Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Jun 26, 2019
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Oregon de-carbonization bill creating legislative standoff; NATIONAL: Early shale optimist sees another decade of U.S. supply growth; Wind power sources remain more fantasy than reality; Oilfield services’ pricing power is rising; INTERNATIONAL: These three forces are shaping the future of global energy; US secretary of state Mike Pompeo is visiting India—with tonnes of oil and gas for sale; GALACTIC: Mars global warming appears, then disappears “in a poof”.
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In 2016 WGL Midstream became an investor/joint venture partner in the Stonewall Gathering System, a system which gathers Antero Resources’ natural gas from several West Virginia counties (see 
We caught some news of interest coming from last week’s Hart Energy DUG East Conference about Equinor, formerly known as Statoil. According to reporters at the event, Nicole Baird, an asset manager with Equinor, said the company has increased its Utica production five-fold from 2016 to 2018 and now produces in the range of 300 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Utica shale gas.
From time to time we’ve mentioned shale drilling rigs manufactured by Schramm. The company is headquartered near Philadelphia, in West Chester, PA. Because of the “prolonged downturn” in the oil and gas industry (i.e. less drilling), Schramm has just filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company has defaulted on $70 million of secured loan obligations. Schramm is shopping for another company to buy it.
RBN Energy is running an excellent series chronicling how natural gas in the Marcellus/Utica makes its way out of our region to other regions. We previously brought you portions of a post covering pipelines that carry our gas to the Midwest and Canada (see 
A group of antis at the University of Toledo thought they’d slip in a new “study” that attempts to tie the proximity of Utica Shale wells to radon. It’s a total sham. From the authors of the study: “The data in the study are from self-reported devices and not distributed equally throughout Ohio.” So first, they base their “study” on self-reported numbers without a even a random scientific sampling. Second, the “study” reports that Athens County, OH has the most Utica fracked wells–108 of them to be precise. One little problem: There are ZERO shale wells in Athens County. Translation: This is junk science. Or more properly, political science.
Last September MDN told you that a new natgas-fired electric plant planned for the People’s Republic of Rhode Island in Burrillville was on life support, with antis reaching to pull the plug (see 
The nasty proxy war between EQT CEO Rob McNally and Toby Rice over who will control the company following a July 10 annual meeting just got a whole lot nastier. Last Friday, McNally revealed that a review of internal documents they received as part of their purchase of Rice Energy in 2017 show that in the span of two weeks in 2015 some 25 complaints by Rice employees were made against Toby with the Rice HR department, although the nature of the charges are not detailed, leaving it open to shareholders to speculate.
Last Thursday and Friday, MDN attended the Northeast Petrochemical Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh. There were a number of interesting stories coming from the event that we will chronicle this week. However, there was one bit of breaking news from the event: Bechtel Oil, Gas & Chemicals Senior Project Manager of Pennsylvania Chemicals, Paul Marsden, made official what we previously shared as a rumor–that Bechtel has been selected as the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor to build the PTT cracker plant complex, when and if a positive final investment decision is made. According to a number of sources, that decision will get made this year.
The legal beagles at Vorys represented Antero Resources in a recently-decided case with far-reaching implications for Ohio drillers and landowners. The Vorys team won the case. As with most lawsuits, this one is complicated and gets in the weeds. The short short version is that under an original lease signed years ago, a landowner and drilling company (at that time) removed a section of the lease that allows the landowner’s property to be pooled (called “unitized” in Ohio) with other properties.
Last week, in addition to the petchem event held in Pittsburgh, Hart Energy held their DUG East (Developing Unconventional Gas) event in Pittsburgh. Although MDN did not attend DUG, MDN friend Rick Stouffer from Kallanish Energy did. Rick caught some interesting news about two of the biggest drillers in the Ohio Utica–Ascent Resources and Encino Energy. One of the eye-opening stats Rick reports is that Encino is sending a full 70% of their Utica production to the Gulf Coast. In addition, most of Ascent’s production goes out of the region too–one-third to the Gulf Coast, one-third to the Midwest, and one-third to the East Coast.
In January 2018, some 18 years ago, MDN told you that EXCO Resources had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 