https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/anadarko-may-trim-colorado-work-if-proposition-112-pass/
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Anadarko May Trim Colorado Work If Proposition 112 Pass
Oil and gas producer Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: APC) said Oct. 31 it may shift some investment out of Colorado if voters in that state approve a ballot proposal that limits drilling in populated areas. The measure would put at least 85% of new oil and gas development on non-federal lands off limits to new drilling, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has said. Oil companies have raised tens of millions to oppose the measure. Anadarko could shift focus to properties in the Delaware Basin, which spans West Texas and New Mexico, if Colorado voters on Nov. 6 pass Proposition 112, a law requiring up to 2,500-ft separations between new wells and homes, schools and parks, executives said during an earnings conference call.
Wind Farms Cause Global Warming? Please, Say It Isn’t So
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Could wind farms cause global warming, possibly even more than fossil fuels? A new Harvard University study suggests they could.
A Harvard University study suggests that, under certain conditions and in the near term, increased wind power could mean more climate warming than would be caused by the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity. The study found that if wind power supplied all U.S. electricity demands, it would warm the surface of the continental United States by 0.24 ˚C, which could significantly exceed the reduction in U.S. warming achieved by decarbonizing the nation’s electricity sector this century—around 0.1 ˚C. The warming effect depends strongly on local weather conditions, as well as the type and placement of the wind turbines.
According to the Harvard researchers, the findings closely matched directly observed effects from hundreds of U.S. wind farms. In the Harvard scenario, the warming effect from wind was 10 times greater than the climate effect from solar farms, which can also have a warming effect. The Harvard University researchers also concluded that the transition to wind or solar power in the United States would require 5 to 20 times more land than previously thought.
The Research Approach
To estimate the impacts of wind power, the researchers established a baseline for the 2012 to 2014 U.S. climate using a standard weather-forecasting model. They covered one-third of the continental United States with enough wind turbines to meet present-day U.S. electricity demand. The researchers found this scenario would warm the surface temperature of the continental United States by 0.24 degrees Celsius, with the largest changes occurring at night when surface temperatures increased by up to 1.5 degrees. This warming is the result of wind turbines actively mixing the atmosphere near the ground and aloft while simultaneously extracting from the atmosphere’s motion.
The Harvard researchers found that the warming effect of wind turbines in the continental U.S. would be larger than the effect of reduced emissions for the first century of its operation. This is because the warming effect is predominantly local to the wind farm, while greenhouse gas concentrations must be reduced globally before the benefits are realized. The direct climate impacts of wind power are instant, while the benefits of reduced emissions accumulate slowly.
According to one of the researchers, “If your perspective is the next 10 years, wind power actually has—in some respects—more climate impact than coal or gas. If your perspective is the next thousand years, then wind power has enormously less climatic impact than coal or gas.”
The U.S. Geological Survey provided the researchers with the locations of 57,636 wind turbines around the United States. Using this data and several other U.S. government databases, they were able to quantify the power density of 411 wind farms and 1,150 solar photovoltaic plants operating in the United States during 2016. For wind, the average power density—the rate of energy generation divided by the encompassing area of the wind plant—was up to 100 times lower than estimates by some energy experts because most of the latter estimates failed to consider the turbine-atmosphere interaction. For an isolated wind turbine, the interactions do not matter. For wind farms that are more than 5 to 10 kilometers deep, the interactions have a major impact on the power density.
For solar energy, the average power density (measured in watts per meter squared) is 10 times higher than wind power, but also much lower than estimates by leading energy experts, including the U.S. Department of Energy and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Conclusion
Clearly, the scenario developed by the Harvard researchers is unlikely to occur, i.e., the United States is unlikely to generate as much wind power as the researchers simulate in their scenario. Despite that, the researchers found that localized warming occurs in even smaller wind generation projections. Thus, the warming phenomena of wind farms is a factor that politicians, utility planners, and the public should consider when determining which technologies should be built and what subsidies should be enacted or extended.
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https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/wind-farms-cause-global-warming-please-say-it-isnt-so/
Four Pennsylvania Counties Can Supply All the Gas Germany Needs!
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Four counties in Pennsylvania—Bradford, Greene, Susquehanna and Washington—can supply all the natural gas needed by Germany. It can give Russia the Heisman.
My post the other day about the fact “Susquehanna County Produces More Than 4% of U.S.” has been quite well read. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) monthly data for August on natural gas production in the Commonwealth reveals the sheer enormity of the shale revolution and how much of it is taking place in Pennsylvania. Regular reader and guest blogger Chris Acker offers further insights.
Chris looked over the DEP data I assembled and took it another step forward. What he found follows:
One can put things in perspective by looking up consumption by country, which is easy. Most international stats are provided in Billion Cubic Meters (Bcm) per Year. It is simple to convert to Billion Cubic Feet per day (Bcf)/D). A cubic meter is about 35.3 cubic feet, and when you divide by 365 days you get nearly 0.1. So, when you see Bcm/Y just move the decimal over one unit to the left to get Bcf/D. This is close enough, given the variability in consumption estimates.
As an example; China’s natural gas consumption 240 Bcf/Y is about 24 Bcf/D.
So, in Bcf/D we get the following:
China – 24 Bcf/D
Canada – 12 Bcf/D
Japan – 12 Bcf/D
Germany 9 Bcf/D
UK – 8 Bcf/D
Italy 7 Bcf/D
India – 5 Bcf/D
South Korea – 5 Bcf/D
France – 4 Bcf/D
This allows us to make all kinds of comparisons:
- Susquehanna County alone could supply all of France (a bit of a ringer since they have a lot of nuclear power)
- Susquehanna County alone could supply nearly all of India or South Korea
- Susquehanna and Washington Counties could, together, supply all of Italy or UK.
- Pennsylvania’s top four counties (Bradford, Greene, Susquehanna and Washington) could supply all of Germany, Canada or Japan
- The Marcellus/Utica (Appalachia Shale) region could supply all of China
Also, you can convert to Boe/D, or barrels of oil equivalent per day, using a Btu basis of 6 (or 5.8) million Btu’s per barrel of oil. Thus, Pennsylvania gas output of 17 Bcf/D is equal to nearly 3 million barrels per day of crude oil output. This would placePennsylvania production alone in the top tier of OPEC. Appalachia, at 30 Bcf/D or 6 million barrels per day crude, would be second only behind our journalist-loving friends in Saudi Arabia.
By the way, we produce more natural gas Btu’s than crude, 16 MMBoE/D vs. 11 MMB/D (a record volume).
Chris is the master of detail and unofficial proofreader in chief here for NaturalGasNOW. He’s adept as it gets in explaining the unexplainable. His uncovering of the fact we could meet all of Germany’s gas needs with the shale gas output of just four little Pennsylvania counties doesn’t just speak volumes; it’s the fact with which to end discussion of the misery-producing Energiewende. It has delivered but higher electric prices and dependency on Russian gas, while doing nothing for emissions as four counties here have, not only done the opposite, but have also offered Germany the LNG alternative it now needs as a consequence of its foolishness.
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Natural gas proponents prepare to battle subsidized nukes
While the price is not at the optimum level, continued pipeline additions are helping to maintain, even raise the price of U.S. natural gas, even in the Appalachian Basin.
One only needs to look at the number of natural gas-fired power plants that recently came online, are under construction or going through the permitting process to see the cleanest of fossil fuels is remaking how America’s power is produced.
Gas-fired plants in the pipeline
In the trio of states including Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia alone, 30 natural gas-fired plants are somewhere in the development pipeline, totaling more than 26,500 megawatts of power, and investment pegged at more than $3 billion. But there is a potentially very large pothole in the way of the continuing march to natural gas dominance, Kallanish Energy reports. And having backers in extremely high governmental places could only make the pothole larger.Some states offering subsidies
The concept of subsidies to owners of nuclear power plants, while shut down – at least temporarily – at the federal level, lives and is growing at the state level. Already, New York state, Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey have passed legislation that offers subsidies under a variety of names (“handouts” to opponents) to nuclear power plant owner-operators. Nuclear plant owners say the subsidies are warranted because without them, their emissions-free facilities cannot compete with dirt-cheap natural gas or even with some subsidized wind and solar plants.Subsidies, or handouts
Already, one of the U.S. major nuclear plant operators, FirstEnergy, has announced its nuclear power unit has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Billions of dollars of said subsidies – all customer-paid – will be given, officially to maintain zero-emission power, along with power plant jobs and tax base.Nothing but politics
During last week’s annual Shale Insight 2018 conference in Pittsburgh, the topic of handouts to the nuclear industry was the focus of an early-conference panel discussion. And the presentations were somewhat foreboding. “What has happened in states like New York, Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey is coming to these three states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia),” said John Shelk, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association. EPSA represents independent power producers and marketers.“This is all about politics,” according to Shelk.
Shelk’s fellow panelist, Dean Ellis, former executive vice president Regulatory Affairs and Communications, at Dynegy, told the Shale Insight audience the concept of “grid resiliency” is a hot topic in the power industry. Subsidy proponents argue having nuclear power available increases resilience.Reliability vs. resiliency
What is grid resiliency and how does it differ from grid reliability? One comparison states reliability is aimed at reducing the probability of power interruptions, while resilience is aimed at reducing the damage from outages and shortening outage durations. A recent study, “A Customer-focused Framework for Electric System Resilience,” by Alison Silverstein Consulting and Grid Strategies LLC, states “power system resilience should be measured from the end user’s perspective – how many outages happen (frequency), the number of customers affected by an outage (scale), and the length of time before interrupted service can be restored (duration).”A ‘chilling effect’
Silverstein and Grid Strategies reported fellow consulting firm Rhodium Group determined less than 0.1% of customer outage-hours were caused by generation shortfalls or fuel supply over the 2012-2016 period. The panel agreed state subsidies will have a “chilling” effect on the power market – and will certainly impact the usage of natural gas. Not that the natural gas industry is going to back down from pushing its side in the great fuel debate. “We didn’t ask for a fuel fight,” Shelk said.https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/natural-gas-proponents-prepare-to-battle-subsidized-nukes/
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Marketed: Texegy Louisiana Austin Chalk Core Mineral Interests
The following information is provided by Houlihan Lokey Capital Inc. All inquiries on the following listings should be directed to Houlihan Lokey. Hart Energy is not a brokerage firm and does not endorse or facilitate any transactions. Texegy LLC is offering for sale its oil and gas mineral and royalty interests located in Vernon and Sabine parishes in the core of the Louisiana Austin Chalk trend. Houlihan Lokey Capital Inc. has been retained by Texegy to serve as its exclusive financial adviser to assist with this transaction. Bids are due Dec. 5.
https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/marketed-texegy-louisiana-austin-chalk-core-mineral-interests/
Monday, October 29, 2018
New Study Challenges Claim that Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Are Higher than EPA Estimates
Earlier this year, headlines across the country blared an alarming finding: methane emissions from oil and gas could be 60 percent higher than what federal data suggest. Coverage from USA TODAY and Time, among many others, painted a picture of shale gas that was far different than what multiple scientific assessments have concluded.
But a new study, published today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shows how the earlier finding of higher-than-expected methane leakage could itself be a result of how top-down aircraft measurements are extrapolated to annual averages. The research team was led by Dr. Timothy Vaughn at Colorado State University, who was joined by experts from the University of Colorado, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, among others.
The new research has implications for earlier studies that employed what’s known as top-down (TD) inventories, where scientists would fly over producing areas and record how much methane they encountered. Curiously, these types of studies have traditionally found higher emissions than those taking measurements on site, or so-called bottom-up (BU) inventories. Some researchers have suggested that TD inventories are capturing so-called “super-emitters” that cannot be captured in BU inventories. The study that alleged emissions were 60 percent higher than U.S. EPA data used TD measurements.
What today’s study shows, however, is that top-down measurements can significantly inflate methane emissions from oil and gas operations if they are assumed to occur continuously. One reason is because TD inventories often measure emissions during snapshots in time during the afternoon while routine maintenance activities are occurring. Maintenance typically only lasts a few hours, but TD inventories in the past have assumed the measurements are representative of operations all the time.
Dynamic Emissions
Methane emissions from oil and gas sites are dynamic and temporal. Measurements taken during flyovers typically occur in the late afternoon, which are often when emissions are “amplified” due to onsite maintenance activities. As a result, those measurements are not necessarily representative of the average emissions profile of a particular operation, much less an entire producing basin.
How do we know that? Because the researchers confirmed it in the study released today. As the study notes:
“Study area total emissions exhibited significant variability throughout the day. On both days of the study period, modeled emissions peaked during mid-afternoon hours due to MLUs performed and recorded by production facility operators.” (emphasis added)
To address this problem, the researchers took concurrent measurements on site in the Fayetteville basin in Arkansas while they were also taking flyover measurements. By comparing the top-down and bottom-up techniques during the same time, the researchers were able to complete a first-of-its-kind reconciliation.
In other words, top-down inventories performed without an accompanying understanding of bottom-up operations aren’t necessarily giving us an accurate picture of average emissions. Rather than confirming the existence of “super-emitters,” TD studies may suggest average emissions are far higher than they actually are. In the study published today, the researchers were able to largely close the gap between their TD and BU measurements by considering the timing of emissions events and not over-extrapolating the TD findings.
There is nothing, then, that requires the presence of “super-emitters” to explain higher emissions in top-down studies for this particular basin.
Getting an Accurate Picture
Today’s study benefited from concurrent onsite measurements, which were done in cooperation with several oil and gas companies operating in the basin. This is what allowed them to reconcile top-down and bottom-up measurements, and thus provide us with a clearer picture of methane emissions from oil and gas sites.
The key takeaway is that industry cooperation is critical to having scientifically valid results. As the researchers showed, top-down measurements may be capturing events that are temporary, particularly daily maintenance activities such as manual liquids unloadings. Not being able to compare those data against data obtained onsite was previously a major limitation of the results obtained during TD studies. Prior TD researches have posed various theories for their higher emission findings; the authors of the paper released today designed a comprehensive, rigorous study to reconcile differences between TD and BU measurements, based on actual events and evidence.
It’s important to stress that today’s study doesn’t necessarily “debunk” prior research, although it does provide a reasonable explanation as to why top-down measurements show methane emissions to be higher than other findings. As a result, TD measurements should be assessed with care and caution, as they could very well be conveying an operational picture that does not exist.
Today’s study also provides strong evidence that similar reconciliations between TD and BU measurements need to occur in other basins to get a better handle on methane emissions.
Policy Implications
Are methane emissions higher than EPA estimates? A large body of research already corroborates EPA’s data, but there have been a handful of studies – often widely covered by the media – that have succeeded in sowing doubt about methane emissions. The study released today, however, may provide a scientific blueprint for studying methane in additional basins across the country.
In a dynamic operating environment where workers primarily work during the daytime, the timing of measurements matter. As the authors note: “Careful consideration of all factors influencing methane emissions—including temporal variation—is necessary in scientific and policy discussions to develop effective strategies for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas infrastructure.”
This study may also be useful in state and federal regulatory proceedings. If nothing else, what the researchers demonstrated is that the underlying assumptions and extrapolations of prior methane studies – especially those being used to guide public policy – need to be carefully scrutinized.
Commonwealth Court States Obvious: Allegheny Township Can Plan for Gas
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Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court just decided a case in Allegheny Township, Westmoreland County, that strikes a blow for common sense in applying the law.
The case has an impossibly long name, so I’ll just refer to it as “Allegheny Township.” You can find my highlighted version of it here. It’s 69 pages, but quite readable in most part. It’s an important case because it’s likely to be appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which is highly political these days. The very cogent nature of the opinion, which was decided by a vote of five to two by the seven members of the court who participated, will, I hope, convince the Supremes to either not take the case or rule likewise.
The essence of the decision is that municipalities in the Commonwealth are free to plan and zone for natural gas development. Contrary to the views of the Delaware PovertyKeeper and like-minded de-growthers, the Environmental Rights Amendment does not prevent a township from accommodating such development. It’s also a reiteration of a basic principle; that protestants have the burden of proof when they seek to trim or takeaway the property rights of others. Mere speculation of harm is never enough.
Here’s the court’s neat little summary:
Dolores Frederick, Patricia Hagaman, and Beverly Taylor (collectively, Objectors) appeal an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County (trial court) that affirmed the decision of the Allegheny Township Zoning Hearing Board (Zoning Board) to deny Objectors’ land use appeal. In that appeal, Objectors raised a substantive validity challenge to Zoning Ordinance 01-2010, which supplemented the Township’s Zoning Ordinance to allow oil and gas well operations in all zoning districts so long as they satisfy enumerated standards designed to protect the public health, safety and welfare. Pursuant to Zoning Ordinance 01-2010, the Township issued a permit to CNX Gas Company (CNX) to develop an unconventional gas well on property located in the Township’s R-2 Agricultural/Residential Zoning District (R-2 Zoning District).
Objectors assert that Zoning Ordinance 01-2010 improperly instituted illegal spot zoning in violation of substantive due process; does not comport with the Environmental Rights Amendment in Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution; and contravenes several provisions of the Pennsylvania Municipalities Planning Code (MPC). Consequently, Objectors contend, the CNX permit was improperly issued. After review, we affirm.
The full opinion follows the case from the Allegheny Township Zoning Hearing Board, which did a superb job, through an appeal to the Westmoreland County trial court. It then delivers a very practical argumentation of the law.
The objectors used very poor experts, including Dr. John Stolz, a Heinz-funded purveyor of fractivist research, who apparently embarrassed himself with his testimony. Ultimately, their testimony was rejected as not credible, a decision the Commonwealth Court upheld for good reasons.
CNX, by contrast, used very credible experts who offered the following:
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There are already approximately 242 gas wells in the township, all of which are conventional. The one proposed will be the first shale gas well but, will not be the first gas well in the township to be hydraulically fractured because conventional well developers in the township have also employed hydraulic fracturing.
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There is a long history of safe coexistence between the oil and gas industry and Pennsylvania’s rural communities.
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Shale gas drilling techniques have allowed a single multi-well pad to extract the gas reserves from land that would have previously required dozens of conventional well pads, leaving more land for farming while providing economic stability for the farmers leasing their land.
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CNX is required to obtain permits from several state agencies including a well permit from DEP, a water management plan and an excavation permit. PennDOT requires a driveway connection permit as well as a road maintenance agreement, a road bond, and a posted highway permit. Geotechnical sub-surface and hydrologic investigations, wetland stream reviews, erosion and sediment control plans, stormwater management plan, construction “Preparedness, Prevention and Contingency Plans,” mineral studies, complete pre-drill and post-drill water surveys on all water sources within 2,500 feet of the well bores and notices to all water purveyors within 3,000 feet of the well are required.
The conclusion reached by the five-member court majority sums it all up (emphasis added):
A municipality balances the interest of landowners in the use and enjoyment of their property with the public health, safety and welfare of the community when it enacts land use regulation. However, there is no obligation upon a municipality to enact land use regulation.
That oil and gas drilling is authorized in every zoning district in the Township does not mean that it will take place anywhere or everywhere. The setback requirements in Act 13 remain in effect and they are significant. Section 3915(a) requires a minimum setback requirement of 500 feet from any building. As noted by Chief Justice Saylor, one acre is 208 feet by 208 feet, which limits unconventional wells to undeveloped tracts or lots greater than two acres in size. The Zoning Board specifically found the 500 foot buffer from an existing building or well, alone, eliminated more than 50% of Township land from unconventional gas well development.
Zoning Ordinance 01-2010 limits the constitutionally protected property rights of Township residents, including the Slikes, by imposing conditions on the use of their land for oil and gas development. We must presume that the Township’s Board of Supervisors “investigated the question and ascertained what is best for … the good of the people” when it enacted Zoning Ordinance 01-2010. Whether Zoning Ordinance 01-2010 “is wise or whether it is the best means to achieve the desired result are matters left to the legislature, and not the courts.” The Township did not have to enact zoning regulation; a fortiori, it does not have a duty to enact a zoning ordinance that imposes more restrictions upon the property rights of those with mineral estates to develop.
As observed by the Zoning Board, it is the Commonwealth’s duty to regulate “how” gas drilling is conducted to protect Pennsylvania’s waters and air from degradation. By contrast, local governments regulate “where” oil and gas operations will take place with zoning ordinances. In this regard, the choices made by the Township in Zoning Ordinance 01-2010 must be affirmed unless clearly arbitrary and unreasonable. Even where the question of reasonableness is “debatable, the legislature’s judgment must control.” Objectors’ proper recourse is to elect a different board of supervisors to achieve their objective of keeping oil and gas drilling out of the R-2 Zoning District.
Objectors’ objectives in this litigation are confounding. Were they to succeed in invalidating Zoning Ordinance 01-2010, then they release oil and gas operators from the ordinance conditions that relate to noise, lighting, hours, security and dust. Absent Zoning Ordinance 01-2010, CNX’s permit could be invalidated. However, CNX would no longer need a “zoning compliance permit” to operate the Porter Pad.
Objectors have failed to demonstrate that the trial court erred in affirming the Zoning Board. In every respect, the Zoning Board’s conclusion that CNX complied with the standards in Zoning Ordinance 01-2010 is fully consonant with the evidence. Likewise, Objectors did not specify how the standards and conditions in Zoning Ordinance 01-2010 violated the Environmental Rights Amendment of the Pennsylvania Constitution or deprived them of substantive due process. Finally, they did not demonstrate that Zoning Ordinance 01-2010 violates the MPC. Accordingly, the order of the trial court affirming the order of the Zoning Board will be affirmed.
These arguments are compelling common sense. But, that doesn’t mean the Supreme Court will necessarily buy them. They are a political bunch and if you want to understand the risk, read the dissent of Judge Ellen Ceisler, a Philadelphia Democrat with absolutely no appreciation for rural life. Here’s a sample:
In essence, the recent hydrocarbon extraction boom, which is occurring throughout portions of this Commonwealth that overlay the Marcellus Shale Formation, stands ready to wreak havoc of similar class and character as those booms which stripped our forests bare, hunted our wildlife to near-or-actual extinction, and poisoned or scarred our air, land, and water. It is incumbent upon all levels of Commonwealth government, by virtue of the trustee responsibilities imposed by the Environmental Rights Amendment, to ensure that this potential does not become a reality.
This language, of course, is no scarier than that used by Republican Chief Pennsylvania Supreme Judge Bastille when he bid for an environmental legacy as a part of his infamous Robinson swan song decision, but that’s the problem, isn’t it? The Commonwealth Court has given us common sense, but will it hold at a Supreme Court where politics reigns?
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Sunday, October 28, 2018
Two Charts Completely Undercut New York Times on Federal Oil and Gas Leasing
This weekend, Eric Lipton and a team of reporters from the New York Times published a lengthy story about federal leasing for oil and natural gas development in Wyoming, and how a recent uptick in development was “driven by” the Trump administration. The broader thesis is what you might expect: the Trump administration is working “hand in glove with the industry” to expand leasing on federal lands, particularly by rolling back costly rules, including ones finalized in the final weeks of the Obama administration. The Times relied on data from a group called Taxpayers for Common Sense, which has been an outspoken defender of controversial regulations targeting venting and flaring on federal lands.
However, easily obtained federal data completely undermine the Times‘ narrative, and it’s not even close.
The centerpiece of the story is a chart showing an increase in acreage offered during federal lease sales during the Trump administration. Lipton even tweeted out the chart, accusing the White House of being in a “race to lease more and more federal lands for oil and gas drilling.”
The Trump administration has also been in a race to lease more and more federal lands for oil and gas drilling. So much land has been put out to auction that the industry just can’t take it all. Most of it is not attracting bids. But land put up for auction has skyrocketed. pic.twitter.com/ALqzArQdYi
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) October 27, 2018
Seems pretty cut and dry, right? Wrong. This is a classic case of using deliberately misleading data to support what had to have been a predetermined conclusion.
The clever sleight of hand is Lipton’s use of land offered for lease, rather than acreage actually leased for development. If you’re suggesting there’s some sort of frenzy of new drilling, then focusing on where companies are actually drilling would be the more appropriate data to examine.
But those data completely contradict Lipton’s story.
Each year of President Obama’s first term, more federal acreage was leased for development than during the current administration. Don’t believe us? Here are the data, directly from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
But Lipton focused on Wyoming, and even reported on the ground from the Cowboy State. Perhaps the data for Wyoming support the Times‘ narrative? Nope.
The New York Times claims a surge in leasing on federal lands in Wyoming — which doesn’t exist — was “driven by Trump policy changes” that allegedly put certain birds and other species at risk. The available data simply do not corroborate this claim.
The Plantation Politics of the William Penn Foundation
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The William Penn Foundation, funder of both the Delaware PovertyKeeper and the DRBC, as well as Penn Future is playing plantation politics with the region.
Any reader of this blog knows who the William Penn Foundation is. They’re the Haas family and they’re the gentry class heirs to a chemical fortune. They’ve are close allies of the Heinz and Rockefeller families. They are working together to make as much of a wilderness of our region of New York and Pennsylvania as they possibly can. They’re land grabbers, they want a playground plantation. They want us to accept a life as indentured servants passing out lattes on weekends when they visit.
No better proof of this can be offered than a statement put out by William Penn Foundation lackey Andrew Johnson this past week.
Johnson’s op-ed appeared in the PA Environmental Digest but was a reprint of the original up on the Funders Network website. Both versions are worth perusing. The first is interesting because of the news clips at the bottom, one of which relates to another Delaware PovertyKeeper lawsuit intended to reward the gentry class of Bucks County by opposing a bridge replacement absolutely necessary to protect the safety of commoners. Another is about a DRBC initiative to milk money from the nuclear industry to buy up some land along the Schuylkill River and so on.
The third is a link to this Povertykeeper video report on its bridge obstructionism and its efforts to promoter reclassification of Pocono streams so as to foreclose new development:
Check out the video and read this background post on the bridge to get an idea how the Povertykeeper, using funding from the William Penn Foundation, seeks to halt all significant new development that might interfere with gentry class plans for Bucks County and the Poconos, not to mention several other haunts up and down the Delaware River valley.
The Funders Network ‘About” page offers extraordinary insight into what’s taking place. It is a veritable laundry list of elitist fractivist funders, including the following usual suspects, for example:
Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation (Rockefeller family)
Energy Foundation
The Heinz Endowments (Heinz family)
Park Foundation (Park family)
William Penn Foundation (Haas family)
The Rockefeller Foundation (Rockefeller family)
Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Wyncote Foundation (Haas family)
These are elitist ruling class outfits who view their mission in life as assuaging their guilt for having done so undeservedly well by grabbing up land and turning it into playgrounds for themselves, all the while patting themselves on the back for their “smart growth” and the like. They also typically do so without changing one iota of their own lifestyles and, like the Povertykeeper and Leonard Haas (see the partying artist below), live or work in gas-heated buildings.
The problem these people have in creating their playground—making their wilderness—is that deplorables like us live there. But, Andrew Johnson, has the solution. The William Penn Foundation and other funders, he says, have discovered something called “social equity.” Here’s what he states on behalf of the gentry class buffoons pictured above:
Social equity considerations were not baked into the formation of the DRWI, despite our recognition that clean water is particularly important to vulnerable downstream communities who pay the price for upstream pollution. As we focus in on the equity dimensions of our work, we face challenges connecting these dots.
Read this again and read it carefully. If you thought Johnson, by social equity, meant ensuring his wilderness creating initiatives also address economic impacts on locals and their ability to earn a living, you were wrong. He makes it clear, in the immediately following phrase, he supposes we upstream folks aren’t due more than token consideration. Why? Because we somehow create upstream pollution imposing heavy burden on vulnerable trust-funders who live in the ritziest and most expensive parts of Philly where Leonard Haas lives.
That this is 100% pure unadulterated crap is evident from the above video where the PovertyKeeper brags about its work and that of PennFuture, its sister Willam Penn Foundation grantee. They’re both busy trying to upgrade the classification of Pocono streams to the highest “Exceptional Value” level, ironically indicating not pollution, but, rather, ever increasing water quality. Moreover, this is despite the development of tens of thousands of vacation homes, water parks, resorts and new industries. The William Penn Foundation is paying the PovertyKeeper and PennFuture to claim any further Poconos development must be halted because the water is just too good, in fact, because that’s how the absurd Federal clean water rules work (another story).
Back in the real world, all the pollution, of course, is to be found in the lower river valley where the folks who want our land for their playground made a mess of things producing the sort of chemicals Rohm & Hass, the source of Leonard’s wealth, left around. But, the Haas, Heinz, Park and Rockefeller families still want their playground. That’s why they’re working with the Rockefeller family’s Open Space Institute (an NRDC spinoff) and the Catskill Mountainkeeper (an OSI spin-off) to “unlock other funding streams from local, state and federal sources for core project work on the ground.”
They want the land and they aim to steal it using our money. Their idea of social equity is turning into a plantation where we can still live as servants charged with changing the sheets and cleaning up the second homes after a weekend. But, that’s only as long as we don’t seek to change anything or bring real opportunity to the area (e.g., natural gas development). Andrew Johnson is no more than a hired gun for the modern robber barons and as for his social equity, well…
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Saturday, October 27, 2018
Pittsburgh Mayor Dismisses Facts, Science in Speech to Fracking Protesters
The City of Pittsburgh hosted one of the largest regional gatherings of natural gas and oil industry CEOs, elected officials and thought leaders this week during the annual Shale Insight conference. But while discussions inside the conference on important topics like energy security, energy poverty, health as it relates to shale development and the incredible economic impact the region has seen from record-shattering natural gas production were ongoing, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto was outside giving a speech to a small gathering of protesters seeking to halt Pennsylvania’s shale development and the industries it is attracting to the region.
During his comments, the mayor made no mention of the incredible economic impact the City of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh metropolitan area have experienced from this development. Nor did he bring up the myriad of studies showing fracking has not been a threat to the region’s water and that its air has improved over the last decade of shale development. Instead, he proudly discussed the city’s ban on fracking – which he helped get enacted in his former capacity as a city councilman – describing it as “the first ban on fracking in the world” and implied that under his administration the city would fight “many, many battles” against the shale-related industries that are helping the region to prosper, saying:
“It’s always been about the water.”
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“You know, 200 years ago people came from Europe – 300 years ago from Europe – and they looked at the water and saw a way to get from one point to another. And they built factories along the water, and they became the roadways that went out to the West. Today we understand our rivers is something such, more important than a roadway. We see it as the sustaining of life once again. And it’s always been about Pittsburgh – our rivers, our water.”
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“We all know nothing is more important to life than clean and abundant water. Western Pennsylvania is blessed with this resource, and we must all work together to protect it. The Mayor’s office has long fought for this cause. Mayor David Lawrence, with the support of Richard King Mellon and other leaders, recognized this and pushed through the nation’s first Clean Air and Clean Water Act in the 1940s. In 2010, along with Councilman Doug Shields who’s with us, City Council was able to push forth the first ban on fracking in the world. The City of Pittsburgh has paid its price through the first industrial revolution. We had worked in order to be able to take the steps to clean our air and clean our water, and we weren’t going to take that step backwards.”
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“Yes, listen there are many, many battles that will be fought. It doesn’t start and it doesn’t end on one day. It’s a continuation of many different types of industries that will be legacy industries of what was Pittsburgh. The question is what will we do here to play offense and not continually try to play defense? The opportunities are abundant. This begins, and it starts, with what we do with our air and with our water. And we look forward to partnering with all of you, and with all those different battles, in order to make sure that Western Pennsylvania preservation of our air and water is at the foremost front of what we do as a region.”
What Mayor Peduto’s speech lacked was all of the evidence demonstrating that Pittsburgh can have a future that is both prosperous and protective of the environment – and it’s already doing so thanks to the shale it sits upon.
Pittsburgh Sees Benefits of Shale Development
Source: Pittsburgh Regional Alliance
The Pittsburgh metropolitan area – a 10-county region in Southwestern Pa. – has been hailed as the potential energy capital thanks to shale development in the region. By 2016, 36 “leading energy companies” had established headquarters in the metropolitan area, regionally employing an estimated 27,980 people, according to the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance. It’s also helping to attract new manufacturing facilities and to spur reinvestment in what Peduto referred to as Pittsburgh’s “legacy industries” like U.S. Steel.
And that’s despite the ban on fracking that the Pittsburgh City Council pushed through in 2010 that prevents drilling within the actual city’s borders.
In stark contrast to the city’s ban on fracking, the broader Pittsburgh metropolitan region in 2017 represented nearly half of all wells drilled in the state, more than one-third of the natural gas produced (a whopping 2.1 trillion cubic feet), and has been the recipient of more than one-third of the total shale impact fees. And Allegheny County – where the city is located – has actually received the largest grants from the Marcellus Legacy Fund to date.
In fact, in 2014 the City of Pittsburgh received a Marcellus Legacy Fund grant for $802,990 for a PennWorks project to “construct, expand or improve water and wastewater infrastructure related to economic development.” Those funds have since been renewed for the project at the former mill facility at Lawrenceville Technology. In other words, the shale industry contributed nearly a million dollars to help the city improve its water quality, and yet that was never mentioned in a speech from the leader of the city about protecting water quality for future generations.
Further, Mayor Peduto failed to mention that more than 30 peer-reviewed studies and scientific reports have found that fracking is not a threat to groundwater, many of which have been focused on Pennsylvania. In just the last year, those Pennsylvania reports include:
- Department of Environmental Protection (2018): “here is no evidence that hydraulic fracturing has resulted in a direct impact to a water supply in Pennsylvania.”
- Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (2018): “Water quality monitoring efforts by the bureau and its partners have not raised significant concerns on state forest headwater streams to date.”
- Yale University (2018): “Collectively, our observations suggest that was an unlikely source of methane in our valley wells.”
- Penn State University (2018): “The most interesting thing we discovered was the groundwater chemistry in one of the areas most heavily developed for shale gas – an area with 1400 new gas wells – does not appear to be getting worse with time, and may even be getting better.”
- Department of Environmental Protection (2018): “he majority of wells in the state are being operated in a manner that greatly reduces the risk for groundwater impacts.”
- Susquehanna River Basin Commission (2017): “To date, the Commission’s network of monitors has not detected discernible impacts on the Basin’s water resources…”
Similarly, there are a multitude of studies and reports finding that Pennsylvania’s air quality has improved since the shale revolution began, in large part because of the switch to natural gas-fired power generation that has been spurred by the abundance of gas in the region. They also show that the oil and natural gas industry has reduced its emissions at the same time as this production has soared.
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2018): The air emissions trend report data show Pennsylvania reduced sulfur dioxide emissions 69 percent from 2002 to 2014, with the Appalachian Basin seeing a total reduction of 72 percent during this time period.
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Department of Health (2018): “Based on the air sampling collected from July 2012 to July 2013, exposure to the contaminant levels found in ambient air are not expected to harm healthy individuals.”
- “The measured concentrations of acetaldehyde are substantially lower than those observed to have caused health effects in animals and humans based on scientific research studies. … The calculated additional cancer risk for this chemical is very low. Therefore, long-term acetaldehyde inhalation exposures at the levels detected by PADEP in this project are not expected to harm people’s health.”
- “The measured concentrations of benzene are substantially lower than those observed to have caused health effects in humans and animals based on scientific research studies, and are similar to background levels measured in this project and in rural areas of the United States. The calculated additional cancer risk for this chemical is very low. Therefore, long-term benzene inhalation exposures at the levels detected by PADEP in this project are not expected to harm people’s health.”
- “The measured concentrations of formaldehyde are substantially lower than those observed to have caused cancer health effects in humans based on scientific research studies, and are consistent with background levels measured in the United States.”
- “The general population of healthy and sensitive individuals are not expected to experience harmful effects from PM2.5 exposure at the levels found in the PADEP long term air data set.”
- Department of Environmental Protection (2018): At the primary criteria pollutant monitoring site, the pollutants that were monitored – ozone, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and carbon monoxide (CO) – did not exceed “the applicable or a probable future exceedance based on the data pattern.” Further, the patterns from measured concentrations “did not indicate a localized source impact which would cause exceedance of any of the NAAQS evaluated.” The primary site also had “significantly fewer” Air Quality Index days that were less than “Good” compared to similar monitoring sites. The monitoring sites and background sites showed no significant difference “in either cumulative estimated Excess Lifetime Cancer Risk (ELCR) or cumulative chronic non-cancer Hazard Quotient (HQ).” “All four of the project HAP monitoring sites had a cumulative ELCR and HQ that were comparable to another historical Commonwealth VOC background concentration ambient monitoring site.”
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (2018): EPA data show Pennsylvania reduced its carbon emissions 17 percent and its carbon emissions from electricity generation 29.5 percent from 2005 to 2015. Overall, the Appalachian Basin saw the most significant U.S. reductions at 18 and 21.5 percent, respectively, during this time period.
- University of Maryland’s 2017 study was retracted in 2018 because: “he original wind measurements led to an overestimate of methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations. A reanalysis with corrected winds reduced the total estimated emissions by about a factor of 1.7, with a correspondingly larger reduction in emissions of methane attributed to oil and natural gas in the southwestern Marcellus Shale area. This is expected to reverse a conclusion of the paper, which had asserted that leakage from oil and natural gas extraction in this region results in a climate penalty compared to the use of coal.”
- Department of Environmental Protection (2017): “The average methane reported from each mid-stream compressor station decreased from 106.9 tons in 2012 to 97.5 tons in 2015. The average emission per well site was 8.3 tons in 2012 and 5.8 tons in 2015. Year to year changes in other emissions are related to a variety of factors, including where wells are drilled and types of equipment being used.”
- Penn State University (2017): “It seems like natural gas is a good solution now, at least for the Marcellus Shale. Our results clearly suggest that it’s a clean source of energy. And on top of that, we can suggest a lot of gas with a very low leakage overall from the infrastructure.”
- Department of Environmental Protection (2017): “ harmful pollutants like nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SOx) and particulate matter (PM2.5) all saw decreases from 2014 emission levels .”
The bottom line: Pittsburgh – both the city and the 10-county region – are experiencing the benefits of shale development in a manner that is protective of the environment in the region. And that’s something everyone who headed to Pittsburgh this week – whether to attend the conference or the small protest outside – should be celebrating.
Natural Gas NOW Picks of the Week – October 27, 2018
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.
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Natural Gas NOW readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy. As usual, emphasis is added.
Activists Blast Good News About Air Quality
The Narrowsburg, New York River Reporter (known locally as the “River Distorter”) came out with this story last week:
The Sullivan County Legislature on October 9 released a baseline study assessing the air, water and noise near the site of the compressor station being constructed by Millennium Pipeline, LLC near Eldred. The county chose KC Engineering (KC) to conduct the study over the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (SPEHP)…
Image from recent Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Clinic email soliciting support – no bias here of course!
SPEHP had earlier conducted such a study of the Minisink compressor, some 28 miles south from Highland along the Millennium Pipeline, and found that people living near that facility had headaches, rashes and respiratory problems. The study said, “The episodic nature of health symptoms reported by residents is likely associated with the episodic high emissions that come from the compressor station.”
Hust wrote, “Due to the heightened sensitivity surrounding the Highland Compressor Station project, the county legislature wanted to ensure that the baseline study be undertaken in an objective manner by an entity that did not have a predisposition toward the outcome.”
Read the whole propaganda story and you’ll find not one word about the results of the study. It was conducted by a firm with no apparent clients in the oil and gas industry, a firm good enough for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection but not good enough for fractivists, of course. Why? Precisely because it did not have an agenda of opposing oil and gas as did the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project. And, this is what it said about 1,260 page baseline air quality conditions following previous construction associated with the Millennium Pipeline and prior to construction of a new compressor station:
A baseline testing for the Town of Highland south of the White Lake Region was conducted by KC between 2017 and 2018, prior to Millennium’s Station start-up. Three rounds of testing were conducted at a total of 17 different location, including, eight for air quality and sound levels, and nine for water quality.
Air quality monitoring included one-time recording devices as well as the data-logged data at extended time intervals. Sound levels were data-logged continuously. Water quality samples were taken at three lakes, three streams, and three wells.
Air quality samples results were as expected for the area. Sound monitoring produced data all below the 85 dB threshold. Water results returned no data that was unexpected.
The purpose of this study was to establish a baseline before and throughout construction of the Station, which may be used to compare it to any potential future study performed once the Station will be in use.
See why they didn’t like it and the River Distorter didn’t discuss it?
Meanwhile in Philadelphia, Airport Switches Shuttle Fleet to CNG
While the Delaware Povertykeeper, who works in a gas-heated office in Bristol, Pennsylvania, was complaining that local officials were not using her fractivist shill ally to conduct an air study in Sullivan County, New York, where she has a cabin, this was going on in her Philadelphia back yard:
Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) has switched its vehicles from diesel to Clean Energy’s compressed natural gas (CNG) as part of a sustainability initiative to reduce emissions, decrease noise volume and lower fuel costs…
“Airport transit vehicles operate in confined areas, primarily parking lots, so carbon emissions and noise pollution have a greater impact on the passenger experience,” states Raymond Blethen, Northeast director of operations at First Transit. “The airport was seeking to adopt alternative fuels and environmentally friendly vehicles, so it converted 100 percent of its fleet to natural gas. The CNG-fueled shuttle buses run 90 percent quieter than diesel, lower CO2 emissions by 20 percent and have no fumes.”
While some mouth off, others simply get the job done.
Range Resources Achieves Record High Production and More
Range Resources is on a nice roll, as our buddy Jim Willis explains:
Range Resources released its third quarter 2018 update earlier this week. The company shows making a $48.5 million profit for the quarter, verses losing $127.7 million in 3Q17. Quite a swing into the black! Some of the credit goes to Rover Pipeline. Range has reserved 400 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) on Rover, which is now up and running. Range is ramping up production and expects to use all of their 400 MMcf/d capacity by the end of 2018. Production in 3Q18 averaged a record high of 2.267 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d), an increase of 14% compared to 3Q17.
One of Range’s chief advantages, as pointed out on the quarterly analyst call by CEO Jeff Ventura, is the high volume of NGLs produced by the company. Now that they have more access to international markets through exports via various pipelines (including the forthcoming Mariner East 2 pipeline), Range is set to be even more profitable.
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Friday, October 26, 2018
Facts & Rumors # 310
Expo/Industry events for the next few months
Marcellus Utica Houston November 7-8 JW Marriott Houston Galleria 5150 Westheimer Road Houston, TX 77056
http://www.marcellusuticahouston.com/
Downstream Petrochemical Value Chain November 15, 2018 Eagle Sticks Golf Club 2655 Maysville Pike Zanesville, OH
https://bit.ly/2CWeXjs
For other events visit
http://www.shaledirectories.com/site/oil-and-gas-expo-information.html
Latest facts and a rumor from the Marcellus, Utica, Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken and Niobrara Shale Plays
Gulfport Energy 3rd Qtr. Financial Update. Gulfport Energy reported its net production in third-quarter 2018 grew 19% from the Q3 2017, Kallanish Energy reports. Net production in Q3 2018 averaged 1.43 billion cubic feet-equivalent pe4r day (Bcfe/d), said the company, a major player in the Appalachian Basin. Production was 1.20 Bcfe/d in the third quarter of 2017. The latest Q3 production was 89% natural gas, 8% natural gas liquids and 3% oil, the company reported last week. The company said its realized natural gas price for Q3 2018 averaged $2.32 per thousand cubic feet, its oil price averaged $68.73 per barrel and its NGL price averaged 74 cents a gallon, or $31.18/Bbl. Those prices are before the impacts of derivatives and include transportation costs. Gulfport reported it turned to sales 11 gross and net operated wells in the Utica Shale in the Appalachian Basin and 7 gross (5.4 net) operated wells in the SCOOP play in Oklahoma during the third quarter. “The third quarter marked another outstanding operational quarter for Gulfport, delivering a 7% increase in total production per day and realizing strong price realizations across all of our products,” said CEO and President Michael G. Moore, in a statement. “Gulfport’s third-quarter production increase was driven by continued outperformance of our base production wedge, an active turn-in-line schedule and an increase in ethane recovery during the quarter, maximizing the value received for the natural gas liquids stream,” he said. In Q3, the company produced 104.98 Bcfe from the Utica Shale in Ohio, 25.26 Bcfe from the SCOOP play, and 1.01 Bcfe in southern Louisiana. Utica production jumped from 90.82 Bcfe in Q3 2017, a 15.6% increase. Gulfport will release its 3Q 2018 financial data in the next few weeks. VA DEP Approves Atlantic Coast Pipeline. Although the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) was federally approved a year ago, in October 2017, the $6 billion pipeline from Dominion Energy running from West Virginia through Virginia into North Carolina had not yet secured all state-required permits. The remaining holdout has been Virginia. Late Friday afternoon the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) finally issued a “401” permit for crossing streams and rivers, which clears the way for ACP construction to begin in the Old Dominion. Satellite Imagery Reveals Permian Frack Trends. New research gathered through daily satellite imagery reveals the impact infrastructure bottlenecks and differentials are having on frack crew count numbers and well completions in the Permian basin. Westwood Global Energy Group’s SatScout Service is responsible for the new data. “The Delaware and Midland Basins are paramount to the U.S. shale story,” said Boyd Skelton, vice president of operations for Westwood. “The public and private E&Ps we monitor are feeling the constraints in the Permian market. You can see the softening demand for horsepower, frack sand and water based on the decline in last month’s observed completions. The market,” he added, “is fluid with operators acting swiftly to changing conditions.” After a peak in well completions—510—that took place in June, Westwood’s team said completions in September across the Permian were down six percent to 472. According to the company, SatScout can identify when an operator has constructed a pad, rigged up for drilling, or started fracturing the well with a frack crew. Westwood’s aerial scouting service can provide such information on activity of public or private oil and gas operators before the information is reported in quarterly earnings, investor presentations or via state regulatory organizations. The system utilizes daily satellite imagery and a proprietary algorithm designed to identify key stages of well development. “We can analyze thousands of images in a fraction of the time it would require to do manually,” the company said. Energent Group, a Houston-based energy and shale analyst firm, creates and operates SatScout. In 2017, Westwood Global Energy acquired Energent. Mariner East 2 to Start Service. U.S. energy company Energy Transfer LP plans to start service on its Sunoco Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids pipeline in Pennsylvania during the fourth quarter of 2018, an analyst following the company said on Monday: Energy Transfer told analysts at Height Capital Markets in Washington, DC, that the pipeline “will be in service as soon as it is mechanically complete, which is expected to be in the next few weeks.” That fits with the timing the company has told several customers of the pipeline, including U.S. energy producer Range Resources Corp and U.S. ship owner Dorian LPG Ltd , which owns very large gas carriers (VLGCs). When Energy Transfer’s Sunoco subsidiary started building the $2.5 billion Mariner East 2 in February 2017, the company expected to finish the project by the third quarter of 2017. Merkel Opens Germany to U.S. LNG. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a move to open up Germany's market to U.S. gas companies, following a lobbying push from President Trump, The Wall Street Journal reported. Merkel told a group of lawmakers over breakfast in October that her government will co-finance a $576 million liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipping terminal in northern Germany, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the meeting. The project had been stalled for years, but Trump has lobbied hard for Europe to increase LNG purchases from the U.S. while reducing their reliance on Russia. Germany gets most of its gas from Russia, and American efforts to open its market to U.S. companies have stalled due to lack of government support. Merkel told lawmakers that the decision to co-finance the LNG terminal was "strategic" and could pay off in the long term, people familiar with the meeting told the Journal. A German government spokesman told the Journal that the move was made because of Germany's economic interests, not U.S. pressure. Less than a week after the reported Merkel meeting with lawmakers, an international consortium filed its first official bid for government financing for a terminal in a town near Hamburg. XTO Bullish on the Utica. The Appalachian Basin’s Utica Shale holds great potential, according to XTO Energy’s Andree Griffin. Speaking to roughly 900 attendees Wednesday at the Shale Insight 2018 conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., at the Shale Insight 2018 conference. Griffin, XTO’s vice president, Geology and Geophysics, is a big believer in the Utica, found mostly in eastern Ohio, Kallanish Energy reports. “Do not underestimate the potential of the Utica Shale,” she told the audience. What’s happening there is “staggering and very exciting,” she added. It is a shale play where the surface has barely been scratched, she said. Only the beginning “You can tell this is only the beginning,” Griffin said of the Utica Shale. “The potential in the Utica is enormous.” The gassy Utica Shale is newer in terms of production and smaller than the neighboring Marcellus Shale and it's generally lumped together with the Marcellus Shale in reports. 40% of U.S. production Together, the Utica and Marcellus produce 40% of the natural gas in the U.S. -- about 29 billion cubic feet per day. Production in the Appalachian Basin could hit 8 trillion cubic feet this year. If they were a separate country, the Utica and Marcellus would rank third in the world for natural gas production behind the rest of the U.S. and Russia, Griffin said. To date, only about 2,400 Utica wells have been drilled in Ohio, plus about 230 in Pennsylvania and 15 in West Virginia, she said. The first Utica wells were drilled in Ohio in late 2011/early 2012. The Utica is deeper in West Virginia and Pennsylvania and that makes drilling more costly and more risky for drillers. Griffin's company has drilled roughly 75 wells in Ohio’s Belmont and Monroe counties, according to state records. XTO, an ExxonMobil subsidiary, has about 56,000 acres in Ohio and is producing 240 million cubic feet of natural gas per day (Mmcf/d), the company says. In Pennsylvania, XTO holds 534,000 acres and produces 220 Mmcf/d from 12 counties. In West Virginia, XTO has 140,000 acres with production totaling 50 Mmcf/d from eight counties, the company says. Happy 10th Anniversary Eagle Ford Shale. Secretary of Energy and former Texas Governor Rick Perry traveled to San Antonio to participate in the Shale-a-Thon, the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the completion of the first successful horizontal oil well into the Eagle Ford Shale formation. That first well, drilled by Petrohawk Energy (later acquired by BHP Billiton), was announced on October 21, 2008, but the company's Chief Operating Officer, Dick Stoneburner, was notified of its successful completion via an email he received on October 11 while sitting in the stands in the Cotton Bowl as he watched the annual grudge match between the Texas Longhorns (Stoneburner is a UT graduate) and Oklahoma Sooners. Petrohawk's discovery set off a drilling boom over the next six years that at times saw the traditionally sleepy, rural area of South Texas become one of the hottest economic development regions in the country. Traffic jams became commonplace in a 23-county region whose largest city, Beeville, boasts a population of around 14,000 on a good day. At the boom's peak in 2014, more than 300 rigs operated in the region, with as many as 275 plumbing the dense rock in the Eagle Ford formation. Many wonder why it is called the "Eagle Ford" shale. The formation is named for the community of Eagle Ford, which was once an incorporated city, but is now a neighborhood of Dallas, by which it was annexed in the mid-1950s. Not far from the center of the community, a small cliff face reveals an out-cropping of the Austin Chalk formation, which had become famous during the 1970s and again in the 1990s for the production of prodigious amounts of crude oil. In fact, the Chalk is experiencing a bit of a third revival today. Immediately beneath the Chalk outcropping, another formation displays what seems to be a rocky, clay-like profile. This formation is actually a shale formation, one that happens to be the source rock for the Austin Chalk. It was the oil migrating up from the Eagle Ford Shale that made the Chalk such a prodigious formation to begin with. More oil through Dakota Access pipeline. The developer of the Dakota Access pipeline is gauging shippers’ interest in a possible expansion of the volume of crude oil moved through the pipeline from 500,000 barrels to 570,000 barrels per day, despite ongoing tribal efforts to shut the pipeline down. Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners on Oct. 19 began seeking commitments from shippers to transport additional oil. The pipeline’s permit in North Dakota allows it to ship up to 600,000 barrels per day. North Dakota produced nearly 1.3 million barrels of oil per day in August, the most recent month for which data is available. Companies can increase pipeline capacity by adding a chemical to make oil flow more easily, or by adding more pumping power or pumping stations, according to North Dakota Pipeline Authority Director Justin Kringstad. Company spokeswoman Vicki Granado told The Bismarck Tribune that an expansion would require minimal modifications to the actual pipeline system. Dakota Access was subject to prolonged protests during its construction in North Dakota in late 2016 and early 2017 because it crosses beneath the Missouri River, just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The tribe draws its water from the river and fears pollution. ETP insists the pipeline is safe. That tribe and three others are fighting in federal court to get the pipeline shut down. Lack of Fractionation Causing Problems for Ethan Crackers. A surge in production of natural gas from U.S. shale gas and tight oil plays, combined with new petrochemical ethane crackers coming online, have created a major hurdle for producers/purchasers of ethane due to a lack of adequate NGL fractionation. Simply put, a lack of capacity to separate/fractionate mixed natural gas liquids (Y-grade) into purity ethane is causing chemical producers major consternation, according to business information provider IHS Markit. “The U.S. upstream shale gas and tight oil revolution has translated into a petrochemical feedstock bonanza and significant cost advantages for U.S. chemical producers, but a misalignment between ethane purity product supply capacity and demand has driven a tight ethane market and a spike in price,” said Yanyu He, executive director, Asia and Middle East NGLs and Global NGL pricing at IHS Markit He is an author of IHS Markit Midstream and NGLs Analysis: Ethane—What Went Wrong? “We expect purity product ethane supply and demand to be tight through 2020, and ethane market price volatility is expected to persist through 2020," according to He. "The energy industry strives for alignment, but the unconventional upstream industry is much more nimble and responsive to price signals than the midstream sector. “We are now seeing the fall-out of underinvestment in midstream infrastructure that occurred during 2014 to 2016, after oil prices cratered and put the brakes on NGL-centric midstream infrastructure build-out,” he said. He said U.S. shale gas and tight oil producers have drastically improved their efficiency and can now bring a well into production in a matter of months, while adding capacity at a natural gas processing plant can take 12 to 18 months, expanding Y-grade pipelines and purity product NGL fractionation capacity can take up to three years, and steam crackers require four to five years to bring online from final investment decision (FID) to completion, Kallanish Energy finds. “From an investment standpoint, you have a months-versus-years cycle that causes misalignment across the upstream through midstream to downstream value chain,” He said. “Ironically, the increasing efficiency of the U.S. unconventional upstream energy sector has rapidly increased oil, natural gas, and correspondingly, by-product Y-grade NGL-production rates. The current production has surpassed the midstream supply chain’s capability to receive, process, produce, and deliver purity product ethane supply to the new U.S. Gulf Coast ethane crackers,” He said. And there is more demand coming as the industry is in the middle of the first wave of new U.S. ethane cracker-capacity additions built to consume advantaged ethane, IHS Markit said. Change at FERC. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chair Kevin McIntyre said late Wednesday that he was relinquishing his chairmanship due to health problems and will simply serve as a commissioner, and President Donald Trump tapped Commissioner Neil Chatterjee to take McIntyre's place leading the agency. Nexus Seeks FERC Approval. Less than two weeks ago NEXUS Pipeline, a $2.6 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that runs from Ohio into Michigan, received permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to begin operation. NEXUS has begun to flow close to 1 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day out of its eventual 1.5 Bcf/d capacity. NEXUS’ recent startup was a partial startup. NEXUS is now taking the next step. They asked FERC yesterday for an OK to start up service at two more compressor stations–one in Medina County, the other Sandusky County. Atlantic Coast Pipeline Gets FERC Approval. Dominion’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) from West Virginia to North Carolina has had its share of setbacks. But these days, it appears the project is building momentum and government/regulatory decisions are breaking in ACP’s favor. The project is on track to finish by the end of 2019, so says Dominion. The latest win for ACP came yesterday when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted permission for ACP to begin construction pretty much in all locations in West Virginia. The only prohibitions are small areas in National Park Service land and a few locations where there may be Indiana bats. Two Permian Drillers Going on the Market. Felix Energy LLC, a closely held Denver-based oil producer with operations in the largest U.S. shale field, is exploring a sale that could value the company at more than $3.5 billion, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The U.S. oil producer has hired investment bank Jefferies to solicit buyers, the sources said. Premium prices paid this year for acreage in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, the largest and fastest growing oilfield, has smaller companies looking to cash in on their holdings. At the same time, higher crude oil prices have allowed bigger oil producers to acquire new holdings. Endeavor Energy Resources LP, an oil producer in Texas, also is exploring a sale that could value the company at more than $10 billion. Earlier this year, RSP Permian and Energex Corp were bought by Concho Resources Inc for $8 billion and Diamondback Energy Inc for $9.2 billion, respectively. Concho paid more than $70,000 an acre in its deal. Felix's management team sold assets in Oklahoma to Devon Energy Corp in January 2016 for more than $1.9 billion, according to the company's website. The company's acreage in the Permian Basin is concentrated in the oil-rich Delaware Basin in Loving, Winkler and Ward counties in Texas. Felix has more than 70,000 net acres in the Permian Basin, one of the people familiar with the matter said. PA NatGas Production Surpasses 17 billion cfpd. Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PA DEP) published preliminary oil and gas well production data for August 2018 earlier this week. While we still observe marginal underreporting for August (with 250 million cfpd missing from HG Energy, which also delayed reporting for July), it is already obvious that shale gas production increased further from the level seen in July 2018. Taking into account reporting delays, we estimate that shale gas production in Pennsylvania surpassed 17 billion cfpd in August 2018 for the first time in history. In addition to a new all time-high production level, year-over-year growth reached a staggering 2.87 billion cfpd, which has not been seen since 2H 2012 – 1H 2014.
Joe Barone jbarone@shaledirectories.com 610.764.1232
Vera Anderson vera@shaledirectories.com 570.337.7149
US Drillers Add Oil Rigs For Third Consecutive Week
U.S. energy firms added oil rigs for a third week in a row for the first time since June, keeping the rig count at its highest in over three years, as declining productivity in some shale fields force companies to drill more to keep output growing. Drillers added two oil rigs in the week to Oct. 26, bringing the total count to 875, the highest level since March 2015, Baker Hughes, a GE company (NYSE: BHGE), said in its weekly report. For the month, the rig count rose 12 in October, the biggest monthly increase since drillers added 34 rigs in May. That was also the first time the count increased for four months in a row since July 2017, but the increases from July through to September where marginal as new drilling largely stalled due to pipeline constraints in the Permian Basin.
https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/us-drillers-add-oil-rigs-for-third-consecutive-week/
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