EQT Corporation announced today that it will sell its distribution subsidiary Equitable Gas Company, LLC, to Peoples Natural Gas for $720 million, subject to adjustment. EQT CEO David Porges said in a company press release that the sale will allow EQT to focus on its production and midstream business segments. In the deal, EQT also will receive about 200 miles of transmission lines and four storage pools. Meanwhile, the transaction will make Peoples the largest gas utility and one of only two in the Pittsburgh area. View the Peoples press release on the transaction. The Tribune-Review has more on the sale.
On Monday, October 15, 2012, Carizzo Oil and Gas announced that Halcon Resources Corp. purchased a majority of their Utica Shale leases in Trumbull, Ohio, and Mercer and Crawford counties, Pennsylvania, for $43 million. An existing drilling pad and approved well drilling permits were also part of the sale. Carrizo will continue to own an undivided 10% interest, along with an option to increase its ownership to 50%, in nearly 26,000 additional gross acres, primarily in Guernsey County, Ohio, where the company said there were encouraging drilling results. Continue reading…
Marathon Petroleum Corporation announced Tuesday, October 9, 2012, that they plan to build a truck-to-barge loading facility in Wellsville, Ohio, to expedite the taking of hydrocarbon liquids oil produced in the Utica Shale play to Catlettsburg, Kentucky, for refining.
Marathon signed a letter of intent with Harvest Pipeline Company on September 27, 2012, agreeing to jointly develop infrastructure that will facilitate the transportation of hydrocarbon liquids production from the Utica Shale play in eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The project will provide 24,000 barrels per day of truck-unloading capacity and a terminal that can load up to 50,000 barrels per day of oil onto barges at the Ohio River in Wellsville. The proposed project includes modifications to Marathon`s existing Wellsville river terminal to accommodate the additional volume for loading onto barges, and a new truck rack to be built on property leased by Harvest Pipeline next to the Marathon facility. The project is anticipated to be complete in late 2013. Continue reading…
On October 4, 2012, the U.S. Geological Survey (“USGS”) released the first assessment of shale gas resources in the Utica. The assessment covered areas in Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The estimate of undiscovered oil ranges from 590 million barrels to 1.39 billion barrels, natural gas ranges from 21 to 61 trillion cubic feet, and the estimate of natural gas liquids ranges from 4 to 16 million barrels (95 percent to 5 percent probability, respectively).
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In July 2011, PIOGA filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania seeking to hold the United States Forest Service in contempt of court for allegedly failing to adhere to the Court’s December 2009 preliminary injunction order in the Minard Run, et al. v. United States Forest Service, et al. litigation. That order prevented the Forest Service from requiring mineral owners to prepare a NEPA document before the development of oil and gas rights in the Allegheny Forest. It also required the parties to revert to a drilling proposal process that they had used from 1980 until the litigation began in 2009.
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Tags: Cracker plant,
Energy law,
Environmental law,
Fracking,
Gas drilling,
Natural gas,
Natural resources,
PA Act 13,
Pennsylvania,
Pipeline construction,
Shale gas,
Utica Shale
Cecil Township, Robinson Township, Peters Township, and Mt. Pleasant Township, all in Washington County, and South Fayette Township, Allegheny County together filed a complaint in Commonwealth Court [add link to Complaint] arguing that Act 13 is unconstitutional. Chief among the issues raised by the municipalities is the explicit requirement that local ordinances “allow for the reasonable development of oil and gas resources”.
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On Tuesday March 20, Williams Partners L.P., a Williams Companies, Inc. affiliate, announced an agreement to acquire Caiman Eastern Midstream LLC, a midstream subsidiary of Caiman Energy, for $2.5 billion. Caiman Eastern’s holdings include existing physical assets such as a gathering system, two processing facilities and a fractionator. Expansions to the gathering system, processing facilities and fractionator are currently under construction. An ethane pipeline is also planned. The physical assets are supported by long-term contracted commitments for 236,000 dedicated gathering acres from 10 producers in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Through this acquisition, Williams Partners is able to establish a major footprint in the liquids-rich area of Marcellus shale. In coordination with this acquisition, Williams Partners is also announcing its intention to participate in a new joint venture with Caiman Energy to develop midstream infrastructure in the natural gas liquids and oil-rich areas of the Utica Shale, primarily in Ohio and northwest Pennsylvania.