• New Anti-Drilling Movie GASLAND Takes Aim at Hydrofacking

    gaslandlogo Coming soon to an art house theater near you is… GASLAND, winner of the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. From the GASLAND official website:

    When filmmaker Josh Fox discovers that Natural Gas drilling is coming to his area—the Catskillls/Poconos region of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, he sets off on a 24 state journey to uncover the deep consequences of the United States’ natural gas drilling boom. What he uncovers is truly shocking—water that can be lit on fire right out of the sink, chronically ill residents of drilling areas from disparate locations in the US all with the same mysterious symptoms, huge pools of toxic waste that kill cattle and vegetation well blowouts and huge gas explosions consistently covered up by state and federal regulatory agencies. These are just a few of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND.

    Michael Moore, writer/producer of Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story among others, has pioneered this kind of “documentary” that’s long on innuendo and short on facts, perfecting it as an art. It seems Mr. Moore has spawned imitators, including Josh Fox.

    The drumbeat will only grow louder from the anti-drilling movement. Their two-pronged attack is to claim: 1) Hydraulic fracturing as a mining technique is unsafe, and 2) Your water will become contaminated with nasty chemicals and/or methane gas if there’s a drill anywhere near you. Both claims are false.

    Look, no one wants people’s water to become polluted, or livestock to become ill, or water to become contaminated. Painting energy companies as the Great Satan, as films like this try to do, is simply childish and simplistic at best. There are safeguards in place. Drilling IS happening in a lot of places—with no negative consequences. We need to stay vigilant, of course. But drilling can happen safely, and it should. To ban all natural gas drilling and hydrofracking as a technique is unreasonable.

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    PA Marcellus Shale Gas is Getting a Pipeline – To Canada!

    Vancouver Sun (Feb 22)
    Tertzakian: Lessons from a green ice resurfacer’s failure

    Will Marcellus Shale gas find a market over the border in Canada? It sure looks that way. An excerpt from an article published in the Vancouver Sun, says, in part:

    In fact, the real Energy Story of the Week came in the form of a couple of announcements: two corporate proposals hoping to bring natural gas and liquids from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale into Canadian markets. First Nova Chemicals and Buckeye Partners announced a joint memorandum of understanding to develop an NGL pipeline from Pittsburgh to Sarnia. Then, Union Gas announced that they would conduct an open season for a pipeline service that would allow for the shipping of up to 0.75 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Marcellus into Kirkwall, Ontario and through to Dawn.

    While there have been countless pipeline expansions and extensions announced recently to transport Marcellus gas into the US Northeast, this is the first major export proposal to pit Pennsylvania gas head-to-head with western Canadian gas, on Canadian soil.

    New York State shares one-third of its border with Canada! Unfortunately the Powers That Be in Albany are still diddling away while enterprising states like Pennsylvania are making money.

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    Delaware River Basic Commission to Hold Public Hearing on Requests from Stone Energy

    On Wednesday, Feb. 24, the Delaware River Basin Commission will hold a public hearing in Matamoras, PA on two applications from Stone Energy Company. The first application is a request to withdraw 700,000 gallons of water a day from the West Branch of the Lackawaxen River in Mount Pleasant Township, Wayne County, PA. The water would be used by Stone Energy in Marcellus drilling activities.

    The second application is for Stone Energy to use hydraulic fracturing in a gas well already drilled (in 2008). The gas well is located in Clinton Township, Wayne County. If approved, this is the would be the first Marcellus drilling activity in the Delaware River Basin.

    Environmental group Delaware Riverkeeper Network is planning to take 50 of its members to the hearing to speak against the applications. Although Stone Energy only plans to draw water from the Lackawaxen, and the resulting wastewater would be treated at approved facilities, the Riverkeepers believe any drilling activity in the region would be dangerous.

    For more information, see:

    Pike County Courier (Feb 22)
    UPDATE: Basin commission hearing for gas drilling water withdrawal permit

    PhillyBurbs.com (Feb 22)
    Get on the bus, says Delaware Riverkeeper

    Delaware River Basin Commission – Notice of Public Hearing
    Stone Energy Corporation Proposed Surface Water Withdrawal and Natural Gas Well Site

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    Swamp Angel Energy Guilty of Illegally Dumping 200K Gallons of Brine in PA

    Mother Nature Network (Feb 22)
    Gas drillers plead guilty to felony dumping violations

    Two people from Swamp Angel Energy pled guilty last week to dumping 200,000 gallons of brine in an abandoned oil well in McKean County, Pennsylvania.

    According to the article:

    [P]art-owner Michael Evans, 66, of La Quinta, Calif., and John Morgan, 54, of Sheffield, Penn., admitted dumping 200,000 gallons of brine – salty wastewater that’s created in the drilling process – down an abandoned oil well. The maximum penalty for both Evans and Morgan is three years in prison, a fine of $250,000, or both. Sentencing will be June 24.

    Swamp Angel Energy was (and is currently) drilling in the Allegheny National Forest, located in McKean County. Also according to the article:

    Swamp Angel has 77 active, permitted wells in Pennsylvania, all of them in McKean County.

    Fellow drillers and those in the drilling industry have swiftly and rightly condemned the illegal dumping. The article is anti-drilling with a smug “See, I told you so,” kind of tone, which is to be expected coming from MNN. However, the illegal actions of a few should not be used to paint all drilling companies with the same broad brush.

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    Vestal, NY Landowner Coalition Still Shopping for a Deal, Comes Down on Their Price

    Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (Feb 20)
    Vestal Coalition gives broker an extension to get deal on Marcellus Shale drilling sites

    A Vestal, NY landowner coalition with some 550 people has given their designated broker another few months to try and negotiate a lease on behalf of the group. According to the article:

    Members of the group, called the Vestal Coalition, have agreed to settle for a minimum of $5,750 an acre, plus 20 percent royalties, for a five-year lease of mineral rights, and a three-year extension.

    The opening offer was $7,500 an acre and 25 percent royalties. There were a few counter offers, but no deals for those terms.

    Drilling companies, for now, are in a holding pattern for New York deals until the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issues drilling guidelines. Once that happens, and once permits start to be issued, the Vestal Coalition expects to get a deal done.

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    New Marcellus Wastewater Treatment Plant Coming to Elk County, PA

    DuBois Courier-Express/Tri-County (Feb 20)
    Marcellus shale drilling water may be treated at local acid mine treatment site

    Drillers in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania will soon have a new plant to treat wastewater, called flowback, from drilling activities. The new plant will be located in Brandy Camp (Elk County), PA. From the article:

    The project will be located at the existing Blue Valley acid mine drainage treatment and fish culture station in Brandy Camp, which is operated by the Toby Creek Watershed Association, according to a Friday news release.

    The project, to be known as the Blue Valley Hydrofrac Plant, will be owned and operated by Flowback Wastewater Development Group, which has Frank Nickens as director of operations.

    As for capacity of the plant:

    The first phase will provide for treatment of up to 300,000 gallons per day of hydrofracture flowback and production brine wastewaters. The output will be 1.2 million gallons per day of recycled hydrofracture makeup water or 720,000 gallons per day of treated acid mine drainage water.

    The second phase will add an additional 1.15 million gallons per day of treated acid mine drainage.

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    Chesapeake Withdraws Application to Store Millions of Gallons of Wastewater near Keuka Lake

    Syracuse Post-Standard (Feb 21)
    Plan to truck hydrofracking wastewater to Finger Lakes shelved, for now

    Readers of Marcellus Drilling News know that we advocate for landowners, and that we support safe drilling. But, drilling companies sometimes do themselves no favors and deservedly receive suspicion and condemnation. Case in point: Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest drillers in the U.S., is looking for a place to store millions of gallons of wastewater from their drilling operations in Pennsylvania. They thought they may have found a spot in the Steuben County (New York) town of Pulteney, in an old gas well no longer in use. They wanted to store up to 663 million gallons of wastewater—called “flowback” in the drilling business—in the old gas well, and they filed an application to do so.

    Flowback, which is water combined with sand and unspecified chemicals, is what’s leftover after it’s been pumped into the ground and brought back out again. The problem is, the chemicals used by drilling companies are a closely guarded trade secret—something that gives them an edge over competitors when drilling. So no one knows what, exactly, is in the flowback, nor in what proportions. This makes people uneasy when you want to store millions of gallons of it close to homes with water wells, and close to their vineyards. The old gas well sits next door to an active vineyard.

    It’s also bone-headed of Chesapeake to want to store it in this particular abandoned gas well, as the location is just one mile away from Keuka Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in Central New York. The proposed underground storage by Chesapeake “would not be lined or contained.” If, by some unfortunate event, the stored flowback were to leak into Keuka Lake, the resulting contamination could be catastrophic. It appears to be a risk just not worth taking. Much better for Chesapeake to look for a facility that will treat the flowback and return it to them to be reused for more drilling.

    Chesapeake has withdrawn its application for now. Although not a popular subject with drillers, if drilling companies were to disclose the chemicals used in the drilling process, it would go a long way to silencing the critics that there is no safe way to drill.

    The article from the Syracuse Post-Standard is fair and balanced (more or less) with a video interview of a local landowner who lives across from the abandoned gas well. It’s worth your time to read the article and watch the video interview.

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    Cabot Oil & Gas Reports Increase in Production, New Wells Coming Online in 2010 in PA

    PR Newswire (Feb 21)
    Cabot Oil & Gas Provides Operations Update Current Marcellus Production Over 100 Mmcf per Day!

    From a press release just issued by Cabot Oil & Gas, we get the following update on their Marcellus drilling activities (below is exact wording from the release):

    During the third quarter call, Cabot announced its intent to complete one well per week through the end of the year in its Marcellus operation.  This effort was successful although weather at year-end and a stream-crossing delay slowed several wells from being turned in line.  During this period ten wells were completed with five wells flowing to sales and five wells waiting on pipeline.  "These five wells, that were turned in line, had an average 30 day production rate of 6 Mmcf per day," stated Dinges [Dan O. Dinges, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer].  "Included in this population was the Company’s first horizontal Purcell Limestone test that had a 30 day production rate of 7.3 Mmcf per day.  The Purcell is located between the Upper and Lower Marcellus under our acreage position in Susquehanna County, PA."  Dinges added, "This success potentially opens up additional locations and prospectivity."

    In total for 2009, the Company drilled 30 horizontal wells with 14 being completed and turned in line.  The average initial production (IP) rate for these wells was 7.5 Mmcf per day with an average 30 day production rate of 6.9 Mmcf per day.  "Because of the production history and the consistency of results, we are now estimating ultimate reserves of 5.5 Bcf per well, up from our original disclosure of 4.5 Bcf per well," commented Dinges.

    The enhanced pace of completions has carried through to 2010 with three more horizontal wells turned in line and gross production over 100 Mmcf per day as of February 19, 2010.  Since January 1, the range of 24-hour IP rates for the 2010 completions has been from 2.6 Mmcf to 16.1 Mmcf per day.  "We currently have 17 horizontal wells waiting on completion with five rigs running and two completions underway in Susquehanna County.  We also have a significant pipeline laying operation ongoing," said Dinges.  "One year ago in the Marcellus we were producing 16 Mmcf per day and now our rate is just above 100 Mmcf per day."

    In terms of infrastructure, Cabot recently executed binding Agreements to anchor a new 20" high pressure gathering line.  Williams Partners L.P. (NYSE: WPZ) will construct and operate the 28-mile gathering line, which will run from Cabot’s Susquehanna County operating area south to Williams Partners’ Transco interstate gas pipeline.  The new line is expected to be in service by mid-summer 2011.  Cabot will be the majority capacity holder and this firm service will add additional flexibility to its current takeaway position. "This firm takeaway commitment goes a long way to providing the next wedge of needed capacity for the Company," stated Dinges.

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    DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman Visits Binghamton – Marcellus Drilling News was There

    This will necessarily be a long article. As a regular reader of Marcellus Drilling News, you have come to expect brief articles highlighting information useful for landowners and other interested parties in the Marcellus Drilling debate. Last night, your faithful scribe attended a local meeting in Binghamton, NY at Binghamton’s East Middle School, to hear DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman and his views on natural gas drilling. I went with an open mind to evaluate whether Mr. Tillman and the other speaker of the evening—lawyer Helen Slottje from Ithaca—would present information that would challenge my views that drilling can be done safely when it’s done right.

    I would say it’s a fair statement that if you went to the meeting as a supporter of drilling, or as an opponent, your view was not changed by the presentations. I attended on behalf of the average landowner, even though I do not have land for lease in the Marcellus myself. I tried to be your eyes and ears at the meeting. Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with, nor compensated by, anyone in the drilling debate on either side of the debate. I’m just an interested blogger and advocate for landowners and the rights of private property owners.

    This is an account of what happened last night…

    Read More “DISH, Texas Mayor Calvin Tillman Visits Binghamton – Marcellus Drilling News was There”

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    Patriot Water Treatment Plant in Owego Gets a Yellow Light

    Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (Feb 17)
    Owego wastewater plan hits snag

    Patriot Water Treatment wants to build a wastewater treatment plant in Owego, NY. The plant would take in fracking water from drilling operations in the region, treat it, and return the water back to drillers to be used again. According to Andrew Blocksom, of Patriot, the resulting treated water is “cleaner than my tap water.” This new plant will bring 20 fulltime jobs and tax revenues to the community, and is needed for area drillers. But, it also will bring traffic, which is a concern:

    Approximately four trucks per hour for 24 hours a day would enter the facility with fracking water. The facility would treat the water, distilling it in a vacuum, and provide distilled water back to trucks to return it to natural gas drilling sites.

    Neighbors of the facility and those that live along proposed truck routes voiced concerns about spills and the toxicity of the incoming fracking water.

    And this:

    “I don’t think 24 hours, seven days a week is reasonable,” Village of Owego Mayor Ed Arrington said. “If there was another way, I wouldn’t oppose it.”

    The Tioga County Planning Board was due to make a recommendation on whether or not the Village of Owego Planning Board should accept the plan. Unfortunately, five of the Tioga County Planning Board members were AWOL from the meeting, so the final vote was 5 to 2 to recommend, but not the required 6 affirmative vote minimum that would be needed for an official recommendation. Marcellus Drilling News wants to know why five members were missing from such an important meeting? For or against the facility is not the issue—Planning Board members are supposed to be present and represent the people. This is dereliction of duty in our humble opinion.

    No word on who was absent, and no word on what the next step is for Patriot now that it appears the process is stalled.

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    East Resources Predicts 6,000-7,000 New Wells for Tioga County, PA in Next Few Years

    Williamsport Sun-Gazette (Feb 18)
    New ventures in natural gas may take Tioga County from ‘rags to riches’

    An influx of people and jobs will lead to a boon in economic growth for Tioga County, Pennsylvania, according to an article in the Williamsport Sun-Gazette. Local resident Ed Trask is setting up a Community Education Team to “help manage the economic and social impacts of Marcellus Shale gas play in Tioga County.”

    Trask was quoted as saying:

    “I think the fastest growing areas of the county are going to be Mansfield, Wellsboro and Lawrenceville,” he said, adding that he thinks the valley between Mansfield and Covington will “fill in” in the next few years, mainly because of the discovery of gas within the Marcellus Shale.

    In the same article, Jack Showers, community relations liaison with drilling company East Resources Inc., said:

    [T]here already are 255,000 acres leased for natural gas wells, with up to between 6,000 and 7,000 wells drilled by East in the next several years.

    Trask added that before the drilling activity Tioga County was “slowly dying.” But now? Trask says: “I think we are going to become ‘enriched rural.’”

    One thing’s for sure: Drilling in Tioga County, PA is about to pick up rapidly.

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    PA Game Commission Executive Director Reports on Problems with Marcellus Drilling on Public Lands

    PR Newswire (Feb 16)
    Game Commission Delivers Annual Report to Legislature

    Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director Carl G. Roe presented the agency’s annual report to the General Assembly, and delivered testimony before the House Game and Fisheries Committee on February 16. Below is an excerpt of his testimony as it touched on the subject of drilling on Game Commission (publicly owned) lands:

    I am sure there will be questions on Marcellus Shale, so I will quickly address the subject. During Fiscal Year 2008, the Game Commission approved three oil/gas leases within the Marcellus Shale development areas of the Commonwealth.  These leases totaled 2,693.43 acres and were worth an average upfront payment of $907.38 dollars per acre to the Commission constituting an additional 10 acres of State Game Lands acquisition as well as revenues to the game fund. The average royalty per acre for these leases was 23.08 percent. During Fiscal Year 2008, there were no Marcellus wells drilled on any of these leases but there were four wells planned for drilling in the Fiscal Year 2009. On all other currently active leases on State Game Lands, there were two Marcellus wells commenced and placed into production in Fiscal Year 2008. The Game Commission received a total of $113,336.26 royalty revenues during Fiscal Year 2008 from Marcellus gas production, with the average approximate well production being only 250 mcf/day, rather than the 2,000-3,000 mcf/day production some have assumed would occur. Unfortunately, there have also been two separate environmental degradation incidents which occurred during these wells development causing the need for increased Game Commission coordination, and oversight management scrutiny.

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    Tennessee Gas Pipeline to Invest $400 Million in New Pipeline from PA to NJ

    El Paso Press Release (Feb 16)
    El Paso Corporation Announces Northeast Upgrade Project

    Part of the development required to tap the huge natural gas reserves in the Marcellus includes the infrastructure to get the gas from well to market. El Paso Corporation’s subsidiary Tennessee Gas Pipeline is helping provide the pipeline piece of the puzzle.

    Below is the full text of a press release from El Paso, dated Feb. 16:

    HOUSTON, TX, — El Paso Corporation (NYSE: EP) today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company (TGP), has executed binding, 20-year term agreements with Chesapeake Energy Marketing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK), and StatOil Natural Gas LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Statoil (NYSE: STO), for 100 percent of the capacity for its Northeast Upgrade Project. The project will provide 636,000 dekatherms per day of incremental firm transportation capacity from TGP’s 300 Line in Pennsylvania to an interconnect in New Jersey to serve growing markets in the Northeast.

    The Northeast Upgrade Project is a natural extension of TGP’s presence in the heart of the developing Marcellus Shale play. The project would cost approximately $400 million with a majority of the capital spending taking place during 2013.

    "We are very pleased to add another major pipeline project that provides significant new firm transportation capacity for two prominent Marcellus Shale producers," said Doug Foshee, El Paso’s chairman, president, and chief executive officer. "With the previously announced 300 Line Project, we will be adding approximately 1 billion cubic feet per day of new firm capacity that will provide safe and reliable transportation of clean-burning, domestic natural gas supplies to key Northeast markets."

    "We are pleased to enter into this agreement with El Paso," said Aubrey McClendon, Chesapeake’s chief executive officer. "It continues our practice of contracting for strategic pipeline capacity, which in this case provides access to premium northeast markets for our growing Marcellus production in Northeast Pennsylvania. We have a long history of transactions with the El Paso family of companies, and this transaction continues that tradition, creating substantial value to both firms."

    A spring 2011 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission filing date is anticipated with a scheduled November 1, 2013 in-service date. An open season is expected to begin this month with final capacity awarded in March 2010.

    El Paso Corporation provides natural gas and related energy products in a safe, efficient, and dependable manner. The company owns North America’s largest interstate natural gas pipeline system and one of North America’s largest independent natural gas producers. For more information, visit www.elpaso.com.

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    Chesapeake Energy Continues to Expand Production in the Marcellus Shale

    Houston Star-Telegram (Feb 16)
    Chesapeake reports 19 percent production increase

    Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest gas drilling companies in the U.S., recently reported a 19% increase in its natural gas production across all of its shale plays. With respect to the Marcellus, we learn from a Houston Star-Telegram article that:

    • Chesapeake has a huge leasehold of 1.6 million net acres in the Marcellus
    • Current net Marcellus production equals 65 million cubic feet of gas per day
    • Chesapeake expects its Marcellus output will rise to 270 million cubic feet of gas per day by year-end 2010 (over 4x current levels)
    • Chesapeake expects its Marcellus output will rise to 450 million cubic feet of gas per day by year-end 2011 (nearly 7x current levels)
    • Three recent wells drilled in Susquehanna County (PA) had peak 24-hour rates of 8.7 million, 8.6 million and 8.4 million cubic feet of gas
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    Mitsui Investment in Anadarko Projected to Grow from $1.4 to $4 Billion in Next 10 Years

    Philly.com – Philadelphia Inquirer (Feb 17)
    Japanese firm to invest $1.4 billion in Marcellus operation

    The Philadelphia Inquirer has posted a story about the huge investment from Mitsui in Anadarko. As Marcellus Drilling News reported yesterday, Mitsui has purchased a 32.5% stake in Anadarko for $1.4 billion. What was not in the original news release is this tidbit:

    The Tokyo company expects to invest up to $4 billion over 10 years in the partnership, which would produce up to 460 million cubic feet of natural gas a day at its peak.

    We also learn from the article that 768 Marcellus wells were drilled in Pennsylvania in 2009. Anadarko alone, with Mitsui’s new investment, projects drilling 4,500 wells in PA “in the coming years.”

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    Susquehanna River Basin Commission Monitors Waterways for Contamination

    WETM-18 TV (Feb 15)
    Gas Drilling Prompts More Water Quality Monitoring

    Due to concerns over drilling in the Marcellus and discharge of wastewater from drilling operations into area waterways that ultimately find their way to Susquehanna River, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission has placed monitoring devices in the Twin Tiers area of New York (Binghamton and Elmira). So far 10 monitoring devices have been installed, with another 20 to be installed by June.

    Marcellus Drilling News applauds the efforts of the SRBC to ensure local waterways remain contamination-free from drilling activities. Everyone wins when there is vigilance and monitoring.