In a wide-ranging article talking about the natural gas industry in Pennsylvania, and how it is maturing, we get this bit about landowners’ prospects in signing new lease deals from a National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) rep:
Read More “NARO Says Marcellus Land Grab in PA is Over for Landowners”
Even though there is no fracking of natural gas wells in New Jersey, residents of that state are enjoying much lower heating bills this winter because of fracking. In fact, according to the AARP, using natural gas for heating costs about one-fifth of what it costs using oil. Why? The Marcellus Shale.
Read More “Marcellus Shale Means NJ Residents Heating Bills Vastly Lower”
A recent example from western Pennsylvania illustrates how drilling companies and residents in PA are working together to resolve thorny issues and move forward with gas drilling in a way that everyone can live with:
Read More “Gas Drillers and Townships Working Together Resolve Issues”
A $500 million natural gas processing plant is currently being built by Dominion Transmission along the Ohio River in Marshall County, WV. When it’s done, it will have a 400 million cubic feet per day capacity. Chesapeake Energy has committed to processing 100 million cubic feet per day at the facility. The new plant means jobs and an economic boost for West Virginia’s northern panhandle.
Read More “$500M NG Processing Plant in Marshall County, WV Under Way”
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: Monday, Dec 19, 2011”
Last week’s poll took the pulse of MDN readers to find out whether or not they think all high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing should be banned. It was our second-highest number of votes for any poll, showing a real interest in the topic. The results are in, and by an overwhelming majority, MDN readers to not think fracking should be banned.
Should all high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing be banned?
No (70%, 295 Votes)
Yes (26%, 109 Votes)
Not sure (4%, 17 Votes)
Total Voters: 421
This Week’s Poll: What’s your interest in MDN?
MDN will soon make some changes as editor Jim Willis transitions to a new role with his day job. In preparation for those changes, it would be useful to know just who is visiting the MDN site—what your primary purpose is for visiting. Nearly 30,000 unique, different people visit MDN each month. Are you a landowner interested in news about drilling and how it will affect you? Do you work for a drilling or a drilling-related company? Work for government? Etc. Please take a moment to anonymously tell us who you are/what your primary motivator is in visiting the site by voting in the poll on the right side of any page in the site. Thanks!
Below are the most recent “top 5” lists and the calendar of Marcellus related events for the next two weeks. The calendar is pretty thin! Things are now winding down for the end of year holiday season. Look for this weekly update next Saturday instead of Christmas day (Sunday).
Happy reading,
Jim Willis, Editor
A new Marcellus drilling law (highlights of the law listed below) passed in a special session of the West Virginia legislature and has been signed by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin into law. Yesterday, the WV House of Delegates voted 92-5 and the Senate voted 33-0 to pass the measure, known as the “Horizontal Well Act,” which was immediately signed by the governor.
Although it only took the WV legislature four days in a special session to pass the measure, in reality, it has taken most of this year to draft, tweak and alter the language of the bill to prepare it ahead of the special session.
Read More “WV Has New Marcellus Drilling Law in Record Time”
In December 2009, Dimock Township (PA) resident Scott Ely, an employee of Cabot Oil & Gas drilling subsidiary GasSearch Drilling Services, made claims of hidden or ignored spills, leaking pits and shoddy practices to both state environmental regulators and Cabot officials. Ely identified 11 sites where he said such problems had occurred. Cabot contracted with URS Corp. to investigate the claims and either prove or disprove them. A final URS report has just been issued which says it found nothing in the streams, ponds and soil it sampled at levels that would pose a risk to human health.
The report (a copy is embedded below) says URS did find some substances which may indicate past spills from natural gas drilling operations, but that the substances they found do not have state-mandated limits for soil and water.
Read More “New Report Says No Health Threats from Spills in Dimock PA”
Maryland continues to skip down the primrose path to no shale gas drilling. Earlier this year, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley appointed a Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission to study whether or not the state should even allow shale gas drilling (see this MDN story). The committee is due to turn in a preliminary report by the end of this year, but the final report is not due until 2014. All indicators are that if Maryland allows shale gas drilling, it will be so restrictive and so heavily taxed, it will be stillborn. No drillers will even bother.
The latest evidence of that comes from the commission’s recommendation that drillers be presumed to be guilty of certain environmental “crimes” until proven innocent. To wit:
Read More “Maryland Continues Down the Path to No Gas Drilling”
Results from two different surveys on resident’s attitudes toward shale gas drilling in New York and Pennsylvania were delivered at the Agribusiness Economic Outlook Conference, held Dec. 13 at Cornell University. Richard Stedman, associate professor of natural resources at Cornell, reported the following from a survey of 6,000 residents in both New York and Pennsylvania:
Read More “Cornell Conference: Majorities in NY & PA Support Drilling”
A new study released Wednesday by PricewaterhouseCoopers on shale gas and its impact on U.S. manufacturing finds that by 2025 manufacturers will employ an additional one million workers and will have saved some $11.6 billion in energy costs—all due to an abundance of domestic shale gas supplies. The report also cautions that manufacturers must help manage the environmental, regulatory and tax concerns created by shale gas resources to realize those results. A copy of the full report is embedded below.
From the PwC press release:
Read More “Study Finds Shale Gas Will Create 1M New Manufacturing Jobs”
Yesterday, U.S. oil and gas exploration firm Endeavour International Corp announced they were bailing out of a deal to buy the Marcellus holdings of SM Energy (no stated reason for abandoning the deal). This was the single-sentence press release they issued:
Read More “Endeavour Leaves SM Energy at the Altar, SM Ready to Sue”
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: Thursday, Dec 15, 2011”
Last Friday, Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board Judge Bernard Labuskes, Jr. denied an appeal from 11 families in the Carter Road area of Dimock Township, PA who were asking that water shipments from Cabot Oil & Gas be restored. The 11 families, from an original group of 19 families, decided to not accept a remediation solution ordered by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that directed Cabot to pay the families up to twice the value of their homes and to install filtration systems that would remove all methane from their water supplies.
Because of their ongoing refusal to accept the remediation solution offered, preferring instead to pursue litigation with Cabot, the DEP finally told Cabot they could end water deliveries to those families as of Nov. 30—deliveries that have been ongoing for more than two years.
Read More “Judge Denies Request to Restart Water Deliveries in Dimock PA”
Just how much money would be generated in taxes by a single Marcellus Shale gas well in New York State? The Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York (IOGA of NY) wants you to know, and has created a calculator on their website that will tell you. You can find it here.
Read More “NY Frack Calculator Shows Tax Revenue from Just One Well”
Leaders from 44 Pennsylvania municipalities in seven counties met Tuesday night to express their concern over state legislation nearing passage that would strip away most local control of shale gas drilling. PA Gov. Tom Corbett believes most control for drilling should be handled at the state level, something the drilling industry also favors, giving drillers an even, consistent playing field across the state instead of a patchwork of regulations that differ from area to area and even from township to township.
But local municipal leaders maintain a “one size fits all” is not the answer—that local leaders and the citizens they represent should have a say on which areas in their locales should be industrialized and which should not, and what restrictions they want to place on drilling activities. Their point: Who knows better the local character and conditions than municipal leaders, who answer to local voters?
Read More “PA Municipal Leaders Say “No” to Proposed Drilling Law”