Marcellus

Cone Midstream Partners LP (CNNX), formed to own and develop natural gas gathering assets in the Marcellus Shale, captured investors’ attention in its market debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Thursday, climbing more than 38% from the opening bid.

Federal prosecutors have charged a former Consol Energy Inc. manager with 60 counts of mail fraud for an alleged royalties scheme that siphoned $440,000 from the company’s interests at parcels in West Virginia and Illinois, according to charges filed Monday.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection slapped Range Resources Corp. with a $4.15 million fine for a series of violations at six of the company’s water impoundments in southwest Pennsylvania, representing the largest financial penalty against any operator in the state’s shale drilling era.

In a wide-ranging analysis of 1H2014 state production data, the Pennsylvania State University Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research (MCOR) demonstrated how unconventional operators are only just beginning to hit their stride in the nation’s largest natural gas producing formation.

Rex Energy Inc. is planning to begin site development late next week at a controversial location near a large school campus in western Pennsylvania. The company has been met with staunch opposition from a group of parents concerned about the health and safety of students.

The Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) on Thursday issued its first certification to Chevron Appalachia LLC.

Power generator PSEG Power LLC, a unit of Public Service Enterprise Group, has taken an equity stake in PennEast Pipeline Co. LLC’s proposed $1 billion, 100-mile pipeline from Pennsylvania to New Jersey, PennEast said Thursday. The pipeline would run from Luzerne County in northeastern Pennsylvania to Transco’s Trenton-Woodbury interconnection in New Jersey (see Shale Daily,Sept. 5;Aug. 12). The pipeline, which is projected to enter service in 2017, would transport up to 1 Bcf/d and is targeting Marcellus Shale gas supplies. Additional pipeline partners include AGL Resources; NJR Pipeline Co., a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources; South Jersey Industries; and UGI Energy Services (UGIES), a subsidiary of UGI Corp. PSEG Power, which would be a shipper on the pipeline, will have a 12% interest in PennEast. The other PennEast Pipeline Co. members each will have 22% interest. Preliminary engineering studies have begun, and a formal application is to be filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission next year. UGIES is the project manager and would operate the pipeline.

Gastar Exploration Inc. is poised to spend heavily in its Hunton Limestone oil play next year after approving a $257.3 million capital budget that mostly would go toward drilling, completion and infrastructure in Oklahoma.

A team of researchers from five universities has found natural gas in drinking water wells in areas of shale gas production in Pennsylvania and Texas. They blamed the gas migration, in part, on nature but also on on faulty gas well casings. Hydraulic fracturing was not the culprit, they said.