On October 25, 2012, GreenHunter Water, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of GreenHunter Energy, Inc., acquired two Class II Underground Injection Control (UIC) wells in Washington County, Ohio and Ritchie County, West Virginia for the disposal of salt water and other wastewater produced from natural gas exploration and production operations. The UIC well in Washington County has a disposal capacity of up to 2,000 Barrels per day, and the Richie County well has a disposal capacity of up to 1,000 Barrels per day. GreenHunter also added five 80-Barrel water hauling to its Appalachia fleet.
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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…
Gulfport Energy Corporation reported positive production results for its Shugert 1-1H well in Ohio’s Utica shale. Located in Belmont County, Ohio, Shugert 1-1H tested at a peak rate of 20.0 million cubic feet per day of natural gas, 144 barrels of condensate per day, and 2,002 barrels of natural gas liquids per day. Gulfport plans to begin flowing the Shugert 1-1H well into a sales pipeline by early December.
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…
Marathon Petroleum Corporation and Harvest Pipeline Company on Tuesday announced a letter of intent between the companies to jointly develop infrastructure on the Ohio River to allow transport of hydrocarbon liquids produced from the Utica Shale. The project is anticipated to include a truck unloading facility and a barge loading terminal in Wellsville, WV, that will enable liquid hydrocarbons produced in the region to be shipped to Marathon’s refinery in Catlettsburg, KY. The improvements are expected to be finished in late 2013. Marathon also recently completed an expansion of its unloading facilities at its Canton, OH, refinery. The State Journal has more.
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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On Oct. 1, the Yellow Springs Village Council voted 3-2 to adopt a Community Bill of Rights ordinance banning shale gas drilling and related activities in the village. Yellow Springs is the first municipality in the state of Ohio to enact a local Bill of Rights and protect those rights by prohibiting shale gas drilling and fracing and the ensuing injection wells. However, such ordinance may not be enforceable and could face a court challenge since the local legislation would be preempted by state law under Ohio Rev. Code 1509.03. Continue reading…
The first major assessment of the valuation of Ohio’s Utica Shale draws near as EV Energy Partners LP and its parent company, EnerVest LP, announced last week that recently de-risked Utica Shale holdings situated in the heart of the liquids-rich region are to be primed for sale before the end 2012. Previous transactions in the Utica region occurred before widespread drilling began and were highlighted by the hope the play promised. However, this transaction will be the first market test of the Utica Shale after the play has seen more than a year of drilling; at last demarcating the play’s potential with hard facts. Continue reading…
Utica East Ohio Midstream has begun site preparation for a shale gas collection and processing plant, according to Cleveland.com. The site, located on 117 acres south of Hanoverton, Columbiana County, will be the home of the $400 million plant, which is estimated to have an initial capacity of 600 million cubic feet per day. The first phase of the plant is to be operational by May of 2013.
The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District (“MWCD”) announced the authorization of short-term sales of water to the oil and gas industry. The authorization of water sales is limited to Clendening Lake in Harrison County and Piedmont Lake in Belmont County, and can occur only during the fall and winter months when the lake levels are in “drawdown stage” – the release of more than 6 billion gallons of water as part of flood reduction operations. The MWCD authorized the water sales to provide a convenient source of water for companies planning to drill in the area and to reduce truck traffic, thereby reducing damage to township roads. Read more ›
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.