Ascent’s $1.5B OH Utica Deal Yields $1.4M in Fees for 2 Counties
In late June Ascent Resources, a company founded by Aubrey McClendon after he left Chesapeake Energy, announced it is buying 113,400 Utica Shale acres along with 93 operating wells located in eastern Ohio for $1.5 billion (see Ascent Resources Spends $1.5 Billion to Buy OH Utica Acreage, Wells). It’s a big deal, making Ascent one of the largest privately owned exploration and production companies in the U.S. It’s also a big deal for the counties where the land is changing hands. A large part of the acreage is located in Jefferson County, with sizable chunks in Belmont, Noble and Harrison counties. Why is it a big deal for the counties? It takes time (and consequently fees) to transfer all those thousands of leases from one owner to another. Counties stand to make a big windfall. For example, in Jefferson County, some $305 million worth of transfers will take place between CNX and Ascent, netting the Jefferson clerk’s office $1.2 million in fee revenue! It is the single largest ownership transfer in Jefferson County history. In neighboring Belmont County (to the south of Jefferson), $58 million worth of transfers are taking place, netting the county $173,000 in transfer fees. No word yet on how much money Noble and Harrison stand to make…
Read More “Ascent’s $1.5B OH Utica Deal Yields $1.4M in Fees for 2 Counties”
Yesterday MDN posted a story about our growing grumpiness that Federal Energy Regulatory (FERC) Commissioner Rob Powelson is about to leave FERC to further his own career, jeopardizing a number of important pipeline projects (see 
Although this story concerns California, it is a preview of what’s coming to New England. Because of ongoing record-high heat in Cali, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) is telling residents to either “voluntarily” stop using electricity, or DWP is going to cut electricity to different communities on a rolling blackout basis. The cancer of anti-fossil fuel hatred has more fully metastasized in Cali than elsewhere in the country, and therefore Cali is an instructive case study. California, if it were it’s own country (now there’s a thought!), would be the fifth-largest economy in the world–larger than the United Kingdom, India and Brazil. Cali is the third largest consumer of gasoline and diesel on the planet, behind only China and the United States. And yet Cali persists in blocking new gas-fired electric plants, blocking pipelines, and shutting down existing oil and gas drilling. They are, in a word, insane. And now their insanity is on display for the world to see. Because of the heat wave and lack of natural gas supplies, natgas prices in Cali have zoomed to nearly $40/Mcf (thousand cubic feet). Residents now face either “voluntary” reduction in electric use–or forced blackouts. We take no pleasure (well, maybe a little pleasure) in saying Cali is reaping what it has sown…
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Shell opening another parking lot for 1,000 cracker workers; CSX fined $2.2M for 2015 WV crude by rail spill; Bloom Energy IPO vs Tesla’s IPO – natgas the key; new pipelines lead to 5 Bcf/d of natgas exports to Mexico for first time; update on MLPs; the Love Boat orders two LNG cruise ships; India amends definition of hydrocarbon to include shale; European Union says it will import more US shale; and more!
Last week MDN brought you the exciting news that Williams says their $3 billion Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline that runs through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County will go online in August (see 
Anti fossil fuel radicals continue to try and stir up opposition to the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project near Philadelphia. Local supervisors in Middletown (Delaware County, PA) walk a tightrope between a desire to protect area residents and anti groups fomenting irrational fears. The Board of Supervisors hired a consultant to advise them on potential safety issues with ME1 & 2. Monday night the supervisors held a public meeting to allow residents to hear from and ask questions of the consultant. The consultant, to his credit, maintained his objectivity. He’s not for or against pipelines–he’s looking at safety issues and discussing realistic scenarios. His responses to some of the questions were not what antis in the crowd wanted to hear. They wanted him to feed their fear-mongering (and false) beliefs. The consultant refused to do so. We found one bit of news from the session highly instructive. There is an anti group calling itself Middletown Coalition for Public Safety. The group presents itself as a “nonpartisan grassroots group of parents and residents whose goal is to educate elected officials and the public regarding the risks associated with the proposed Mariner East 2 pipeline.” It is the exact opposite. Rabidly partisan (Democrat). And not composed of residents. The people who belong to the group, at least its leaders, aren’t from Middletown! At the Monday meeting one of their members, Eric Friedman, was not allowed to question the consultant because he doesn’t live in Middletown. What does that tell you about how these “grassroots” groups are operated and funded?…
Talk about obtuse–about cutting off your nose to spite your face. The dunderheads at the Nelson County Service Authority have just voted to turn down $3.5 million of revenue from Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) over the next two years. ACP wanted to buy water from the authority to use in underground horizontal directional drilling for the pipeline as it passes through the region. ACP would have paid half a million dollars for a hookup fee and a rate of 10 cents a gallon for the water. The five dunderheads on the board–three of them brand new in the past month–offered up all sorts of excuses to cover the fact they simply don’t want the pipeline. They don’t want to be seen “supporting” it. Makes for uncomfortable conversations at the local Five & Dime. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. ACP has said they already have an alternative source for the water and will simply truck it in. Congratulations to the Service Authority Board–you just made your community less safe and poorer. Less safe because now water truck after water truck will clog up the highways (running the risk of accidents), and poorer because you turned down $3.5 million you could have used to give a break in water fees to county residents…
MDN has tracked the progress of an LNG export plant planned for the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, called Bear Head LNG, for the past several years (see our 
Our sadness that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Rob Powelson is leaving is quickly turning to anger–against Powelson. In June we told you that Powelson will be leaving FERC in mid-August (see 
If this doesn’t beat all. In an explosive expose from NBC News (yes, NBC News), some of the biggest names in the Big Green movement, including some in the Marcellus/Utica region, are secretly investing in oil and gas companies while at the same time demanding that banks, investment firms, pension funds, state governments and others divest from the same companies they invest in! In one case, the tax-exempt William Penn Foundation, which backs rabid anti-fossil fuel/divestment groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper and the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council, actually invests in (yes) oil and gas companies. The profits from William Penn’s fossil fuel investments are then used to fund groups attacking fossil fuel companies. Mind boggling. It’s yet another case of “do what I say, not what I do” when it comes to the left in this country. We’re just amazed that NBC (a big fake news organization) actually reported it…
Anti-fossil fuel nutters are on a holy mission to stop a 3.5-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being built under the Potomac River by Columbia Gas, from Maryland to West Virginia (see 
One of the oft-repeated canards by antis is that having a drill pad near you, or a pipeline crossing your property, will devalue (lower the value) of your property’s assessment and worth. If you want to sell the property you won’t get as much for it–if you can sell it at all. Who wants to live near a big, ugly drill site, or have an “explosive” pipeline running near the house? Except you can’t even see a drill pad from more than a few hundred feet away after the wells are drilled, and when the pipeline is in the ground and replanted over the top of it–you don’t see or even think about it. Let’s take the later case, of pipelines. Is there evidence that when a pipeline passes through your property, the value goes down? According to property assessors in West Virginia, the answer is “no.” At least not in the short term. Longer term, they say, will have to be watched. IF there are more incidents like the landslide that caused the Leach XPress pipeline to explode, maybe there will be an impact on assessments. But then, if you live in an area where there are frequent landslides, you have bigger valuation problems than a pipeline running through it…
It takes a long time to build a natural gas-fired electric power plant–especially a big one. We began writing about one of the largest coal-to-gas conversion projects in the country, happening in the heart of PA Marcellus country, back in February 2014 (see