Dallas Fed Survey: Energy Execs Predict What’s Ahead for O&G

Each quarter the Dallas Federal Reserve conducts a survey of 150-200 oil and gas firms located or headquartered in the Eleventh District–Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Louisiana. The energy company executives surveyed run companies that operate regionally, nationally, and some even internationally. The Dallas Fed released its latest quarterly Energy Survey results yesterday. We

Read More...

Justin Bieber Captures the Plight of Laid-Off Oil & Gas Workers

Bet you never thought you’d read about (or watch) a Justin Bieber video on MDN. We never thought we would write about or feature Bieber’s music. But then we watched a video of his newest song called Holy, a video that’s been watched (so far) over 32 million times since it was released to Youtube

Read More...

Ugly Gas Prices Coming to M-U – Demand Falls More than Production

click for larger version Last week the spot price for natural gas being sold at the Dominion South trading hub in Allegheny County, PA crashed to its lowest point in more than a year, selling for $0.735 per Mcf (thousand cubic feet). According to the experts at RBN Energy, the Marcellus/Utica is heading into a

Read More...

WV Brooke County Power Plant Gets $5.5M Direct Loan from State

On Sept. 10, a day after a meeting of the West Virginia Economic Development Authority meeting, we reported (based on media reports) that the Authority had voted to approve a $5.5 million loan guarantee for a proposed new shale gas-fired power plant planned for Brooke County, WV (see WV Approves Loan Guarantee for Brooke County

Read More...

PA Fines Atlantic Sunrise Pipe $836K for Years-Old Violations

Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, a 200-mile greenfield pipeline from northeastern to southeastern PA where it joins the Transco Pipeline, went online in October 2018 (see FERC Approves Atlantic Sunrise for Startup! Pipe Opens Sat. Oct. 6). Shippers on Atlantic Sunrise include Cabot Oil & Gas, Seneca Resources, and Range Resources. Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of

Read More...

PA DEP Approves Mariner East 2 Pipe Changes in 3 SEPA Locations

Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued modified permits for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project in three southeast PA locations (Delaware and Chester counties). Each location has faced problems with underground horizontal directional drilling (HDD). The modifications allow a different type of installation method to be used–open trench.This post appeared first on

Read More...

Big Green Lawsuit Targets Cracker Plants, Incl. Shell PA Cracker

Shell cracker as of March 2020 Once again big money is being funneled to Big Green groups by secretive sources to finance a lawsuit attacking American infrastructure. The latest attack by Big Green, including a PA-based “environmental” group, seeks to overturn a recently-updated rule by the U.S. EPA governing air emissions from ethane cracker facilities.

Read More...

Snitz Creek Sniping by StateImpactPA Is A Case of Shilling for Snobs

Jim WillisEditor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN) Snitz Creek is falsely reported by StateImpactPA as the site of pollution problems related to Mariner East but it’s all a matter of shilling. We don’t know if StateImpactPA “reporters” are just sloppy in their reporting, or if they intentionally lie. Either way, it doesn’t look good for StateImpactPA. PBS reporter

Read More...

Potential Exxon Interest in Building M-U Cracker Plant Goes Cold

Last year MDN shared with you the rumor that Exxon Mobil was sniffing around Pennsylvania, investigating the prospect of building a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker like the Shell cracker being built near Pittsburgh. Those rumors went on for a while and even included evaluation of the Philadelphia area, not just Pittsburgh. Last week Exxon said

Read More...

FERC Approves MVP Southgate 2nd Time – Rejects Rehearing

MVP Southgate map (click for larger version) In June the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued final approval for Equitrans Midstream’s 75-mile expansion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from southern Virginia into North Carolina, a project called MVP Southgate (see FERC Approves Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate Extension to NC). Well-funded Big Green groups immediately

Read More...

OH Approves Gas-Fired Power Plant for OSU – Antis Pledge to Fight

Yesterday the Ohio Power Siting Board approved the construction, operation, and maintenance of a Utica-fired combined heat and power (CHP) plant on the main campus of Ohio State University in Columbus. Wonders never cease! Of course, irrational fossil fuel haters are not giving up the fight to try and block it.This post appeared first on

Read More...

Enbridge Asks FERC to Start Up Weymouth Compressor in 2 Weeks

Last week Enbridge began testing its Weymouth, Massachusetts compressor station project, the final piece of the company’s $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project (see Weymouth, MA Compressor Stn Begins Testing, Coming Online Soon). As sometimes happens when you begin testing, there was a problem. A gasket failure led to an unplanned release of 265 Mcf

Read More...

Enverus Rig Count Up Slightly – Marcellus Steady, Utica +1

Time for our weekly check of the rig count. We like to check the Enverus count because we believe it’s more accurate than the Baker Hughes count. According to S&P’s analysis, the rig count climbed by 6 for the week ending Sept. 16 to hit an eight-week high of 293 active rigs. The Marcellus remained

Read More...

OH Injection Well Said to Leak Wastewater into Wells 5 Miles Away

Washington County, OH Officials with the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) are investigating a claim that shale wastewater pumped into an injection well in Washington County, OH is migrating and coming out of producing conventional natural gas wells some five miles away. This post appeared first on Marcellus Drilling News.

Read More...

Brooke County Blames Coal Lobby for WV Gas Plant Delay

We should have known that West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice is in league with his fellow coal baron Robert Murray. Officials from Brooke County, WV, where Energy Solutions Consortium is planning to build a $1.25 billion natural gas-fired power plant, are blaming the long fingers of Bob Murray for a last-minute delay of a state

Read More...