The Secret to Lowering Water Management Costs in the M-U
Water is expensive. Marcellus/Utica producers are spending millions of dollars on solutions to better handle water–the water they need for drilling and (perhaps more importantly) the produced water they must treat and/or dispose of. At the end of March, a group of M-U producers, regulators and other experts will gather in Pittsburgh to share their secrets to lowering the cost of water management. Should you be there too?
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Denbury and Penn Virginia announce filing of definitive proxy materials; Epsilon announces voluntary delisting from TSX; DCNR Secretary continues to resist more drilling under (not on) PA state land; Methane migration, water chemistry changes are focus of shale gas webinar; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Cheniere takes over Corpus Christi LNG Train 1 control; NATIONAL: Hickenlooper up the middle; Green New Deal: Impossible (video); Chesapeake Energy Corporation: The thesis is playing out; U.S., China close in on trade deal; Senate bill to speed up LNG applications; INTERNATIONAL: Nuclear reactor restarts in Japan displacing LNG imports in 2019; Germany plans to directly regulate Russia-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Southwestern Energy, one of the largest Marcellus/Utica drillers, issued its 2018 (and 4Q) update last Friday. The company reports growing M-U production 21% in 2018, to 702 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe). That works out to be 1.9 Bcfe per day. Quite an accomplishment when you consider those numbers happened even after Southwestern sold off their Fayetteville Shale assets last year.
On Friday TransCanada, owner of Columbia Gas Transmission, issued a press release to say the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the startup of the remainder of the Mountaineer XPress pipeline project. Just last week we told you that FERC had approved more (but not the rest) of the project to go online (see 
This is super sleazy. You might want to put on a rain slicker to keep the crap from sticking to you as you read it. Last week Chester County, PA commissioners asked to join a lawsuit against Sunoco’s Mariner East pipeline projects. The commissioners also voted to end easements allowing Sunoco access to the pipeline as it runs through county property, access needed so they could do work on it.
Duke Energy has a plan to build a critically-needed natural gas pipeline near Cincinnati, OH to replace an old pipeline built in the 1950s. A group calling themselves NOPE–Neighbors Opposing Pipeline Extension, is trying to defeat the project. We call them DOPEs–Dummies Opposing Pipeline Extension. The DOPErs are back, claiming a brand new pipeline through the area will be less safe and more dangerous than the old, worn-out pipeline.
This is wack. Instead of expanding and connecting pipelines to carry Marcellus/Utica natural gas to New England and from there on to the Canadian Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), some M-U gas now heads there after traveling all the way to Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG export facility on the coast of Louisiana.
USA Today recently published an article picked up from the investor website 24/7 Wall Street that analyzes the average cost per kilowatt hour for electricity state by state–all 50 states. It’s not surprising that Hawaii and Alaska are in the top two highest rates in the nation, separated from the Lower 48.
The latest edition of the MDN Weekly Digest is now ready. The digest is the meat and “essence” of each story for all posts appearing on the MDN website during the past week, collected in a single PDF document capable of being downloaded and printed. The Weekly Digest is available to paying subscribers only as part of your 
Yesterday was an eventful day for the former Blue Ridge Mountain Resources (nee Magnum Hunter Resources) and Eclipse Resources. We’ve been telling you since last August that the two companies are merging, with Blue Ridge Mountain essentially buying out Eclipse. The deal is done as of yesterday and there is A LOT of news to share–including a name change for the newly combined entity.
Gulfport Energy, one of the biggest drillers in the Ohio Utica Shale (210,000 acres) with record production in the Utica last year, is scaling back spending in the gassy Utica Shale this year and putting that money into other another shale play–the oily SCOOP.
You can feel the excitement and anticipation building. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the Constitution Pipeline from northeast Pennsylvania into central New York in 2014, more than four years ago. This year, 2019, may be the year construction finally begins–and the year antis who have fought this pipeline every inch of the way finally LOSE.
There are five major new natural gas pipelines online in the past year, another three partially online, and another 17 under construction or planned, all in the Marcellus/Utica region. Together they represent a staggering $32 billion of investment. Our friends at Energy in Depth recently compiled an awesome list of all these projects, which we share below.