Shale Directories Conferences
7th Annual Utica Summit
October 10, 2019
Walsh University
North Canton, OH
Shale Insight Conference
October 22-24, 2019
David Lawrence Convention Center
Pittsburgh, PA
7th Annual Midstream PA 2019
November 12, 2019
Penn Stater Conference Center
State College, PA
Latest facts and a rumor from the Marcellus, Utica, Permian, Eagle Ford, and Bakken Shale Plays
Trump Promises More Big Projects at Shell Cracker. President Trump told workers Tuesday at Shell’s $6 billion ethane cracker complex near Monaca, Pennsylvania, more big U.S. energy projects are coming, Kallanish Energy reports.
“This is just the beginning,” Trump told workers at Shell’s cracker plant, located roughly 35 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. “My administration is clearing the way for other massive, multibillion-dollar investments.”
“Investments that could bring more than 100,000 new jobs to this region are now being looked at very seriously,” Trump said. … “I think you’re going to have many more. This is an incredible region. You’re sitting on top of something special. It’s all fueled by the greatest treasure on the planet: American energy.”
The Trump administration is pursuing a policy of “energy dominance” that seeks to maximize oil, gas and coal production.
At the Shell plant, Trump talked about touring the Cameron LNG facility in Louisiana, a $10 billion project.
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who accompanied Trump to Western Pennsylvania, has been quite vocal in his embrace of the multi-billion-dollar Appalachian Storage and Trading Hub project to hold liquids from natural gas production.
The Hub is seen as crucial to growing the construction of more petrochemical plants in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Regional officials are in the process of moving through the process to secure a $1.9 billion federal loan guarantee being considered by the Energy Department for the hub.
Petrochemical manufacturers say that demand for plastics, used in such things as food storage, surgical devices, and in car parts, will increase as the global middle class expands.
EPA’s Moving to Prevent States from Blocking Pipelines. EPA seeks to limit states leveraging Clean Water Act to block pipelines. After years of fighting pipeline projects, New England was hit with an energy crunch during the 2018 polar vortex, driving up prices and forcing the region to import liquefied natural gas from Russia, even though the U.S. is awash in natural gas. Now the Trump administration has declared: Enough. Energy In Depth spokesman Dan Alfaro said that obstructing such projects has resulted in an economic hit both to the workforce and tax revenue for public services such as schools and emergency response. “The denials of much-needed natural gas infrastructure in places like New York and New England have created a myriad of lost opportunities,” he said. “It has left residents in the region paying some of the highest energy costs in the country, particularly during the frigid winters they’ve experienced in the past few years.”
Rolling Back of Endangered Species Act. The Trump administration rolled back longstanding federal protections for wildlife under threat of extinction Monday, in a move that could expand oil and gas drilling and other development across America’s wilderness. More than 40 years after Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the changes were necessary to make more efficient and transparent a bureaucratic process that oil companies, ranchers and other industries have long complained about.
End Direct Federal Regulation of Methane Leaks. The Trump administration is readying a plan to end direct federal regulation of methane leaks from oil and gas facilities, even as some energy companies insist they don’t want the relief. A draft proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency would prevent the federal government from restricting emissions of that potent greenhouse gas from oil wells and infrastructure, despite fears that time is running out to avert catastrophic consequences of climate change.
In The Permian, An Oil Boom’s Hidden Challenges. Because of advances in technology, extracting oil and gas is cheaper and easier than ever. Each day, in the Permian Basin alone, producers will pump roughly 4 million barrels of oil out of the ground. It’s projected that average production will go up by 1 million barrels per day each year for the next four years. The amount of oil being produced is more than the domestic market can use, forcing the industry to find other places to sell it.
Fed Finds Atlantic Coast Pipeline Construction Unsafe. Federal regulators have found unsafe construction practices at work sites on the Atlantic Coast pipeline, spelling more trouble for a project that’s already facing setbacks in court. Inspectors in December found crews laying pipe in ditches lined with rocks, which make the line more vulnerable to damage or stresses as a result of movement or settlement. The inspection took place in Doddridge and Lewis counties in West Virginia, about 100 miles northeast of Charleston, according to the warning letter sent late last month to Dominion Energy Inc., the lead company on the pipeline. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration decided against seeking a fine, according to the letter from Robert Burrough, director of PHMSA’s Eastern Region.
PA Citizens Benefitting from Shale Boon. From 2005 to 2017, Pennsylvania tripled its daily production of natural gas with the help of the Marcellus and Utica shale reserves. The abundance of natural gas has opened a door of economic opportunity for Pennsylvanians, but to fully take advantage of these energy resources, we must also invest in modern pipeline infrastructure to carry natural gas and other critical fuels to consumers. From Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, Canonsburg to Allentown, taxpayers are benefiting from the state’s record natural gas production. The “impact fee” generated from production is distributed to not only the communities in which drilling occurs, but across the state, including my home county in the southeast part of Pennsylvania. The excess of natural gas production in Western Pennsylvania has also triggered larger investments that will bring economic prosperity to the entire state.
$9,000MWh. Texas’ power grid manager, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (Ercot), alerted power generators Tuesday afternoon power reserves were in such short supply, an emergency condition already existed or was imminent, and called for usage conservation.
Electricity prices reached $9,000 per megawatt-hour (MWh) at 3:15 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. Seven hours earlier, prices were roughly $19/MWh, Kallanish Energy reports.
Texas’ May Oil Production Up. Texas produced 101.90 million barrels (Mmbbl) of crude oil and 704.51 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas in May, according to preliminary numbers released by the Railroad Commission of Texas.
Those numbers will be updated as additional reports are filed with the commission, which oversees oil and natural gas drilling.
That compares to preliminary totals of 87.67 Mmbbl in May 2018, updated to 113.12 Mmbbl of crude oil, and 597.82 Bcf of natural gas in May 2018, updated to 759.82 Bcf, Kallanish Energy reports.
That data came from 177,644 oil wells and 89,952 gas wells.
Average daily production of crude oil increased from 2.83 million barrels per day (Mmbpd) in May 2018, to 3.29 Mmbpd in May 2019, an increase of 16.2%.
Average daily production of natural gas jumped from 19.28 Bcf/d in May 2018, to 22.73 Bcf/d in May 2019, a 17.8% increase.
From June 2018 through May 2019, total Texas reported production was 1.39 billion barrels of crude oil and 9.2 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Oil production data in Texas does not include condensate; it’s tabulated separately.
The Top 5 counties for oil production in May were Midland, Karnes, Reeves, Martin and Loving. The Top 5 counties for natural gas production were Webb, Reeves, Tarrant, Midland and Panola. And the Top 5 counties for condensate were Reeves, Culberson, Loving, DeWitt and Karnes.
Fracking Better for the Environment. Conventional oil and gas production methods can affect groundwater much more than fracking, according to hydrogeologists Jennifer McIntosh from the University of Arizona and Grant Ferguson from the University of Saskatchewan. High-volume hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, injects water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into petroleum-bearing rock formations to recover previously inaccessible oil and natural gas. This method led to the current shale gas boom that started about 15 years ago. Conventional methods of oil and natural gas production, which have been in use since the late 1800s, also inject water underground to aid in the recovery of oil and natural gas.
Trump Will Stop Cuomo Blockade. The United States is now the top oil and gas producer in the world. Our nation is more energy independent than ever before. At the same time, we continue to improve our air quality. But too many critically important pipelines are still being delayed for years or killed altogether. For President Trump, these delays and blockades are unacceptable. In April, the president issued an executive order directing his administration to take action to accelerate and promote the construction of pipelines and other important energy infrastructure. The executive order directs the Environmental Protection Agency to consult with states on reviewing and updating the guidance and regulations related to Section 401 of the Clean Water Act. This section gives states (and Indian tribes that are treated as states) the authority to review federally approved projects and certify that they comply with applicable state or tribal water-quality standards.
Mountain Valley Halts Some Work. The developers constructing the Mountain Valley pipeline announced yesterday they had voluntarily stopped construction activities that could harm a trio of endangered species and their habitat along the pipeline pathway. The halt in some construction activities of the 303-mile-long Appalachian natural gas project came days after a legal complaint from environmental groups alleged the biological opinion from the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to properly consider Mountain Valley’s impacts on the three endangered species. “This conservative approach ensures that Mountain Valley’s activities pose no risk to listed species or proposed critical habitat,” the developers said in a filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Fish and Wildlife Service.
PA Permits August 8, to August 15, 2019
County Township E&P Companies
- Bradford Overton Chief
- Clinton Gallagher STL Resources
- Sullivan Cherry Chesapeake
- Sullivan Cherry Chesapeake
OH Permits August 10, 2019
County Township E&P Companies
- Guernsey Londonderry Ascent
- Guernsey Londonderry Ascent
