An AP article reports that drillers produced about $4.7 billion worth of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia during 2011.
Several major natural gas drillers have developed a set of standards for hydraulic fracturing in the Appalachian Basin. The standards recommend practices for drilling, well design, water use, equipment use and public outreach.
An article on TheIntelligencer.net website explains how the geography of natural gas drilling in West Virginia is shifting from the dry gas areas that consists of most of the state to a few counties in the northern panhandle where wells yield natural gas liquids.
Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine, a mountaintop removal project in Logan County, West Virginia was approved, then denied and then approved again. If developed, it will be the largest mountaintop removal project in the state.
This video provides a summary of work done by Katie Loughner, who served as a GeoCorps Intern at the C & O Canal National Historical Park. You can learn more about working at a GeoCorps Intern at the GSA Foundation website.
The-Vug.com has an impressive listing of mineral clubs organized by state. You might be surprised at how many clubs are listed and there is probably one that meets within a short drive of your home.
An article on the Boston.com website explores possible developments related to the Marcellus Shale in 2012. A new lease environment, geographic shifts in activity, price directions and more.
The Energy Information Administration has a brief article on the rapid increase in natural gas production that has occurred in the northeastern United States since 2004. The largest gains were in northeastern Pennsylvania, southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The West Virginia legislature passed a bill known as the “Natural Gas Horizontal Wells Control Act” by a vote of 92-5 in the House of Delegates and by a vote of 33-0 in the Senate. It addresses reclamation, fees that will generate millions in revenue, disclosure to surface owners, hydraulic fracturing chemicals, and much more. A summary can be read on the MarketWatch website.
Marathon Petroleum is preparing to refine oil produced from the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio and western Pennslyvania. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources estimates that the Utica Shale could yield between 1.3 and 5.5 billion barrels of crude.
In many parts of the Marcellus Shale gas play local residents are disappointed to see so many workers from over a thousand miles away getting high-paying jobs while local unemployment rates are very high. Letters similar to this one have been published in newspapers across the area underlain by the Marcellus Shale and other shales that produce natural gas..
The folks at MyTopo.com are now printing supersized topo maps – large enough make a huge 5′ x 8′ (or 8′ x 5′) map that will look fantastic on the wall of your office, conference room, lobby, cabin or den. These maps are custom-centered on any location that you pick using their online map-making tool. Lots of smaller sizes are also available.
We are affiliates of MyTopo.com and receive a commission on sales.
The Marcellus Shale Coalition website has an article that provides safety advice for people who will be hunting in areas where natural gas drilling is taking place.
Raven Maps are beautiful examples of shaded-relief wall maps that display the elevation of a state in vibrant colors. These large maps look great in a classroom, den or office. Use one to mark the locations of your work or company.
Natural gas companies have drilled a number of highly successful wells into the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio. Now, drilling, permitting, and acquisition activity is starting to boom.
Thousands of people across the United States have signed leases that give energy companies the right to drill on their land. However, many of these properties have mortgages that prohibit the property owner from entering into a mineral lease.
State and local governments have either been collecting revenues from Marcellus Shale activities or wishing that they were collecting revenues. An article on Platts.com explores some of the ways that state and local governments are generating revenues.
Parts of the Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale contain worthy amounts of ethane which is a valuable feedstock for the plastics industry. Will it be shipped by pipeline to distant manufacturers or will local manufacturing industries develop?
An Associated Press article examines how people who favor and oppose Marcellus Shalenatural gas development have very different perceptions of problems and opportunities.
A sequence of rocks above the Marcellus Shale, known as the “Upper Devonian Shales” might hold significant amounts of recoverable natural gas and natural gas liquids. From top to bottom the Upper Devonian Shales, Marcellus Shale and Utica Shale are the “stacked plays of the Appalachians”.
Although data is only available for 16 wells drilled into a Utica Shale resource that has a geographic extent of 170,000 square miles, that is not stopping oil and gas companies from spending billions of dollars on acreage.
An article in the Charleston Daily Mail explains how Marcellus Shale gas can be used as a source of energy and as a feedstock in the chemical manufacturing industry and how these might benefit the West Virginia economy.
Communities in New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have passed bans on hydraulic fracturing within their political boundaries. In some instances these bans have been overturned because the power to regulate of oil and gas drilling belongs to State governments. Now a company in New York has sued a town that passed a ban on drilling.
With just a small number of wells drilled into the Utica Shale using current technology, the potential of that rock unit remains unclear. However, a number of companies are placing big bets on the Utica – especially in Ohio.
Shell Oil Company is interested in developing a large-scale ethylene cracker plant somewhere over the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania, West Virginia or Ohio. The plant would process natural gas liquids into a variety of chemical products.
“The Marcellus Shale contains about 84 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas liquids according to a new assessment by the U. S. Geological Survey.” Quoted from the USGS news release.
Earthquake waves travel very efficiently in the crust of the eastern United States. As a result the Magnitude 5.9 earthquake that occurred today in Virginia was felt in at least 22 states plus the District of Colombia. Ground shaking has been reported to the USGS and by news accounts in: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Indiana, Georgia, Florida and Washington, DC.
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake occurred about 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Virginia at 1:51 PM local time. No injuries or severe damage has been reported in early news reports, however, the shaking was felt strongly enough in Washington, DC that some offices were evacuated.
In June 2011, the city of Morgantown, West Virginia banned hydraulic fracturing within a mile of the city limits. Northeast Natural Energy owned rights to some of the land under the city. Northeast said the action was a “taking”, Morgantown said that they were exercising “home rule”, but on Friday a Judge ruled that jurisdiction over drilling belongs to the State.
About three billion cubic feet of natural gas is being produced every day from the Marcellus Shale, an amount that is expected to grow significantly as more wells are drilled. Moving that gas to market will require thousands of miles of new pipelines, ranging from small-diameter gathering lines that serve individual wells to main lines that can be three-feet or more in diameter.
Chesapeake Energy announced a major new natural gas liquids play in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio based upon results from six horizontal and nine vertical wells. The company holds 1.25 million net leasehold acres in the Utica Shale and believes that they could be worth $15 – $20 billion in increased value to the company.
In 2008 and earlier lots of landowners above the Marcellus Shale signed natural gas lease agreements for the historical “going rate” of a few dollars per acre. Then as the potential of the rock unit became known the signing bonuses paid on leases skyrocketed to thousands of dollars per acre. Now these leases are expiring and legal battles between landowners and gas companies are beginning.
Last month the city of Morgantown, West Virginia passed an ordinance that banned hydraulic fracturing within a mile of the city limits. Now, Northeast Natural Energy says that they are entitled to millions of dollars in compensation.
Natural gas produced from some parts of the Marcellus Shale is especially rich in ethane, a key raw material for making ethylene for the plastics industry. This has captured the interest of the petrochemical industry because there is a strong demand for ethylene derivatives in the northeast.
Major oil companies are rapidly buying the small players in the Marcellus Shale gas play. Exxon Mobil Corporation just spent $1.7 billion to purchase Phillips Resources, Inc. and TWP Inc. This follows Chevron’s recent acquisition of Atlas Energy and other transactions.
In October 2010 researchers from Southern Methodist University discovered an enormous geothermal resource beneath eastern West Virginia. Now government agencies in the state are exploring how it might be developed.
Randy Huffman, Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection does not support a Marcellus Shale drilling moratorium for the state because… “If I ever felt the industry was so far out in front of our ability to properly regulate it, then I would consider such a thing.”
Marcellus Shale drilling companies are recycling lots of the water used in the hydraulic fracturing process. David Yoxtheimer, a Penn State hydrogeologist reports that gas drillers recycle about 2/3 of the drilling water returned to the surface.
Statoil ASA and Chesapeake Energy project that they could drill as many as 17,000 natural gas wells into the Marcellus Shale over the next twenty years.
A New York Times article explores concerns about radiation levels in wastewater from Marcellus Shale drilling sites and how that water is being processed before discharge into the environment.
An article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette explores water use associated with Marcellus Shale drilling. On average, the amount of water being used per well is declining and some companies are using fewer chemicals in their hydraulic fracturing water.
The Utica Shale has a larger geographic extent than both the Marcellus Shale of the Appalachian Basin and the Barnett Shale of Texas. It is also has a much larger total volume. Will its gas producing potential exceed that of the Marcellus and Barnett. An article on the Seeking Alpha blog explores this question.
John Pinkerton, CEO of Range Resources, explains the “Triple Play” in natural gas that can be had in parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia. Shale gas can be produced from the Upper Devonian Shale, the Marcellus Shale, and the Utica Shale – all from a single drill pad.
In an assessment of its lease holdings, Range Resources has included 10 to 14 trillion cubic feet of Upper Devoniannatural gas as an unproven resource. The Upper Devonian is above the Marcellus Shale and includes multiple organic shales such as the Cleveland, Huron-Dunkirk, Rhinestreet, Middlesex and Geneseo-Burket Shales. See an article on SearchAndDiscovery.net for a generalized stratigraphic sequence.
Chevron continues the stream of large diversified oil and gas companies who are buying up smaller companies with a heavy focus on natural gas shales. Atlas had lots of assets in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Many of those leases probably give access to the deeper Utica Shale which is attracting more interest.
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