Utica Shale

Landfills in West Virginia will stop accepting drilling sludge after the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) discovered that a site in Harrison County recently accepted the material after it was rejected at another dump across the state line in Pennsylvania.

Activist fund Relational Investors LLC, helmed by former T. Boone Pickens lieutenants, is becoming the biggest shareholder in Magnum Hunter Resources Inc. (MHR) with a 15% stake after investing $150 million.

More than three years after a New Year’s Eve 2011 magnitude-4.0 earthquake rattled Youngstown, OH, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) has begun installing portable seismic monitoring stations across the eastern half of the state to monitor Class II underground injection wells similar to one linked to a Youngstown quake.

For the second time in less than two months, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has postponed indefinitely a set of public hearings regarding Hilcorp Energy Co.’s request for a forced pooling order in Western Pennsylvania. Three property owners filed suit earlier this month to stop the company.

Multiple Appalachian operators have earnestly started to delineate their Utica Shale acreage in West Virginia, delivering on the promises they’ve made in recent months to push the formation’s boundaries south beyond Ohio and drill deeper and longer on the lateral (see Shale Daily, March 26).

The Ohio House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 55-35 in favor of a bill that would levy a 2.5% severance tax on oil and natural gas produced from horizontal wells, most of which target the Marcellus and Utica shales.

The Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) said Wednesday it has received a two-year, $150,000 grant from the Richard King Mellon Foundation in support of its certification program and public engagement initiatives.

The Ohio House of Representatives late Wednesday afternoon voted 55-35 in favor of a bill that would levy a 2.5% severance tax on oil and natural gas produced from horizontal wells.

The first three months of 2014, in which Rice Energy Inc. completed a $594.5 million initial public offering (IPO), also brought the Canonsburg, PA-based company good news out of the Marcellus and Utica shales.