Oct 20 2014

Shale Oil, Gas Finds Put Mon Valley On Path To Renaissance, Leaders Say

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Washington County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lue Ann Pawlick never envisioned companies connected with oil and gas beating a path to Alta Vista Business Park when it broke ground in tiny Fallowfield, Washington County, in 2001.

Today, three of the five companies in Alta Vista work in the industry. An energy company is set to start construction in the spring, and at least one more is close to signing a deal to locate there.

“We’re trying to keep it a mixed-use business park, but we have to recognize the oil and gas industry is the biggest game in town right now,” said Pawlick, executive director of the Middle Monongahela Industrial Development Association. “They are the ones driving demand.”

Ten years ago, Fort Worth-based Range Resources Corp. drilled the first Marcellus shale well in Washington County. Now the county — which dubs itself “Energy Capital of the East” — is home to about 1,000 wells, the most in Pennsylvania.

Sep 4 2014

Shell Touts Utica Gas Wells In Northern Pa.

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Tioga County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Energy companies might have another sweet spot for gas drilling in Pennsylvania.

Royal Dutch Shell on Wednesday said two wells it drilled in the Utica shale below Tioga County are producing at levels comparable to the most successful wells in Southeastern Ohio.

“This opens a new potential for other drillers to follow Shell’s act,” said Tom Gellrich, founder of TopLine Analytics, a manufacturing consultant specializing in shale gas plays.

The energy giant drilled the wells in one of the top-producing Marcellus shale counties, north of Williamsport. But Shell’s Gee and Neal wells are tapping a formation several thousand feet below the better-known Marcellus and were drilled about 100 miles northeast of the closest producing Utica well.

Aug 19 2014

Gas Production From Marcellus Shale Sets Record Despite Fewer New Wells Going Online

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pennsylvania drillers are pulling record amounts of natural gas from the Marcellus shale even as they bring fewer new wells online, according to state data released on Monday.

About 5,400 shale wells produced nearly 2 trillion cubic feet of gas during the first six months of the year, a 14 percent increase in production over the past six months of 2013, the data from the state Department of Environmental Protection show.

Energy companies accomplished the record despite connecting fewer than 500 new wells during the period. Previous semiannual reports showed an average of 675 new wells every six months.

“We’re seeing the results of technical developments that allow much greater efficiency,” said Kent Moors, executive chair of the global energy symposium at the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh.

Jul 24 2014

EQT Posts $110.9 Million Profit In Latest Quarter

EQT Corp. turned a profit as it continues to pull more natural gas from the Marcellus shale and move it to markets on the company’s midstream pipeline systems.

The Pittsburgh-based energy company early Thursday announced it posted $110.9 million in net income, or 73 cents per share, during the three months that ended June 30. That’s a 27 percent increase over the $86.9 million profit on 58 cents a share it recorded in the same quarter last year.

May 12 2014

Marcellus Can Help Boost Pennsylvania Steel

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pennsylvania is home to the highest-producing natural-gas shale play in the United States, and Marcellus Shale wells continue to break records. During the last six months of 2013, the commonwealth produced 1.7 trillion cubic feet of gas, or an average of 9.2 billion cubic feet per day – enough to satisfy about an eighth of the nation’s daily natural-gas demand.

The continued safe and responsible development of Marcellus Shale natural gas presents a great opportunity to create new jobs and provide economic prosperity in the commonwealth.

With this prosperity, Pennsylvania is taking center stage in helping the United States achieve energy independence and reduce our need to rely on foreign energy sources. In addition to capital investments and job creation in energy, the development of the Marcellus Shale has the potential to greatly benefit Pennsylvania’s manufacturing sector, in particular the steel industry. Perhaps the single most important product used to ensure the safe development of this abundant natural resource is high-quality steel pipe.

Apr 21 2014

Marcus Hook Refinery Gets Makeover As Natural Gas Hub

English: Sunoco Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is out with the old and in with the new at the 500-acre waterfront facility formerly known as the Sunoco Marcus Hook Refinery, now the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex.

Workers last week ripped down aging petroleum-processing equipment, part of a labyrinth of machinery that has produced gasoline, diesel, and kerosene for more than a century. Other crews built cryogenic storage tanks more than 130 feet tall with three-foot-thick walls that will hold the future: new fuels from the prolific Marcellus Shale region.

Sunoco Logistics Partners L.P., a pipeline company that bought the property for $60 million last year from its sister company, Sunoco Inc., is converting the site into a major center for processing and shipping natural gas liquids.

“We very much hope this is only the first step in this property,” said Jonathan Hunt, director of the complex. “We’re working on a lot of possible businesses. There’s a lot of opportunities here.”

Apr 18 2014

Report: Pennsylvania Forests Impacted By Drilling

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A small portion of Pennsylvania state forest land has been impacted by shale gas drilling, but many questions remain about how to manage the politically sensitive issue that is opposed by many residents, according to a new report.

The 268-page Department of Conservation and Natural Resources report issued this week concluded that “shale-gas production on state forest lands is neither benign nor catastrophic” and that there are clearly impacts and trade-offs.

“The question is what trade-offs are acceptable,” the report said.

The report found that about 1,486 acres of forest have been converted to various types of drilling-related development since 2008, including roads, well pads, and pipelines, out of about 2.2 million acres in the state forest system. That gas development resulted in 191 infrastructure pads and 104 miles of pipelines.

Apr 7 2014

West Goshen Crowd Boos Sunoco Plan

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Chester County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

WEST GOSHEN TOWNSHIP, PA – Sunoco Logistics Partners L.L.C. was granted a continuance Thursday night of its zoning hearing regarding a pump station it wants to put in at the corner of Boot Road and Route 202, much to the objection of hundreds of residents.

According to zoning board solicitor Mark Thompson, Sunoco originally appeared before the zoning hearing board three weeks ago and asked for the hearing to be continued to Thursday night. Between the last zoning hearing and Thursday, Sunoco submitted a request for continuance of the hearing. Thompson said he believed the reason for the request was to allow Sunoco time to find out answers to questions raised during the last hearing.

The project in the township, part of Sunoco’s Mariner East pipeline, includes the development of a pump enclosure, piping, valves and a vapor combustion system to be 34-feet high, according to the zoners.

The pump station would be constructed over existing pipelines that Sunoco previously shipped distilled petroleum through. The pipelines would be re-purposed to deliver natural gas liquids from Marcellus Shale areas in western Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery in Delaware County, Pennsylvania and New Castle County, Delaware.

Feb 10 2014

Gas Field Politics Affect Leadership In Western Pennsylvania Communities

Map of Washington County higlighting Robinson Township. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rodger Kendall says he never wanted to enter politics, but when he did, he waded into one of the biggest political conflicts in Pennsylvania.

Kendall became a supervisor in Robinson, Washington County, in January, less than three weeks since it won a landmark state Supreme Court ruling overturning part of new laws aimed at eliminating local obstacles to shale drilling.

Despite the win, he used his first night in office, Jan. 6, to lead a vote to remove Robinson from the case. Then he made his first official call as a township supervisor to Range Resources Corp.

In one election, voters dumped two of the township’s three supervisors and shifted the township’s position on drilling.

Nov 21 2013

Sunoco To Pipe Shale Gas Through Clay, West Cocalico Townships

English: Sunoco Logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A decommissioned underground pipeline that once carried gasoline across the state and through Lancaster County could see new life from the Marcellus shale gas boom.

Representatives of Sunoco Inc., of Philadelphia, have recently been in West Cocalico and Clay townships doing site surveys and scouting locations for a pumping station needed as part of a statewide retrofit of the pipeline so that it can transport natural gas to a facility in Delaware.

“Mariner East 1 is a project to transport natural gas liquids (NGLs), also called liquefied petroleum gases (LPGs) from the Marcellus and Utica shales in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia to the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex on the Pennsylvania/Delaware border,” Sunoco representative Jeff Shields wrote in an email Nov. 20.

The Mariner East 1 project would stretch from a Sunoco facility just outside Houston, Pa., in Chartiers Township, Washington County, to its transportation hub in Marcus Hook, Delaware County, or a distance of about 300 miles.

Jul 8 2013

Pittsburgh-Area Hotels Find Niche In Oil, Gas Workers

Locator map of the Greater Pittsburgh metro area in the western part of the of . Red denotes the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Statistical Area, and yellow denotes the New Castle Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is included in the Pittsburgh-New Castle CSA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To endear a hotel to the oil and gas crowd, give them a place to eat and sleep at all hours of the day, a place to wash their boots, a warm place to smoke in the winter and a cold beer once in a while.

So goes the formula developed by Tejas Gosai, president of the Washington, Pa.-based business Shale Hotel Inc. The company is managing two hotels geared toward oil and gas workers, building two others and preparing to turn the Monroeville Holiday Inn into an industry destination for workers summoned here by the Marcellus Shale, the natural gas deposit underlying much of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Gosai represents a group of four doctors, among them his father, who bought the 187-room Monroeville hotel in June. His goal is to replicate there what he has helped to do in Bentleyville — attract at least half of the guests from oil and gas fields.

The Gosais have been in the hotel business for a dozen years. Kam Gosai, a practicing physician in Washington County, co-owns the Holiday Inn Express and the Best Western Garden Inn in Bentleyville.

Jun 24 2013

Slice Of Shale Pie Feeds Projects

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Berks County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Soon the playground at Gring’s Mill Recreation Area will be out of the woods, literally and figuratively.

Credit goes to an issue not likely to hit Berks County directly: drilling for natural gas.

County officials recently were told they could expect a check any day for $345,000 from the impact fees gas producers pay the state. That’s on top of the $349,068 they received last year. The money must be spent for parks and recreation projects.

The money enables the county to bump up the timetable for projects identified in the parks department’s five-year plan, and avoid spending taxpayer money on them, county Commissioner Kevin S. Barnhardt said.

May 11 2013

South Side Site Becoming Pittsburgh’s Second Compressed Natural Gas Station

English: Symbol used for vehicles powered by compressed natural gas. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A former Exxon station in Station Square is becoming the city’s second compressed natural gas station with the help of state funding announced this week.

The station, located near the T station at the edge of the Smithfield Street Bridge, is currently under construction. It will be owned by Desdemona Holdings LP and operate under the American Natural Retail brand.

Desdemona Holdings received a $372,300 grant and $248,200 loan to help complete the project. Desdemona is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cleopatra Resources LLC, a New York-based energy company with local offices near Homestead.

A timetable for completion was not given.

Apr 7 2013

Gas Industry In Berks: What’s In The Pipeline

Counties constituting the Endless Mountains Region of Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

DUSHORE – Now that the major surgery that took place last year in the beautiful northern tier of Pennsylvania is complete, Frank Carr Jr. can tell Berks Countians what it is like to have an interstate natural gas pipeline implanted in your land.

You get paid. You see your land temporarily torn up. You have the right to object.

Ultimately, though, you may have no choice.

“To me, it just doesn’t seem right that they can come in and tell you where they are going,” said Carr, who co-owns a 500-acre dairy farm in Bradford County. “But I also know they have got to get the gas to market, and it is all a part of that.”

Apr 6 2013

Study: Poor Health Habits Prevalent In Northeast Pennsylvania

Counties constituting Northeastern Pennsylvania (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A project aimed at establishing a benchmark of regional residents’ health reinforced something already known — Northeastern Pennsylvania residents, generally speaking, are not very healthy.

The study, conducted by the Scranton-based Northeast Regional Cancer Institute, was done so the effects of the Marcellus Shale industry on the region’s health can be gauged in the future.

“We wanted to create a baseline on the health of the community to use as a benchmark against future studies to see what effects, if any, and to what extent the industry will have had on the region’s health,” said Bob Durkin, president of the Cancer Institute.

Dr. Samuel Lesko, principal investigator for the survey, said a variety of issues related to “fracking” and other processes used to produce natural gas have contributed to community concerns about potential adverse health outcomes.

Mar 25 2013

Shale Boom Helps Restore Service From Wilkes-Barre/Scranton To Pittsburgh

Locator map of the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Metropolitan Statistical Area in the northeastern part of the of . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The natural-gas drilling boom in the Marcellus Shale could be the key to ending a 6-year hiatus in air service between Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport and the second-largest city in Pennsylvania.

A study examining the feasibility of providing commercial air service between Pittsburgh International Airport and 13 intrastate regional airports is halfway complete, said Jeffrey Hartz, a senior consultant at Mead & Hunt, the group hired to complete the report.

Funded in part by the Allegheny County Airport Authority, the study is designed to develop business plans – including possible costs and flight schedules – and market analyses for airport boards to present to interested airlines.

The study will assess the demand for adding connecting flights on a market-by-market basis and provide information, including how full an aircraft must be on a daily basis in order for an airline to profit.

Mar 18 2013

Pennsylvania Pushes Drillers To Frack With Coal Mine Water

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Each day, 300 million gallons of polluted mine water enters Pennsylvania streams and rivers, turning many of them into dead zones unable to support aquatic life. At the same time, drilling companies use up to 5 million gallons of fresh water for every natural-gas well they frack.

State environmental officials and coal region lawmakers are hoping that the state’s newest extractive industry can help clean up a giant mess left by the last one. They are encouraging drillers to use tainted coal mine water to hydraulically fracture gas wells in the Marcellus Shale formation, with the twin goals of diverting pollution from streams and rivers that now run orange with mine drainage and reducing the drillers’ reliance on fresh sources of water.

Drainage from abandoned mines is one of the state’s worst environmental headaches, impairing 5,500 miles of waterways.

Feb 20 2013

PA Marcellus Topped 2 Trillion Cubic Feet Of Gas In 2012

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Pennsylvania’s Marcellus and other shale wells produced more than 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2012, continuing a trend of production growth despite fewer drilling rigs in the field.

New production data reported by natural gas drilling companies and released by the state Department of Environmental Protection on Tuesday showed that 1.1 trillion cubic feet of gas flowed from unconventional wells in the state during the second half of 2012.

The wells produced an average of 6.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day between July and December, or enough to fulfill about 9 percent of the nation’s daily natural gas demand. The U.S. consumed about 70 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in 2012, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Feb 19 2013

Geisinger Study To Examine Health Effects Of Gas Drilling

English: Cropped portion of image from USGS report showing extent of Marcellus Formation shale (in gray shading). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

DANVILLE – A Pennsylvania health company said it has gotten a $1 million grant to study possible health impacts of natural gas drilling on the Marcellus Shale.

Geisinger Health System said Monday that the Degenstein Foundation had awarded the money to help underwrite what it called a “large-scale, scientifically rigorous assessment” of the drilling.

Most of the money will be used for data-gathering, and some will go toward developing studies of the data. Officials said they expect other funders to come forward.

The study is to look at detailed health histories of hundreds of thousands of patients who live near wells and other facilities that are producing natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation thousands of feet underground.

Feb 9 2013

Liquefied Gas Exports Would Boost Growth

LNG is a commonly used acronym for liquefied natural gas, essentially natural gas that is put into liquid form, often for the purpose of transportation.

For international trade, LNG is sent in insulated tanker ships using refrigeration that keeps the liquefied natural gas at a chilly -260 degrees Fahrenheit. Global shipments travel to receiving terminals on a daily basis where pipelines are then used to provide this clean-burning energy source to homes, schools, businesses and government buildings. More receiving terminals are being built around the world each year.

In the U.S. there is growing debate over LNG exports, some of which could come from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations found in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

The Energy Information Administration estimates that in just three years natural gas supply could exceed demand, allowing the U.S. to be a net exporter of LNG. Bipartisan support for such exports has grown to include local and national politicians; most recently, more than 100 members of the House of Representatives signed onto a letter to Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu that asked the Obama administration for advance LNG exports without delay.

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Tag Archives: Marcellus Formation

Shale Oil, Gas Finds Put Mon Valley On Path To Renaissance, Leaders Say

Shell Touts Utica Gas Wells In Northern Pa.

Gas Production From Marcellus Shale Sets Record Despite Fewer New Wells Going Online

EQT Posts $110.9 Million Profit In Latest Quarter

Marcellus Can Help Boost Pennsylvania Steel

Marcus Hook Refinery Gets Makeover As Natural Gas Hub

Report: Pennsylvania Forests Impacted By Drilling

West Goshen Crowd Boos Sunoco Plan

Gas Field Politics Affect Leadership In Western Pennsylvania Communities

Sunoco To Pipe Shale Gas Through Clay, West Cocalico Townships

Pittsburgh-Area Hotels Find Niche In Oil, Gas Workers

Slice Of Shale Pie Feeds Projects

South Side Site Becoming Pittsburgh’s Second Compressed Natural Gas Station

Gas Industry In Berks: What’s In The Pipeline

Shale Boom Helps Restore Service From Wilkes-Barre/Scranton To Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania Pushes Drillers To Frack With Coal Mine Water

PA Marcellus Topped 2 Trillion Cubic Feet Of Gas In 2012

Geisinger Study To Examine Health Effects Of Gas Drilling

Liquefied Gas Exports Would Boost Growth