Marcellus

Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Corbett could soon issue an executive order to lift a nearly four-year moratorium on new oil and gas leases in state parks and forests that would continue to bar new leases for surface operations, but offer operators access to the mineral rights under state land from wells on adjoining private land.

Despite severe winter weather that curtailed some of Cabot Oil & Gas Inc.’s production in both Texas and Pennsylvania in the first quarter, newfound momentum and a growing confidence in its assets will find it deploying another rig in the third quarter and scrapping its year-end plans to cut its budget by $75 million.

Magnum Hunter Resources Corp. on Tuesday announced a definitive agreement to sell subsidiary Williston Hunter Canada Inc. and its last remaining oil and gas properties in Canada for $67.5 million as part of a strategy to dump more capital into its core assets in the Appalachian Basin.

Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) is making the most out of the booming production from the Marcellus Shale with multiple backhaul/reversal projects. Meanwhile, that booming production and the bitter cold winter drove record throughput volumes in the company’s gas pipeline segment.

The U.S. onshore well count rose 4% year/year in 1Q2014, but it was down by 3% sequentially, with the biggest declines in the Marcellus and Barnett shales, Baker Hughes Inc. said.

A “not in my backyard” fight is shaping up in southeast Pennsylvania, where in Berks County, a grassroots organization has been formed to oppose a 500,000 gallon/d gas-to-liquids (GTL) facility that would produce gasoline and propane on a 63-acre plot in South Heidelberg Township.

Nirav Shah — commissioner of the New York Department of Health (DOH) and a figure at the center of the debate over whether to allow high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF) in the state — is planning to resign his post next month for a new job in California.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has sent Chevron Appalachia LLC notice of nine violations stemming from an explosion and fire at a well site in Greene County, PA, that left one worker dead and another injured in February (see Shale Daily, Feb. 11).

Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company LLC (Transco) is seeking offers from shippers to relinquish firm capacity on its system to support the proposed Atlantic Sunrise Project, which is intended to serve Marcellus Shale production.