Marcellus

The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) has awarded a Pennsylvania-based environmental consulting firm with a contract to coordinate and oversee a wide-ranging study for the analysis of methane in groundwater samples.

Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) brought its Team South pipeline expansion online at full capacity this week, transporting 300,000 Dth/d of natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales to two delivery points in Mississippi nearly two months ahead of schedule.

In an early test of last year’s Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that struck down parts of Act 13, a common pleas court judge has thrown out a conditional use permit issued by a township in Lycoming County that would have allowed drilling operations in a residential area.

The Denver-Julesburg (DJ) and Permian basins, and the Utica Shale, should lead all onshore plays for horizontal fracturing (fracking) this year as drilling and completion (D&C) activity continues to escalate, according to PacWest Consulting Partners LLC.

Federal regulators late Tuesday announced a settlement with Trans Energy Inc. that could find the small Marcellus Shale pure-play explorer paying a $3 million penalty and millions more to restore streams and wetlands at 15 sites across West Virginia for violating the Clean Water Act (CWA).

A unit of Royal Dutch Shell plc has drilled two natural gas wells into the Utica Shale in Pennsylvania near the New York border, 100 miles-plus from most of the current activity, news that suggests a much bigger potential for the far-reaching formation.

A closer look at oil and gas production in Pennsylvania from January-June shows that new drilling, backlogged wells waiting on pipelines or completion and others likely to return to production after a period of inactivity will help drive volumes in the state to a new record by the end of the year.

After more than a year of contending with regulators and a small group of landowners to secure more than 3,000 acres for four horizontal drilling units in western Pennsylvania, Hilcorp Energy Co. has dropped its bid for a rare forced pooling order with the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

EQT Corp. and NextEra Energy Inc. unit NextEra US Gas Assets LLC on Tuesday launched a binding open season for their Mountain Valley Pipeline project after receiving more than 1.5 Bcf/d of firm capacity commitments during a nonbinding open season that ended in July.