Marcellus Drilling News

How Much Natural Gas Does the Marcellus Really Hold?

March 22, 2012March 22, 2012

The question of how much recoverable gas there is in the Marcellus will likely be a topic of debate for some years. In 2009, Penn State geosciences professor Dr. Terry Engelder estimated there’s around 489 trillion cubic feet of gas—the largest amount of recoverable gas of any shale play in the U.S. But in January of this year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the authoritative voice of the government for such data, estimated that the Marcellus has around 141 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas total.

Who’s right? We have two new reports presented at a research conference on Monday at Penn State University which confirm Dr. Engelder’s original estimate:

Antero Resources | Energy Companies

Antero Resources 2011 Results for the Marcellus

March 22, 2012March 22, 2012

Antero Resources released 2011 operating and financial results yesterday. Below are portions from their statement that are relevant to the Marcellus Shale:

Education | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

Survey of 940 PA School Districts on Impacts of Marcellus

March 22, 2012March 22, 2012

Penn State Cooperative Extension recently published a new fact sheet with results and conclusions from a survey of 940 school districts about Marcellus Shale gas development and what it means for Pennsylvania’s schools (a copy is embedded below). So far, in areas with a lot of drilling, there’s been little in the way of new revenue for local schools, although those areas have benefited economically in general. Some respondents expressed concern about drop-out rates increasing as students leave to take advantage of high-paying jobs. Road damage and traffic congestion are also problems in some areas affecting school buses. But it’s not all bad news for schools.

Chesapeake Talks About Pipelines for OH Processing Complex

March 22, 2012March 22, 2012

Last week, Chesapeake Energy announced it was partnering with M3 Midstream and EV Energy Partners to build a new $900 million gas processing complex in Ohio’s Harrison and Columbiana counties by the middle of next year (see this MDN story). At an industry conference this week, Chesapeake and its partners spoke about the pipelines they will run to the plants and between the plants:

Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | NG Vehicles

Cabot’s George Stark Predicts More CNG Vehicles Coming

March 22, 2012March 22, 2012

News from Hart Energy’s Marcellus Midstream Conference that was held in Pittsburgh earlier this week—a prediction about the future of compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles:

Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Thu, Mar 22, 2012

March 22, 2012March 22, 2012

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

Aither Chemicals to Announce WV Ethane Cracker Plant

March 20, 2012March 19, 2012

One of the companies that has been sniffing around the concept of building an ethane cracker plant in the Marcellus/Utica region is Aither Chemicals. MDN wrote about Aither’s interest in building a cracker plant in West Virginia back in January (see this MDN story). Aither retained a Pittsburgh investment firm to help them secure funding for the project.

It appears Aither has found a couple of partners and will make an announcement on Wednesday about their plan to build an ethane cracker plant in Institute Industrial Park, located near Charleston, WV. One of the partners is the current owner of the site: Bayer CropScience. The other partner is pipeline giant MarkWest Energy.

Williams Buys Caiman Eastern Midstream for $2.5 Billion

March 20, 2012March 19, 2012

Williams announced yesterday that it will buy Caiman Energy subsidiary Caiman Eastern Midstream for $2.5 billion. Caiman Midstream has a major presence in the wet gas area of the Marcellus and Utica Shale play. The acquisition will give Williams a major pipeline gathering network in northern West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, along with two processing facilities and a fractionator. Williams says by 2020 the Caiman system will be gathering more than 2 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas along with 300,000 barrels per day of natural gas liquids and condensate.

In addition to the acquisition, the Caiman Energy parent company will partner with Williams in a new joint venture to further develop new midstream infrastructure in the Utica Shale. From the Williams press release:

Ohio | Statewide OH

Tips for Ohio Landowners with Old Mineral Leases

March 20, 2012March 19, 2012

A helpful article in The Marietta Times helps Ohio landowners better understand the complicated issue of old mineral leases signed decades ago that may still be in force. Before landowners can sign a new lease, the old claims must be officially removed.

The article advises landowners to get a lawyer’s assistance. Leases are often reassigned to new companies–some leases have been reassigned more than a dozen times. In order to get a release, you must first track down the current company that holds the lease, and then get them to sign off.

PA DEP Asks WPX to Help Families with Water/Methane Issues

March 20, 2012March 19, 2012

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) sent a letter last Friday to WPX Energy (spin-off from Williams) asking them to help three families who live near shale wells being drilled by WPX in Franklin Township (Susquehanna County, PA). The families’ water wells contain high levels of methane.

Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, Mar 20, 2012

March 20, 2012March 19, 2012

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

About MDN | MDN Resources

New Marcellus/Utica Shale Publication from MDN

March 19, 2012May 4, 2012

MDN is very excited to announce a new publication: Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook 2012. The Databook is 116 pages filled with information about the Marcellus and Utica Shale, with 90 pages of maps showing where permits and drilling are happening, county by county, throughout the entire Appalachian region. If you want to know what’s happening in the Marcellus and Utica, and how you can take advantage of it, this book is for you.

For full details, including sample pages, go to: MarcellusDrilling.com/Databook.

Industrywide Issues | Processing Plants | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Second Company Interested in Building Cracker Plant IDed

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

There’s no doubt that last week’s announcement by Shell that it intends to build a cracker plant in Pennsylvania sent political shockwaves through West Virginia, a state that heavily courted Shell (see this MDN story). West Virginia’s Democrat governor, Earl Ray Tomblin, is doing damage control by leaking information to favored reporters that Shell was not the only game in town, and in fact was a longshot:

Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Statewide OH | Taxation

Ohio House Tells Kasich “Not so Fast” with New Severance Tax

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

The Ohio House of Representatives is telling Gov. John Kasich, in essence, “not so fast” with your severance-tax-increase-on-drillers-to-give-everyone-a-tax-cut plan.

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues

MIT Report Finds Fracking is Safe

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

Last June, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a 178-page report called “The Future of Natural Gas” (a copy of the full report is embedded below). Somehow this report escaped MDN’s notice at the time. Seeing that it’s conclusions are that hydraulic fracturing is safe, MDN understands why mainstream media outlets don’t endlessly promote it and quote from it as they do from journal articles penned by anti-drilling professors like Robert Howarth and Tony Ingraffea making outrageous claims like natural gas is worse for the environment than coal (see this MDN story).

New NatGas Pipeline to NYC Receives FERC Endorsement

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

A proposed natural gas pipeline extension that would run from Staten Island through Bayonne, NJ, and Jersey City to the West Village in Manhattan has received the endorsement of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commisssion (FERC), the agency that has final say in the $850 million project.

The project has faced opposition from groups in both NY and NJ. A final decision will be made in a vote by the five-member commission.