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The oil and gas industry is the most dynamic industry in the U.S. and will remain so for a long time, according to T. Boone Pickens, chairman of BP Capital Management, who spoke Monday during Gov. Tom Corbett's Jobs 1st Summit in Pittsburgh. "What an opportunity for our country with 30 of our states being producing states," he said. Pickens said the country should take advantage of its energy resources and convert its fleet of commercial heavy-duty trucks over to natural gas. And it should form a strategic energy alliance with Canada and Mexico. Those two things he said could...

HOUSTON — Natural gas production in the Marcellus Region exceeded 15 billion cubic feet per day in July, the most productive period ever recorded there, according to a government analysis. The Marcellus Region, located largely in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, now accounts for almost 40 percent of U.S. shale gas production. The field’s rapid growth has had a major effect on the surrounding markets for gas and isn’t expected to ebb soon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Marcellus Region’s natural gas productivity has surged since 2010, when production totaled 2 billion cubic feet per day. New wells...

Natural gas production in the Marcellus Region exceeded 15 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) through July, the first time ever recorded, according to EIA's latest Drilling Productivity Report. The Marcellus Region, mostly located in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, is the largest producing shale gas basin in the United States, accounting for almost 40% of U.S. shale gas production. Marcellus Region production has increased dramatically over the past four years, increasing from 2 Bcf/d in 2010 to its current level. The rig count in the Marcellus Region has remained steady at around 100 rigs over the past 10 months. Given...

"Crisis" may be a little hyperbolic. But shale production of oil and gas in America suddenly got a lot riskier this week. That's because of a landmark decision from one of the highest state courts in the land. Upholding the right of individual towns to regulate shale drilling, trumping state or federal regulatory regimes. The ruling came down yesterday in New York. Where the State Court of Appeals voted 5-2 to reject challenges to fracking rules imposed on the oil and gas industry by two municipalities in the state: Dryden and Middlefield. The saga started in 2011. When the two...

New York’s top court handed a victory to opponents of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas Monday by affirming the right of municipalities to ban the practice within their borders. The state Court of Appeals affirmed a midlevel appeals court ruling from last year that said the state oil and gas law doesn’t trump the authority of local governments to control land use through zoning. […] The court in a 5-2 decision stressed that it did not consider the merits of fracking, but only the “home rule” authority of municipalities to regulate their land use. The court said the towns of...

The Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) announced on Monday that it expects service to commence as soon as today for the first 0.25 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of capacity on its 0.60 Bcf/d Seneca Lateral pipeline in southeast Ohio. The 14.3-mile lateral will flow gas north from the MarkWest Seneca natural gas processing plant to the REX mainline, where a newly built compressor station will allow this gas to be delivered to points west in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. No new pipelines will be added to the mainline; the project will allow bidirectional flows—both east and west—to occur on...

Nearly 15 million people in New England live within driving distance of America's biggest natural-gas field, yet heating and electricity prices reached a record for the region this winter. As states stretching from Massachusetts to Maine thaw out from bitter cold, questions linger about why New England hasn't benefited from the energy boom in the nearby Marcellus Shale. The short answer is not enough pipelines. And the reason is an impasse between pipeline operators and power plants over how to pay for new capacity. The problem is that pipeline operators want long-term contracts in place before they spend the hundreds...

After early complaints that out-of-state firms got the most jobs, some local construction trade workers and union members in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia say they're now benefiting in a big way from the Marcellus and Utica shale oil and gas boom. That vocal support from blue-collar workers complicates efforts by environmentalists to limit the drilling process known as fracking. "The shale became a lifesaver and a lifeline for a lot of working families," said Dennis Martire, the mid-Atlantic regional manager for the Laborers' International Union, or LIUNA, which represents workers in numerous construction trades. Martire said that as huge...

Anadarko Petroleum, Chesapeake Energy and others will pay the state of Pennsylvania about $225 million in fees this year for drilling in the gas-rich Marcellus Shale — too little, according to critics of the state law setting the fee say. The fees, enacted in 2012, flow to local governments to fund basic needs like bridges, roads, firefighting equipment and environmental programs. By the end of the year, the recurring charges on nearly 6,500 natural gas wells will have brought more than $630 million to state coffers. “We are building a stronger Pennsylvania by harnessing our abundant resources to create jobs...

 Is Marcellus Shale Gas Production Nearing a Peak? By Arjun Sreekumar | More Articles | Save For Later March 9, 2014 | Comments (0) Natural gas industry observers will attest that growth in gas production from Pennsylvania's Marcellus shale has surpassed even the most optimistic of projections. And, according to a new report by a prominent investment research firm, Marcellus production growth won't be peaking anytime soon. Let's take a closer look. Source: Wikimedia Commons.The rapid growth in Marcellus gas production Last year, natural gas output from the Marcellus surged 61% year over year to average 10.4 billion cubic feet...

Why natural gas rigs continue to drop to the lowest 2014 levels By Ingrid Pan, CFA 7 hours ago   Why oil rig counts keep climbing while natural gas rigs drop (Part 3 of 3)(Continued from Part 2)Natural gas rigs continued to drop last week, down 9% since the beginning of 2014Baker Hughes, an oilfield services company, reported that rigs targeting natural gas dropped last week, from 351 to 337 for the week ended February 14, 2014. Natural gas rigs are down by 35 since the beginning of the year, a decrease of ~9%. Note that Baker Hughes anticipates that...

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,...

Average wholesale (spot) prices for natural gas increased significantly throughout the United States in 2013 compared to 2012. The average wholesale price for natural gas at Henry Hub in Erath, Louisiana, the key benchmark location for pricing throughout the United States, rose 35% to $3.73 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2013. Increased winter demand pushed inventories down and prices up to above $4.00/MMBtu in March and April, but decreased consumption for electric generation over the summer and positive (but flattening) production growth kept 2013 prices at their lowest level since 2002 with the exception of 2012. The price...

From 2011 to 2012, Pennsylvania's marketed natural gas (which includes natural gas plant liquids) production grew by 72%, moving it from the seventh-largest to the third-largest marketed gas-producing state in the United States, according to the Natural Gas Annual, 2012. Preliminary data (as well as estimates from the Drilling Productivity Report) indicate that continued Marcellus production may result in Pennsylvania becoming the second-largest producer in 2013. Tight gas development significantly increased production in several regions, including the Marcellus in the Northeast and the Eagle Ford in Texas. Marketed production in the Lower 48 states increased by 5% between 2011 and...

The county that includes Pittsburgh could reap more than $73 million by leasing a public park for gas well drilling, a newspaper reported Sunday. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette obtained documents that show Range Resources and driller Huntley and Huntley sent a proposal to Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald last month that list a signing bonus of $3,000 an acre and a 17 percent royalty on future sales. Range Resources spokesman Matt Pitzarella said royalties could be generated for decades, and there will not be an impact on Deer Lakes Park. The plan is to reach the gas through horizontal drilling from...

Production of natural gas in the Marcellus region, located in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, is expected to exceed 13 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) this month, based on estimates in the U.S. Energy Information Administration's latest Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), which will be released later today. The Marcellus region, which produced less than 2 Bcf/d as recently as 2010, is expected to provide 18% of total U.S. natural gas production this month. The total natural gas production estimate is marketed production, while the DPR estimates gross withdrawals, so coming up with a precise percentage is difficult. The rise of...

The US shale gas revolution is producing a lot of ethane in the Northeast that doesn’t have an obvious market. New pipeline projects are taking care of that issue, as Bridget Hunsucker discusses in this week’s Oilgram News column, At the Wellhead. New NGL pipeline capacity will soon come online in the US Northeast, much to the relief of natural gas producers who face a perplexing logistics dilemma with unwanted ethane. Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner West project and Enterprise’s Appalachia-to-Texas Express Pipeline (ATEX) pipeline, both of which will transport a glut of unwanted ethane from the area, are expected to ramp...

Energy: After more than five years of a fracking moratorium, a leading energy company walks away from its leases, leaving New York, its natural gas riches — and the jobs and wealth they could generate — unrealized. In 2000, people from Chesapeake Energy began arriving in Broome County, New York, a few miles north of the Pennsylvania border. Broome had seen better economic days but was lucky to be sitting right atop the natural gas-rich Marcellus Shale formation, which stretches through much of the Northeast. Over the next few years, Chesapeake was able to snap up drilling rights to some...

Companies operating in the Marcellus and Utica shale regions say it has been a challenge to fill openings in engineering, geology, environmental health and other professional fields. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a gas drilling industry trade group, on Wednesday released a workforce survey of more than 100 of its members. The companies said that finding qualified talent and getting prospective employees to relocate are the biggest challenges they face when it comes to hiring. Of the most difficult positions to fill, 49 percent were in professional fields and 15 percent were in management...

Fracking brings breathtaking economic and environmental benefits—at least to places that welcome it.Few people understand the ground better than Larry Fulmer, a soft-spoken man with flowing white hair pulled back into a ponytail. Fulmer, the hydrofracturing superintendent for Cabot Oil & Gas in Pennsylvania, knows just how much pressurized water and sand will liberate the natural gas trapped in the shale rock a mile beneath our feet. Here, in a small square field carved out of hill country in Dimock, Pennsylvania, his crew is mixing water and sand day and night. “They pull [the mixture] in at 35 to 40...