Jamison Cocklin

The Marcellus Shale continued to drive significant production gains for Consol Energy Inc. in the second quarter, while its program in the Utica Shale is picking up pace and expected to account for a larger portion of volumes by the end of this year.

A faulty valve that leaked gas at a Consol Energy Inc. site in Greene County, PA, on Thursday is thought to be the cause of a fire that burned briefly at a pump station near a four-well pad before it extinguished itself, regulators and company officials said.

Piedmont Natural Gas on Tuesday opened a compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station to the public in Nashville, TN, hailing it as the next step in the utility company’s efforts to establish a CNG fueling corridor along the major interstates in its service area.

Just hours after Gov. Tom Corbett signed a $29.1 billion state budget last week (see Shale Daily, July 10), the Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation (PEDF) filed a request with the Commonwealth Court asking a judge to declare the move unconstitutional as part of its two-year effort to stop the administration from leasing public forest land for oil and gas drilling.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. said Monday the Appalachian Basin now accounts for approximately 80% of its total proved reserves, up from 70% at the end of last year as it continues to divest non-core assets to focus on developing nearly 200,000 net Marcellus/Utica acres.

A recently released study by the FrackTracker Alliance shows that water use and wastewater generated from horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has dramatically increased in the Appalachian Basin since 2010, leading to a corresponding increase in the use of Class II underground injection wells, especially in Ohio.

After facing strong opposition from students, faculty and nearby residents who maintained a fossil fuel plant did not coincide with the school’s mission to reduce its carbon footprint, the University of Delaware has scrapped plans for a 279 MW co-generation power plant that would have burned natural gas.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. agreed to purchase the remaining mineral rights of bankrupt aluminum producer Ormet Corp. in Monroe County, OH, and Wetzel County, WV, for $22.3 million, according to documents filed in a Delaware bankruptcy court last week.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s office has fired back at ExxonMobil Corp. subsidiary XTO Energy Inc., saying in a court filing that the company’s efforts to dismiss criminal charges against it are “nothing more than weak attempts to obfuscate the truth.”