published soon. Keep watching MDN for details in the coming weeks. This new report is better than the last by orders of magnitude!
Read More “MDN Weekly Update – Jan 15, 2012: Drilling in NY?”
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Breaking: Teamsters Marcellus Pipeline Strike is Over
Several commenters on MDN have stated that a new 90-day extension to work out terms of a contract between the Teamsters and the Pipe Line Contractors Association (PLCA) has been agreed to and that the strike by some Teamster locals in West Virginia and Pennsylvania is now over.
MDN does not yet have independent verification but will track this and post an update when more information is available from either the Teamsters or the PLCA.
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Another New Entrant in the Ethane Cracker Plant Sweepstakes
A new entrant has entered the ethane cracker plant sweepstakes, this one claiming they can build a cracker plant for one-third of the cost of others. Earlier this week, Keith Pauley, president and chief executive officer of the Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research & Innovation Center (MATRIC) said that MATRIC has launched a subsidiary company, Aither Chemicals, to leverage “off patent” technology created by Union Carbide in the 1970s that will make building an ethane cracker plant much less expensive than competing technologies.Read More “Another New Entrant in the Ethane Cracker Plant Sweepstakes”
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EPA’s Judith Enck Critiques NY Fracking Regulations
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a 26-page critique of New York’s draft hydraulic fracturing regulations, known as the SGEIS, three hours before the filing deadline on Wednesday (a copy of the letter is embedded below). This is the same EPA that just started a multi-year study of fracking that’s not due to be completed until 2014. Funny how they can be experts on fracking now, although their plan for how to study fracking was only released two months ago and they’ve barely begun to study it (see this MDN story).
This is also the same EPA who decided there was no problem with drinking water in Dimock, then said there’s gaps in the data, decided to ship water to Dimock residents, recanted on the water shipments less than 24 hours later, and has been silent since. Yeah, that EPA.
Read More “EPA’s Judith Enck Critiques NY Fracking Regulations”
Although pro-drilling groups in New York are attempting to put a positive face on it, yesterday NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state has not yet made a determination on whether fracking will be allowed. Not “when” it will be allowed, but “whether” it will be allowed. He said, “We haven’t made that determination.” His remarks in context were about whether the state will add funding in this year’s budget (being released today) for an estimated 140 regulators that would be needed if fracking were to begin.
U.S. Sen. Robert Casey (Democrat, Pennsylvania) has been an outspoken critic of fracking and Marcellus shale gas drilling. He introduced and is lead sponsor of legislation in the Senate called the FRAC Act—Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (
Last week’s MDN poll asked if it’s now time to force the issue with New York’s DEC by suing the state to force them to release drilling regulations and allow fracking to begin. A surprising number of MDN readers think it is time to sue. 