The Daily Digger

From Akron.com: New Franklin City Council passed a resolution opposing the construction of the proposed NEXUS Gas Transmission high pressure pipeline through the city at the Dec. 17 meeting. The resolution is in response to a plan to construct about 8 miles of a 42-inch, 250-mile pipeline through the city and states this pipeline “poses a threat” to residents, their wells and the lakes and rivers in the area, will require safety forces to get extra training to deal with potential ruptures, costing the city money, and negatively impacts property values in the area. Current plans also call for the line to go through Green.  Developers of the project include DTE Energy Co. and Spectra Energy Corp. in the United States and Enbridge Inc. in Canada. The NEXUS Gas Transmission system is expected to move 2 billion cubic feet of Ohio Utica shale gas from Kensington in Columbiana County to Detroit and to a storage plant in Ontario, according to NEXUS officials at the Council meeting....

From Bloomberg: U.S. oil drillers idled the most rigs since 2012 as prices slid below $55 a barrel to the lowest level in five years and a fight for market share with OPEC intensified.  Rigs targeting oil declined by 37 to 1,499 in the week ended Dec. 26, the lowest since April, Baker Hughes Inc. (BHI) said on its website yesterday, extending the three-week decline to 76. Those drilling for natural gas increased by two to 340, the Houston-based field services company said.  U.S. oil output has surged to the highest in three decades even as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries resists cutting production to defend market share, exacerbating an oversupply that Qatar estimates at 2 million barrels a day. Crude has slumped by almost 50 percent this year, prompting U.S. producers including Continental Resources Inc. and ConocoPhillips to plan spending cuts.  “We should see the rig count going down at least through the end of the first quarter as a react...

From ideastream : Trout Unlimited hopes its report serves as a call to action, for its 155,000 members as well as fish and wildlife agencies, and the shale industry. The group fears that Utica Shale development will hurt the Lake Erie watershed, through water withdrawals from both the lake and the rivers that feed it, as well as the storage of wastewater in deep injection wells across the region.  Katy Dunlap is Trout Unlimited’s Eastern Water Project Director. She says her group isn’t anti-shale. They just want to highlight the many important and delicate waterways across the Central Appalachian region.  “You know, there are some places that are so special and isolated and unique, maybe shale gas development shouldn’t be happening there, but there are other places where it can happen as long as it’s limited in a way to protection of critical fish and wildlife habitat.” Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From Citizens' Voice: Chesapeake Appalachia LLC has agreed to increase payment from $7.5 million to $11 million to settle a class-action lawsuit with natural gas leaseholders who claimed the company wrongly charged them post production fees, according to court documents.  The proposed settlement would resolve a more than year-long dispute among law firms over the handling of the case that derailed the original settlement reached in August 2013 with Demchak Partners, the lead plaintiffs in the case.  The proposal, filed Dec. 18 in federal court, increases the amount of up-front money thousands of Pennsylvania leaseholders would receive and contains other financial benefits over the original settlement, according to the proposal filed by attorney Michelle O’Brien of The O’Brien Law Group in Moosic and several other law firms.  Jackie Root, the owner of a landowner consulting firm and president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owne...

From a Marcellus Drilling News report : Dr. Theodore Them is a specialist in environmental medicine with an advanced degree in public health who works in Pennsylvania, living in a home less than 5 miles from over 100 Marcellus shale wells.  Dr. Them was interviewed recently by the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) about the health impacts report that was used as the justification to ban fracking in New York by governor Andrew Cuomo.  It's a lengthy interview, but it's insightful commentary from an expert in public health, and Dr. Them is not in agreement with the conclusions of the New York report or the methods used to reach them. Listen to the whole interview right here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @EnergyNewsBlog

From Crain's Cleveland Business: Truth be told, 2014 was a year of a thousand small stories in Ohio’s oil and gas world, the majority of which probably will never be told. Wells were drilled at an increasing pace in the southeastern portion of the state, and landowners who had fared well in the mineral rights game were raking in cash — as much as $1,000 per acre, per month, in some of the richest examples.   But there were several events and trends that made headlines and may be affecting the industry and the state’s economy in the years to come, some more obvious than others:   Odebrecht   One of the chief dreams of economic developers watching the shale drilling boom from places like Columbus has been to somehow lasso the ethane industry and build a vertically integrated industry in Ohio.   It would begin with the extraction of Ohio’s “wet gas” that is rich in ethane, include the separation of that ethane from the gas and the processing of it...

From mycentraljersey.com: At last month’s meeting of the Organization of Petrolum Exporting Countries ministers in Vienna, some members argued for decreasing production to slow or reverse the oil price drop. But Saudi Arabia, still OPEC’s largest oil producer, convinced the other members of the cartel that their best move would be to keep the spigots open. It is a move that remains under debate this week at an Arab energy conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.  It seems strange that OPEC would be trying to drive oil prices lower. After all, the whole point of the cartel is to use its leverage to maximize profits. But Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, sees low prices as a new kind of strategic weapon. He believes that oil producing countries need to accept some temporary pain in order to drive down prices to the point where fracking becomes unprofitable, and the newly emerged North American producers start going out of business.  It is a bold gamble on ...

From Bloomberg: Natural gas slumped below $3 per million British thermal units in New York for the first time since 2012 on speculation that record production will overwhelm demand for the heating fuel.  Futures settled at the lowest in 27 months and have plunged 26 percent in December, heading for the biggest one-month drop since July 2008, as mild weather and record production erased a  surplus to year-ago levels for the first time in two years. Temperatures will be mostly above average in the eastern half of the U.S. through Dec. 30, according to Commodity Weather Group LLC.  “We don’t see anything scary in the forecast,” said Stephen Schork , president of Schork Group Inc., a consulting group in Villanova, Pennsylvania . “You had this psyche where people were worried about a polar vortex; we had a cold October and a cold early November, and boom, if you were long you are wrong.” Read more by clicking here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follo...

From The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register: Northern Panhandle mineral owners receiving royalty checks from Chesapeake Energy should see Southwestern Energy Co. assume the payments, as the Houston-based firm finalized a $5 billion deal for 413,000 acres in West Virginia and Pennsylvania last week.  That means the lease contracts Chesapeake acquired for Marcellus and Utica drilling over the past several years in northern West Virginia, some of which paid mineral owners as little as $5 per acre, fetched the Oklahoma City-based firm more than $12,000 per acre.  When Chesapeake and Southwestern officials announced the planned deal in October, they agreed on a selling price of $5.4 billion. However, the firms reduced the final price by $400 million when Southwestern signed a waiver agreeing not to sue Chesapeake for "title defects and environmental liabilities." Read more of this article by clicking right here. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter! Follow @Ene...

From Forbes: How many jobs will the North American oil and gas boom create? Environmental concerns certainly loom large in the public’s mind, but in the recent economic environment creating jobs remains a pressing concern for policy makers and political constituents. Newspaper headlines like, “ Boom in Energy Spurs Industry in the Rust Belt ,” “ North Dakota tries to woo workers for empty jobs ” and “ Rent in Williston, N.D. tops averages in New York City and Los Angeles ” are part of a narrative that the shale revolution will be a panacea for the United States’ labor market. Recent research at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy shows that shale may not be quite the national job-creating juggernaut that boosters claim it will be. This means that policy makers must not be complacent about job-creation and simply rely on fracking to lead us out of the underemployment woods. In particular, state and local policy makers concerned about creating jobs should promote int...

From Powersource: A huge supply of natural gas in the shale of northern Appalachia is igniting a mega-boom in gas pipeline construction in Ohio, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the 1940s.  “You have interstate, intrastate, local utility service lines upgrades, collection lines for oil and gas utilities, and lines for gas-fired electric utilities. Altogether, there will be 38,000 miles of pipeline development in Ohio over the next decade,” said Dale Arnold, director of energy services for the Ohio Farm Bureau Foundation.  “I tell people you might not see shale and oil drilling development in your area like in the eastern part of the state, but with pipelines and development, it’s coming your way.”  Three proposed pipelines are winding their way through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval process now. A major pipeline company has hinted it may build a fourth large pipeline.  The largest project is Energy Transfer Partner L.P.’s $4.3...

DENVER, CO--(Marketwired - Dec 23, 2014) -  HINTO ENERGY, INC.  ( OTCQB :  HENI ), engaged in the exploration, acquisition, and development of oil and gas properties, with producing wells in Utah and Montana, today announced the Company has drilled a new well in Ohio, located on the Appalachian geosyncline which includes both the Berea Sands and the Ohio shale stratigraphic levels. "We continue to look at exploration and production opportunities that deliver positive results even at current oil and gas prices. We believe this new well provides such an opportunity," stated George Harris, the Chief Executive Officer of the Company. "While drilling the well, the well kicked off and produced 20 plus barrels of oil in approximately 15 minutes and natural gas at an estimated rate of 250,000 cubic feet per day," said the field operator. "The well should be placed on production in early January, following installation of oil tanks and pumping unit." ...

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has released the latest weekly permitting update for Utica shale drilling.  Not surprisingly, activity was down during the short holiday week. First, an update on the previous week, which we didn't get a chance to post about last week.  For the week ending 12/20/14 there were 37 new permits issued.  The breakdown by county: Harrison County (13), Belmont County (7), Noble County (6), Guernsey County (4), Monroe County (4), Carroll County (3). After that active week, there were just 5 permits issued during the week ending 12/27/14.  4 of those were for Guernsey County wells and 1 was issued for Monroe County. The latest cumulative totals come to 1,735 permits issued, 1,277 wells drilled, and 707 wells producing.  The Utica rig count fell to 55 during the week ending on the 20th, then fell further to 50 last week. View the report for the week ending 12/20/14 by clicking here. The latest report can be viewed by cl...

HOUSTON, TX--(Marketwired - Dec 23, 2014) - Magnum Hunter Resources Corporation (NYSE: MHR) (NYSE MKT: MHR.PRC) (NYSE MKT: MHR.PRD) (NYSE MKT: MHR.PRE) (the "Company" or "Magnum Hunter") is reporting today that the previously announced blowout of the Company's Utica Shale well, the Stalder 3UH, located in Monroe County, Ohio which occurred on December 13, 2014, is now under control and the well has been temporarily capped. Wild Well Control has successfully replaced the Stalder 3UH's well head assembly. Due to the gas content being ~97% methane, there is currently no evidence of environmental damage to the immediate area as a result of the blowout. Additionally, no personnel have been injured in connection with the well control operations on the Stalder Pad. Initial well control operations involved excavation around the well head to properly evaluate the condition of the well head flange and night cap. Fresh water was continually sprayed on the well head t...

From the Carrollton Free Press Standard: Republican Senator Rob Portman learned how shale drilling is affecting Carroll County first hand last week.  Portman met with local business, community, and government leaders at Atwood Lake Lodge Thursday for an informal round table discussion.  Portman initiated the conversation, saying he wanted to hear the prosz and the cons regarding the development of the Utica Shale in the area.  “This boom has put Ohio on the map. Washington D. C. is talking about Ohio,” he said.  One of the problems on the federal level, according to Portman, is permitting of public land. Federal and public lands and permitting for oil and gas development is an issue that Portman and others have been trying to address.  Regulations are another issue that six agencies in the government feel needs addressed. Portman said the current regulations date back to the 1970’s.  “We need to be safe and environmentally safe, too. We ...

OKLAHOMA CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 22, 2014-- Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE:CHK) today announced the closing of its asset sale to Southwestern Energy Company (NYSE:SWN) and initiatives to further enhance shareholder value. Chesapeake closed the previously announced sale of its assets in the Southern Marcellus Shale and a portion of the Eastern Utica Shale to Southwestern for net proceeds of $4.975 billion. The $400 million adjustment to the previously reported $5.375 billion sale price is attributable to a settlement for various items, including Southwestern’s waiver of any future claims related to title defects and environmental liabilities. The properties sold to Southwestern consist of approximately 413,000 net acres and approximately 1,500 wells located in northern West Virginia and southern Pennsylvania, along with related property, plant and equipment. Net production of the divested properties in mid-December was approximately 57,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per ...

From ExxonMobil: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy said last week her agency will soon  unveil new regulations  for oil and natural gas production designed to reduce emissions of methane.   We’re watching closely because methane emissions are already falling – and dramatically so – making for one of the most profound and heartening environmental stories in recent years. The numbers are striking. As the agency’s own  Greenhouse Gas Reporting program  shows, since 1990, U.S. methane emissions have fallen 16.9 percent. That drop is even more impressive if you consider that the overall size of the U.S. economy is far bigger today than a quarter century ago, and we produce more natural gas than we did then. The latter point is significant because methane leaks from oil and natural gas production are considered to be among the largest contributors to overall methane emissions.   But as they say on TV, “Wait, there’s more!”   ...

In the wake of Governor Andrew Cuomo deciding to ban fracking - actually, to ban all oil and gas development - in New York, there has been no shortage of reaction and commentary on the thought (or in some opinions, lack thereof) that went into the decision and what the potential fallout will be.  While there may not seem to be any direct connection at this time between Cuomo's ban and Ohio's Utica shale activity, the future may reveal otherwise.  The decision has definitely emboldened and fired up activists who feel responsible for influencing Cuomo. So, here is a sampling of what people are saying about the New York ban. From Powersource : New York and Pennsylvania share a border, but on shale gas policy the states are separated by a gulf.   The breach widened last week when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration announced that state will ban fracking, citing uncertainty about the health risks posed by the oil and gas extraction process.   In Pennsy...

From The Columbus Dispatch: This hollow used to be peaceful.   Not long ago, Randy Heater and his daughters would roam the Monroe County hills to hunt, setting up deer stands on quiet fall days when the air was still.   On Dec. 13, that stillness shattered.   Crews lost control of a fracked well on a hilltop near Heater’s house. Natural gas surged into the air.   From their backyard, less than a mile from the well, the Heaters heard it. The rushing gas sounded like a broken air hose, Heater said — a deep, steady  WHOOOOSH .   As the weekend approached, gas was still spewing uncontrollably.   Families within a mile and a half of the well have been evacuated , although not all have left their homes. They’ve been allowed back during the day, to grab clothes and feed animals, but they are supposed to be elsewhere at night.   The county emergency management agency says the families might be allowed home for good by Wednesday, Christma...

CLEVELAND ,  Dec. 15, 2014  /PRNewswire/ -- Dominion  East Ohio  expects increased production from the Marcellus and  Utica  shale formations in  Ohio  and nearby states to provide ample supplies of natural gas at moderate prices this winter. "Once again, customers can set their thermostats with confidence this winter," said  Jeff Murphy , General Manager – Commercial Operations. Murphy noted that natural gas prices for the remainder of the winter heating season could be lower than those of last winter, when repeated Polar Vortex weather events drove Dominion East Ohio's Standard Service Offer (SSO) and Standard Choice Offer (SCO) rates to more than  $6  per thousand cubic feet (mcf) in February. Murphy also said that the arrival of new regional shale natural gas supplies has helped limit market price increases for much of the year, despite increasing national demand. For example, Dominion East Ohio's December 2014  St...

Energy in Depth:   Sierra Club Gets an F in "Fracking 101"   -   " The Sierra Club, founded in San Francisco in 1892 by legendary conservationist John Muir, was once a clarion voice for the preservation of public lands and environmental stewardship. To note that the group has grown increasingly distant from its roots is an understatement. Its decline, which we have covered previously , unfortunately moves on apace with the release of its latest video:..." Gas & Oil:   Beck Energy Dismisses Complaint Against Munroe Falls   -   " A Ravenna-based energy firm has dropped a civil complaint claiming that the city has illegally interfered with efforts to clean up a small oil spill at a North River Road well the company operates, but the complaint could be refiled.  Beck Energy Corp. attorney Scott Zurakowski filed a notice of dismissal of the complaint in Summit County Court of Common Pleas..." The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register:   Res...