MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Kamala Harris would destroy Pennsylvania energy jobs; NATIONAL: Dems admit they don’t want Kamala Harris taking tough questions.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Aug 27, 2024”
Local media reports a fire at a Jay-Bee Oil & Gas well pad near Big Run in Tyler County, WV, which began last night around 5 p.m. and is still ongoing this morning. There were no injuries. Two different news agencies report that every fire department in the county, plus some from other countries, is involved in the response. While the media has very few details, an MDN source has provided extra details not found anywhere else.
Read More “Jay-Bee Active Well Pad Fire in Tyler County, WV – No Injuries”
We spotted a press release about a “wealthy Haitian-American businessman” buying “a vast 10,000-acre oil reserve in Bowling Green Kentucky.” What caught our eye was the location and the extra detail that the assets purchased included “150 oil and natural gas wells.” A few bells began to go off for us. Kentucky is not known as a hotbed of shale drilling activity. The Marcellus/Utica does not extend under the Bluegrass State. However, as we wrote back in 2017, Kentucky has the Berea Sandstone, which contains oil deposits (see Fracking Comes to Kentucky – Encore Drills First Horizontal Oil Wells).
Read More “Paret Mining Buys 10K Acres of Leases, 150 O&G Wells in Kentucky”
The Fairmont Brine Processing plant, located at 168 AFR Drive in Fairmont (Marion County), West Virginia, was constructed between 2009 and 2010 by AOP Clearwater LLC. The plant was acquired by Fairmont Brine Processing (FBP) in 2012. FBP began pre-treatment operations at the site in 2013 and fully operated the plant beginning fall of 2014. In May 2017, MDN reported that FBP was not paying some of its vendors (see Exclusive: What’s Going on with Fairmont Brine?). At the time, the facility’s lawyers told MDN that tardy payments were being addressed and everything was going full speed ahead. Less than a year later, FBP ceased operations at the site (on or about March 1, 2018). Read More “EPA Spending $3.1M to Clean Shuttered Fairmont, WV Wastewater Plant”
A Ph.D. writing an article for the Forbes website touts efforts by the radicalized Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in sniffing out methane by using both planes and (now) satellites. The Ph.D. opens his article with a factually incorrect statement: “MethaneSAT is a satellite designed to measure emissions of methane, the second most common greenhouse gas (GHG).” Water vapor is Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas. It’s responsible for about half of Earth’s greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide comes in at number two. Methane is a distant third in the list. Given the incorrect opening statement by our Ph.D., it makes you wonder what other mistakes there are in the article.
Read More “EDF’s Methane Planes & Satellites Measuring the Wrong Sources”
A lawsuit being heard this summer is designed to hold Big Green groups responsible for their actions. Energy Transfer (ET), the owner and operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP), is suing Greenpeace and other alleged instigators for $300 million for the damages sustained by the company as a result of violent protests incited by the groups in North Dakota in 2016. Big Green is scared.
Read More “ET $300M Lawsuit v. Big Green Pipe Violence Gets Court Hearing”
We continue to be range-bound with respect to the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count. The count has gone up and down every few weeks. But since the third week of June, the range has been as low as 581 and as high as 589. And that’s it. We seem to have found the bottom (we hope we have). Last week, the national rig count lost another rig and now stands at 585. The Marcellus/Utica remained even at 35 active rigs after losing one rig two weeks ago. Pennsylvania operates 21 active rigs; Ohio operates nine active rigs; and West Virginia operates five active rigs.
Read More “National Rig Count Down Again: U.S. Drops 1 @ 585, M-U Even @ 35”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Utica Shale Academy opens new learning spaces; NATIONAL: Harris is strategically silent on climate; We’ll need equivalent of 300 new Hoover dams to keep up with power demand; INTERNATIONAL: US sanctions seven ‘dark fleet’ ships linked to Russia LNG; Tanker carrying sanctioned Russian LNG attempting ship transfer.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Mon, Aug 26, 2024”
This week’s permit report is a bit different. Technically, for the week of August 12 – 18, a total of seven new permits were issued across the Marcellus/Utica. However, last week’s permit report omitted West Virginia numbers because the state’s online data service was out of order (see 26 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 5 – 11). It’s back online this week, so we’ve included August 5 – 11 with August 12 – 18 for West Virginia, bumping the number much higher. So, for this report, we’re reporting a total of 16 new permits across all three states, but nine of those permits are from WV from two weeks ago. The big surprise for August 12 – 18 is that Pennsylvania issued no new permits. That’s the first time we remember that happening, not a single permit in PA.
Read More “16 New Shale Well Permits Issued for PA-OH-WV Aug 12 – 18”
Eureka Resources, which operates three frack wastewater treatment facilities in the Marcellus Shale, has idled one of its three plants, the Standing Stone plant in Bradford County, PA. According to an inspection report by the Department of Environmental Protection conducted on August 19, Bob Cooney, Vice President of Operations at Eureka Resources, told the DEP inspector that the facility’s “primary customer” had stopped sending wastewater to the plant. As a result, all plant employees were laid off as of approximately July 30. This morning, MDN spoke to Eureka CEO Dan Ertel about what’s going on at the plant and plans for the future. Read More “Eureka Temporarily Idles Bradford County Shale Wastewater Plant”
We spotted a press release about pipeline repair company operating in the Marcellus/Utica, located in Ohio, Precision Pipeline Services, buying out a pipeline repair company based in Pennsylvania, Allegheny Contracting. We checked, and we’ve never written about either company. We always get a thrill when uncovering new companies involved in the M-U we didn’t know about. Both companies are privately-held, and the financial particulars of the deal were not disclosed.
Read More “OH’s Precision Pipeline Buys PA Pipe Fixer Allegheny Contracting”
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia (aka Traitor Joe) spoke to the Pittsburgh Business Times Wednesday afternoon about a bill he and Republican Sen. John Barrasso (from Wyoming) recently introduced, the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (see Barrasso, Manchin Release Bipartisan Energy Permitting Reform Bill). Manchin told PBT reporter Paul Gough he thinks it’s likely to get a vote on the measure by both the Senate and House by the end of this year. We want to drink some of the same funny juice Manchin is drinking.
Read More “Manchin Permitting Bill Takes One Small Step, Remains Stalled”
When we say “major pipeline company with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica,” which companies do you immediately think of? Williams? Kinder Morgan? Energy Transfer? TC Energy? All good answers. But there’s another name that should be on the list: Enbridge. Through acquisitions and its own projects, the Canada-based Enbridge has become a huge and important player across the entire U.S., but in particular in the M-U region. When the CEO of Enbridge opines on the state of energy and natural gas (as he recently did), we need to listen.
Read More “Enbridge CEO Says AI Power Use “Colossal,” U.S. LNG Doubles by 2030″
In 2019, the Rhode Island Energy Facility Siting Board waived a licensing requirement for a “temporary” LNG storage facility in Portsmouth to prevent another gas outage episode from happening again (see With “Backs Against Wall” Rhode Island Approves LNG Facility). Board members complained they had no choice, that “we have our backs against the wall” and “people’s lives could be in danger” if they didn’t approve the LNG facility. The “temporary” facility has remained operating since that time. Earlier this year, Rhode Island Energy submitted a proposal to make the facility permanent instead of an ongoing temporary installation. State regulators ruled this week. They refused to make the LNG facility permanent. Instead, they opted to grant the facility a five-year license.
Read More “Rhode Island Gives LNG Plant Another 5 Years, Won’t Make Permanent”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Range announces retirement of Steve Gray from the board; Antero Midstream executive sells over $343k in company stock; Rising PJM capacity prices lift returns for all assets; NATIONAL: Harris skips over climate change even as party touts green wins; Unexpectedly large storage build drives gas futures downward; INTERNATIONAL: Crew evacuated from Houthi-stricken oil tanker in Red Sea. Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Fri, Aug 23, 2024”
Earlier this month, MDN told you that the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) has officially received its first $30 million from the Bidenistas (see EQT & Others Enter “Phase 1” of Hydrogen Hub; DOE Cuts $30M Check). ARCH2 is getting $925 million from a $7 billion pot created by the Bidenistas. ARCH2, one of seven projects to win approval, was selected specifically because it will use Marcellus/Utica shale gas as the feedstock to create hydrogen. From the beginning, the ARCH2 initiative was led by West Virginia, so it was fitting that yesterday, at the official kickoff, a ribbon was cut on the official project office for the project, located at the West Virginia University (WVU) Innovation Corp. center in Morgantown, West Virginia.
Read More “ARCH2 Hydrogen Hub Gets an Official Headquarters in Morgantown, WV”