See the FracTraker Alliance for extensive coverage

From an Article by Nick Cunningham, DeSmog Blog, February 11, 2021

The fracking boom has received broad support from politicians across the aisle in Appalachia due to dreams of enormous job creation, but a report released on February 10 from Pennsylvania-based economic and sustainability think tank, the Ohio River Valley Institute (ORVI), sheds new light on the reality of this hype.

The report looked at how 22 counties across West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio — accounting for 90 percent of the region’s natural gas production — fared during the fracking boom. It found that counties that saw the most drilling ended up with weaker job growth and declining populations compared to other parts of Appalachia and the nation as a whole.

Shale gas production from Appalachia exploded from minimal levels a little over a decade ago, to more than 32 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2019, or roughly 40 percent of the nation’s total output. During this time, between 2008 and 2019, GDP across these 22 counties grew three times faster than that of the nation as a whole. However, based on a variety of metrics for actual economic prosperity — such as job growth, population growth, and the region’s share of national income — the region fell further behind than the rest of the country.

Between 2008 and 2019, the number of jobs across the U.S. expanded by 10 percent, according to the ORVI report, but in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, job growth only grew by 4 percent. More glaringly, the 22 gas-producing counties in those three states — ground-zero for the drilling boom — only experienced 1.7 percent job growth.

“What’s really disturbing is that these disappointing results came about at a time when the region’s natural gas industry was operating at full capacity. So it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which the results would be better,” said Sean O’Leary, the report’s author.

The report cited Belmont County, Ohio, as a particularly shocking case. Belmont County has received more than a third of all natural gas investment in the state, and accounts for more than a third of the state’s gas production. The industry also accounts for about 60 percent of the county’s economy. Because of the boom, the county’s GDP grew five times faster than the national rate. And yet, the county saw a 7 percent decline in jobs and a 2 percent decline in population over the past decade.

“This report documents that many Marcellus and Utica region fracking gas counties typically have lost both population and jobs from 2008 to 2019,” said John Hanger, former Pennsylvania secretary of Environmental Protection, commenting on the report. “This report explodes in a fireball of numbers the claims that the gas industry would bring prosperity to Pennsylvania, Ohio, or West Virginia. These are stubborn facts that indicate gas drilling has done the opposite in most of the top drilling counties.”

A Boom Without Job Growth

This lack of job growth was not what the industry promised. A 2010 study from the American Petroleum Institute predicted that Pennsylvania would see more than 211,000 jobs created by 2020 due to the fracking boom, while West Virginia would see an additional 43,000 jobs. Studies like these were widely cited by politicians as proof that the fracking boom was an economic imperative and must be supported.

But the Ohio River Valley Institute report reveals the disconnect between a drilling boom and rising GDP on the one hand, and worse local employment outcomes on the other. There are likely many reasons for this disconnect related to the long list of negative externalities associated with fracking: The boom-and-bust nature of extractive industries creates risks for other business sectors, such as extreme economic volatility, deterring new businesses or expansions of existing ones; meanwhile air, water, and noise pollution negatively impact the health and environment of residents living nearby.

“There can be no mistake that the closer people live to shale gas development, the higher their risk for poor health outcomes,” Alison Steele, Executive Director of the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, told DeSmog. “More than two dozen peer-reviewed epidemiological studies show a correlation between living near shale gas development and a host of health issues, such as worsening asthmas, heart failure hospitalizations, premature births, and babies born with low birth weights and birth defects.”

Moreover, oil and gas drilling is capital-intensive, not job-intensive. As the example of Belmont County shows, only about 12 percent of income generated by the gas industry can be attributable to wages and employment, while in other sectors, on average, more than half of income goes to workers.

In other words, it costs a lot of money to drill, but it doesn’t employ a lot of people, and much of the income is siphoned off to shareholders. To top it off, equipment and people are imported from outside the region — many of the jobs created went to workers brought in from places such as Texas and Oklahoma.

Despite the huge increase in shale gas production over the past decade, the vast majority of the 22 counties experiencing the drilling boom also experienced “economic stagnation or outright decline and depopulation,” the report said.

“[W]e could see long ago that the job numbers published and pushed out by the industry years ago were based in bluster, not our economic realities,” Veronica Coptis, Executive Director of Coalfield Justice, a non-profit based in southwest Pennsylvania, told DeSmog, commenting on the report. “At industry’s behest and encouragement, Pennsylvania promoted shale gas development aggressively in rural areas for more than a decade. And yet, the southwestern counties at the epicenter of fracking do not show any obvious improvement in well-being.”

Petrochemicals Also a False Hope

After natural gas prices fell sharply amid a glut of supply beginning in 2012, the number of wells drilled began to slow. Industry proponents then pinned their hopes on a new future: plastics. Petrochemical facilities would process low-cost natural gas into the building blocks of plastic and spur a virtuous cycle of new manufacturing while prolonging the drilling boom.

But the petrochemical promise has mostly been a mirage. Most of the proposed ethane crackers have been cancelled or delayed. Only one has moved forward: Shell’s ethane cracker in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, which was lured to the state with a $1.6 billion tax credit, the largest tax break in Pennsylvania history.

Even in Beaver County, job growth has been anemic: the county saw employment actually contract by 0.5 percent between 2008 and 2019, despite breaking ground on Appalachia’s flagship petrochemical facility, according to ORVI. In reality, the Shell cracker will employ several thousand people temporarily during construction, but only employ 600 people permanently when it comes online.

The market for petrochemicals has soured dramatically since Shell gave the greenlight on the project several years ago, raising doubts about future growth. And yet, in 2020, the Pennsylvania legislature passed another $667 million tax credit intended to lure in more petrochemical facilities to the state. Democratic Governor Tom Wolf supported it.

As the ORVI report concluded: “[P]olicymakers should look very critically at proposals to expand or otherwise assist the natural gas industry, which has yet to demonstrate that it is capable of contributing positively locally or on a large scale to the states and counties where it is most prevalent.”

Bruce Mansfield coal-fired power plant in western Penna. was closed in November 2019

From an Article by Chrissy Suttles, Elwood City Ledger, July 21, 2020

Reimagine Appalachia on July 21st released a New Deal-style policy framework to expand economic opportunity while reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the region.

A collective of environmental and economic policy groups in the region want federal lawmakers to include Appalachia in the national recovery conversation.

Large, absentee corporations have drained wealth from Appalachia for decades, the groups argue, leading to abandoned reclamation, pollution and poverty — especially in already marginalized communities. As Congress further addresses economic fallout linked to COVID-19, the partnership wants a seat at the table.

Reimagine Appalachia, a coalition of organizations from Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky, released the New Deal-style policy framework to expand economic opportunity while reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the Ohio River Valley.

The strategy was drafted by Policy Matters Ohio, a research institute, and its sister organizations in neighboring states, including the Keystone Research Center in Pennsylvania.

Their solution involves reviving federal recovery programs launched during the Great Depression and expanding transportation, clean manufacturing and broadband in rural areas.

By reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps, Americans could rebuild wetlands and reforest their land, authors said. Appalachia is rich in carbon-absorbing natural resources, and investment in “carbon farming” would help mitigate the effects of climate change.

“It’s important to understand we don’t have to eliminate every single carbon emission to achieve net-zero carbon. Trees absorb carbon,” said Amanda Woodrum, a senior researcher at Policy Matters Ohio. She said it’s likely national climate change legislation will come in the form of an economic stimulus package if trends continue.

Shuttered coal plants can be converted into eco-industrial parks that use circular manufacturing methods to turn a company’s waste into another’s raw material, too. Boilers and turbines can be re-purposed for combined heat and power to better meet the needs of manufacturers, and all orphaned oil and gas wells would be capped.

“Climate change is already causing damage in the Ohio River Valley,” authors wrote. “Severe storms have damaged our infrastructure and flooded our homes, communities and farms and made people sick.”

Publicly funded projects outlined in the strategy include upgrading the Rural Grid Modernization Program to give all Americans access to broadband internet. Similar to past initiatives, it could create tens of thousands of construction, maintenance and utility jobs.

Building an Appalachian rail corridor connecting rural areas to urban cores would provide a less-expensive form of transportation, according to the plan.

This would reduce the amount of money Appalachians spend on petroleum products imported from outside the region, the plan notes. Federal policymakers can further improve Appalachia’s transportation network by expanding public options and offer electric vehicle subsidies.

“The economy really does come down to people working, buying and selling stuff,” said Hannah Halbert, Policy Matters Ohio executive director. “People are the economy, and what’s good for people is good for the economy.”

Public construction projects would involve labor agreements, prevailing wages and apprentice-utilization requirements to ensure quality work under the blueprint, with a large share of apprentices coming from low-income, underrepresented communities.

Company leadership would have to honor workers’ freedom to unionize and ensure genuine opportunities for fossil fuel workers. Skilled laborers would not be asked to involuntarily relocate or retrain. “In fact, we need coal miners, plant workers and oil and gas to help us,” Woodrum said.

The coalition also demands public officials support those who contracted black lung disease and other chronic health problems while working in extraction industries. “These workers must be able to retire with dignity, with the health care they need as well as the retirement pensions they deserve,” authors said.

Average income in Appalachia has largely stagnated or declined in the past 40 years, according to Keystone Research Center executive director Stephen Herzenberg. In the four decades prior — from the late 1930s to the late 1970s — regional income tripled or quadrupled.

“The people of Appalachia have a great work ethic,” he said. “They expect to be paid fairly and to be protected and respected on the job. But for the past 40 years, almost none of the benefits of economic growth have been shared with working people in our region. Corporations and the politicians they control have held wages down.”

A copy of the full blueprint can be found at: reimagineappalachia.org.

National Economic Transition (NET) Platform is much needed

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CONTACTS:
Trey Pollard, Just Transition Fund, tpollard@justtransitionfund.org
and Cat McCue, Appalachian Voices, cat@appvoices.org

NATIONWIDE – Today, 80 local, regional, and national organizations and leaders unveiled their National Economic Transition (NET) platform to give federal and national leaders and policymakers the framework for an ambitious national transition program that supports the people and places hit hardest by the changing coal economy.

This NET platform was crafted by local, tribal, and labor leaders living and working in coal communities, along with non-profit sector partners, during a year-long collaboration led by the Just Transition Fund.

Amid the sharp decline of the coal sector over the past decade, these community leaders have already developed and implemented local policy solutions that help tackle the climate crisis and spur inclusive, equitable, and sustainable economic growth in places that once relied on coal.

The NET platform presents national leaders with a path to scale up these solutions in coal communities across the country by making a big, bold investment in the platform’s proposed comprehensive national transition program that, when implemented, will create vibrant, resilient, inclusive communities.

This year, U.S. coal consumption is set to decline by more than 23 percent and the closure of more coal facilities will likely be accelerated by COVID-19 and the economic decline. As a result, communities that once relied on coal, like coal mining communities in Appalachia, the Illinois Basin, Montana, Wyoming and elsewhere as well as communities with coal fired power plants from the Navajo Nation to Central Minnesota all face a potentially devastating crisis.

This crisis could mean more job losses, the further erosion of the tax base, and cuts to vital services layered on in places already struggling following previous recessions amid decades of inequality and widespread poverty. This perilous situation makes challenges for low-income communities, communities of color, and tribal communities already disproportionately left behind by the status quo even more significant.

As the national conversation continues to focus on economic development, racial inequity, and the climate crisis, the NET platform gives leaders the opportunity to help address these serious challenges in coal communities by enacting solutions that local leaders already know work.

To address these crises from Appalachia to the Navajo Nation, the NET platform urges national leaders to invest in the development of a national transition program built on seven pillars of policy recommendations that put communities in the driver’s seat, including proposals to:

……….National Economic Transition (NET) Platform……..

>> Develop local leadership and capacity to lead the transition — especially Black, brown, women, and Indigenous-led organizations and community members.

>> Create entities to coordinate transition-related programs and equip communities with the resources they need.

Recognizing the community-driven innovation on transition solutions and the need for a coordinated national transition program, the Just Transition Fund launched the NET project in early 2019. With the facilitation of Dialogue + Design Associates, a community engagement and design firm, a diverse planning team of representatives from coal communities across the country worked to draft this platform and refine it over the course of a year through an extensive idea-generation and feedback-gathering process.

That process included a series of in-depth interviews with community leaders and members of coal-impacted communities, an in-person meeting of coal community and transition leaders in June of 2019, three regional stakeholder meetings in Appalachia, the Midwest, and the West, and a digital engagement campaign to gather input from the broader public from coal-affected regions in the fall of 2019.

Community organizations and NET partners released statements in support of the NET platform and are available to discuss its release.

See the comments that appear below ….

CHEVRON premier assets after purchase of Atlas Energy in 2012

From an Article of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, December 11, 2019

California-based energy company Chevron Corp. is putting its Appalachian oil and gas business up for sale, the company reported this week.

It has about 400 employees in the unit and a regional office in Coraopolis. Chevron controls about 890,000 acres in the Marcellus and Utica shales across Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.

The Appalachian shale operations contributed to more than half of a massive impairment charge that the company revealed for the fourth quarter. That charge, which writes down the value of assets on Chevron’s books, will be between $10 billion and $11 billion, the company disclosed Tuesday.

Chevron burst onto the scene in Appalachia in 2011 with a $4.3 billion acquisition of shale gas firm Atlas Energy Inc. Two years later, it paid $17 million for a stretch of land in Moon Township where the company planned to build a new regional headquarters.

In 2014, those plans were put on indefinite hold and never materialized. The following year, the energy giant cut more than 150 positions from its Appalachian division as natural gas prices slumped.

In leaving the region, Chevron follows in the footsteps of other multinationals that tried out the Marcellus and Utica shale regions but moved on in favor of other projects around the globe.

Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd bought Pennsylvania Marcellus assets in 2010 only to sell them off for a third of the price in 2017.

Noble Energy Inc., a Texas-based firm that also has projects in West Africa and Israel, made a bet on Appalachia with its $3.4 billion joint venture with CNX Resources in 2011. Six years later, it sold its stake in the venture and left this region.

Royal Dutch Shell, the Dutch giant whose chemicals subsidiary is building a massive ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, shelled out $4.7 billion for Warrendale-based East Resources in 2010. For years now, its drilling activity in Pennsylvania has been pared down significantly after underwhelming results and asset sales.

Yet smaller oil and gas firms are instead going all in on Appalachian shales.

Southwestern Energy Co., which began as an oil and gas driller in Arkansas, sold the last of its assets there last year to focus on its Appalachian portfolio in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Texas-based Range Resources Corp., too, pulled back on its operations in Louisiana after its ill-fated 2016 acquisition and rededicated itself to its program in Appalachia.

As did Downtown-based EQT Corp. when its dalliance with geographic diversification resulted in a $2.3 billion impairment charge — meaning the Permian Basin assets in Texas that EQT bought in 2014 and its holdings in Kentucky’s Huron Shale were actually determined to be worth that much less than what the company had on the books.

The Marcellus Shale, in particular, has taken the mantle as the most productive natural gas play in the U.S., and one of the most cost-efficient. Even so, the current price slump is a result of all that productivity — there is too much supply and not enough demand to soak it up.

Oil and gas price slump hanging around

So, with gas coming out of the ground faster than the U.S. can use it, gas producers are rushing to export their product abroad. Those closest to export terminals — most are on the Gulf Coast — have an advantage, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Last month, Bloomberg analyst Vincent Piazza predicted that the Haynesville Shale in Oklahoma would see a resurgence because of that dynamic.

The low price of oil and gas — both global commodities at this point — means companies are looking to other aspects of their portfolios to set them apart, and those with more options can get picky.

“Good isn’t good enough,” Chevron’s CEO Michael Wirth said in an interview on CNBC’s show Squawk Box this week, explaining the massive write-down of the company’s Appalachian assets. “The assets in the Northeastern U.S. simply don’t compete as well for our investment dollar as others do,” he said, adding, “some of our assets may work better for others.”

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See also: Chevron’s $11 billion write-down could hit the entire market, CNBC, December 11, 2019

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See also the court challenge for farm damages:

Legal Case of Six Counts Seeing Jury Trial ….
Fayette County Court of Common Pleas
Docket # 2176 of 2019 GD, October 4, 2019
Brent G. and Wanda Y. Broadwater v. Chevron Appalachia, LLC et al
https://www.faymarwatch.org/documents/Brent_Broadwater_Chevron_lawsuit.pdf

NGL pipelines cross the Appalachian mountains in Penna.

From an Article by Harry Weber, S&P Global Platts, August 26, 2019

Houston, TX — Enterprise Products Partners has begun soliciting shipper interest in a proposed 50,000 b/d expansion of its ATEX ethane pipeline that would move more supplies from the Appalachian Basin to its NGLs storage complex in Mont Belvieu, Texas.

The operator has been looking to boost deliveries of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids (NGLs) from key shale basins in the US Northeast and West Texas to downstream markets including the Gulf Coast to serve domestic and overseas demand.

Along the Houston Ship Channel and Gulf Coast, Enterprise’s connectivity has been a growth driver. For drillers, stripping ethane and propane from the natural gas produced at the wellhead creates two more revenue streams in addition to the dry gas that remains. Midstream operators benefit by increasing volumes on their pipelines, and in Enterprise’s case it has significant export capabilities from the Gulf, with Asian demand providing a key market.

The 1,200-mile ATEX, or Appalachia-to-Texas, pipeline transports ethane from the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio to Enterprise’s Mont Belvieu complex. The system has access to petrochemical facilities along the Gulf Coast.

The extra capacity that Enterprise is considering, which would be achieved by a combination of pipeline looping, hydraulic improvements, and modifications to existing infrastructure, is subject to sufficient customer commitments through the binding open season. The solicitation launched Monday runs through September 25. The expanded capabilities would be in service by 2022, Enterprise said in a statement.

Enterprise’s Mont Belvieu hub also gets NGLs fed to it from the south and west, via the South Texas NGL pipeline system, Seminole NGL Pipeline, and Texas Express Pipeline. In February, the mainline of Enterprise’s Shin Oak NGL pipeline entered service.

In Enterprise’s latest quarter, NGL pipeline transportation volumes edged up to 3.6 million b/d from 3.4 million b/d for second-quarter 2018. When it released its results in July, Enterprise said it was eyeing further expansions tied to its hub along the ship channel, as well as upgrades to existing natural gas processing facilities.

The efforts tie into its NGL expansion plans, as Enterprise wants to increase market share along the entire value chain from wellhead to processing plant to storage and export facility. In the Permian, for instance, Enterprise has projected that by 2020 it will have more than 1.6 Bcf/d of natural gas processing capacity and over 250,000 b/d of NGL production capabilities, as well as 1.5 million b/d of systemwide fractionation capacity.

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See also: Gov. Wolf tells pipeline activists he won’t shut down Mariner East pipeline | StateImpact Pennsylvania, August 26, 2019

https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2019/08/22/wolf-tells-pipeline-activists-he-wont-shut-down-mariner-east/

MarkWest Sherwood Gas Processing Complex on US Route 50 in Doddridge County, WV

This Article is from the Kallanish Energy News, April 5, 2018

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — After record-setting natural gas and natural gas liquids processing in 2017, MarkWest Energy Partners continues to invest heavily in the Appalachian Basin.

The midstreamer added two natural-gas processing plants in West Virginia in 2017 and plans to add six more in 2018: four in West Virginia and two in Pennsylvania, said company spokeswoman Tina Rush, at the Utica Midstream conference at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio.

Kallanish Energy attended the one-day program, presented by ShaleDirectories.com and the Greater Canton Chamber of Commerce. MarkWest built three fractionation facilities in 2017: one each in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. It plans to add three more in 2018: one in each of the three states, Rush told the 130 people attending the conference.

“The growth is still there,” Rush said on the increasing demand for processing and fractionation in the Appalachian Basin. Estimates are that 45% of natural gas growth in the U.S. will occur in the Northeast, she said.

The new plants in the Utica and Marcellus shales are part of MarkWest’s 2018 projects with a combined $2 billion price tag, she said.

The company set a record in the fourth quarter of 2107, gathering 2.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas and processing 5.2 Bcf/d, according to Rush.

Gathering volume was up 19% and processing volume was up 14% over 2016, she said. The company also processed 389,000 barrels per day (BPD) of liquids in Q4, also a company record. That was an increase of 19% over Q4 2016.

The Marcellus and Utica shales account for 65% of the company’s gathering, 70% of its processing and 90% of its fractionation, Rush reported.

The company’s Sherwood plant in West Virginia is now the fourth-largest such facility in the U.S. By late 2018, that plant is expected to be the No. 1 processing plant in the country, and is projected to be the No. 1 plant in North America by the end of 2019, Rush said.

Appalachian Basin projects, plus additions in the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico, will boost MarkWest’s natural gas processing capacity by 1.5 Bcf/d, and fractionation capacity by 100,000 BPD of liquids, she said.

Marathon Petroleum, the parent company of MarkWest, is looking at moving Appalachian Basin butane by pipeline to as many as 10 Midwest refineries, said Jason Stechschulte, commercial development manager for Marathon Pipe Line.

The company now moves condensate and natural gasoline via pipelines from the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio to refineries in western Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. Butane would be shipped in batches in that pipeline system and additional connections could be made to other pipelines moving butane, Stechschulte said.

Under pressure, butane would flow as a liquid in the pipelines, he said. The butane would be used to blend with gasoline to make winter fuels at company refineries. Such shipments are a year or two away and would require the addition of storage facilities at the refineries, he said.

Marathon is also looking at extending its liquid pipelines into southeastern Ohio to reach other processing/fractionation facilities, Stechschulte said.

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### MarkWest Sherwood Plant helps growth and development in Doddridge County ###

From an Article by Kirsten Reneau, Clarksburg Exponent-Telegraph (WV News), March 29, 2018

WEST UNION — The MarkWest Sherwood Complex continues to help the residents of Doddridge County in a variety of ways through the site’s work in oil and gas.

MarkWest is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MPLX. The Sherwood Complex first began operations in October 2012, said Jamal Kheiry, communications manager for Marathon Petroleum Corp. “MPLX’s natural gas processing complexes remove the heavier and more valuable hydrocarbon components from natural gas,” Kheiry said.

Photos: The Sherwood Processing Facility — Three more processing plants were added to the MarkWest Sherwood facility this past year.

In 2017, through a joint venture between MarkWest and Antero Midstream, the company was able to add three more gas processing plants, with the capacity of processing 200 million cubic feet of gas every day. Last year, the company invested $200 million in construction.

“The Sherwood Complex now processes natural gas in nine processing plants, with a total capacity of 1.8 billion cubic feet per day,” Kheiry said. “Sherwood also includes a 40,000 barrel per day de-ethanization unit, which separates ethane from natural gas.”

There is still more construction underway at Sherwood, with plans to build two more gas processing plants with the capacity of 200 million cubic feet per day through a joint venture with Antero Midstream. “These new units support development of Antero Resources’ extensive Marcellus Shale acreage in West Virginia,” Kheiry said.

“The new gas processing plants are expected to be complete this year. There is also the potential to develop up to six additional processing facilities at Sherwood and at a future expansion site. Separate from the joint venture with Antero, MarkWest is also building a 20,000-barrel per-day ethane fractionation plant.”

He explained that natural gas production begins with the drilling of wells into gas-bearing rock formations, and a network of pipelines (also known as gathering systems) directly connects to wellheads in the production area.

“These gathering systems transport raw, or untreated, natural gas to a central location for treating and processing. A large gathering system may involve thousands of miles of gathering lines connected to thousands of wells,” Kheiry said.

Next comes compression, a mechanical process in which a volume of natural gas is compressed to a higher pressure. This allows the natural gas to be gathered more efficiently, as well as delivered to a higher pressure system.

“Field compression is typically used to allow a gathering system to operate at a lower pressure or provide sufficient discharge pressure to deliver natural gas into a higher pressure system,” Kheiry said. “Since wells produce at progressively lower field pressures as they deplete, field compression is needed to maintain throughput across the gathering system.” After natural gas has been processed at the Sherwood complex, the heavier and more valuable hydrocarbon components are separated out.

“Processing aids in allowing the residue gas remaining after extraction of NGLs to meet the quality specifications for long-haul pipeline transportation and commercial use,” Kheiry said. These “have been extracted as a mixed natural gas liquid (NGL) stream, (and) can be further separated into their component parts through the process of fractionation.”

Fractionation is defined as the separation of the mixture of extracted NGLs into individual components for end-use sale. This is done by controlling the temperature and pressure of the stream of mixed NGLs to use the different boiling points and vapor pressures of separate products.

One of the largest facilities in the Northeast, the MarkWest Sherwood Plant makes a significant financial impact in Doddridge County. “We are proud to be part of Doddridge County and to contribute to its economic foundation,” Kheiry said.

County Commission President Greg Robinson, said the tax impact has made a major difference. “The plant itself provides real estate taxes, but there’s also numerous pipelines that feed that plant,” Robinson said. “And those are all part of the tax.”

This, along with their employment of those in the county and the commuters who may stop to use Doddridge County gas stations, restaurants, and other amenities, all contribute back to the economy.

“It provides in many different ways,” Robinson said. “When a facility provides employment in addition to the tax base, that helps the community and helps the people — it’s how some residents earn their income.”

He added that the Sherwood Plant has been “extremely good” for the county because of their “willingness to be good neighbors.” “They’ve contributed to many different good causes. If there’s some big event going on, most of the time we can count on them to be a willing partner,” Robinson said. “We appreciate the willingness of the plant to help — to be good neighbors, and for their willingness to contribute.”

The county’s tax base has grown substantially in recent years, primarily because of the oil and gas industry, he said. “In addition, the oil and gas provides through the royalties. Many residents get a significant amount of income every year.”

Because of this increased tax revenue, they’ve been able to tackle a variety of projects that may have otherwise taken much longer. This includes construction of a new county library; taking care of a variety of infrastructure needs, such as streets and sewage projects; increasing their rainy day fund; contributing to the medical facility; and beginning the process of extending water to various parts of the county where it wasn’t previously available.

This past year, they were able to take on an exterior renovation project for the Doddridge County Courthouse, which cost around $2.5 million. “We’ve set aside money to start a new annex for the courthouse,” Robinson said. “Before we can do anything to the inside, we’ve got to move some people out, and we have no place to put them. It’s a logistical thing.”

The Board of Education has also benefited from Sherwood’s presence, Superintendent Adam Cheeseman said. “The revenue generated for our schools has been a big asset,” he said. With these funds, they’ve been able to offer development opportunities for teachers, supplement instructional activities and programs, and focus on larger one-time expenditures.

“The latest was the school entrance at the elementary school and the auxiliary gym for the high school, and we’re in the middle of a large project — a new football filed. baseball field, and athletic complex, with a new BOE complex,” Cheeseman said. “Sherwood, and oil and gas overall, have put us in a very good place.”

While these funds are exciting, “more exciting is that we’re hoping to further our partnership with MarkWest,” Cheeseman said. Already partners in education, he plans to connect the facilities with their school system, with hopes of providing opportunities ranging from internships to observation hours to trainings for students at Doddridge County High School.

Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (TENORM)

From an Article by Liam Bouquet, Warren Tribune Chronicle, March 8, 2018

WARREN, OHIO — Several years ago, BP America and Halcon Resources Corp. drilling operations in the northern Utica shale grinded to a halt, but Pin Oak Energy Partners, an Akron-based oil and gas company, sees a future in the remains of those operations.

“Halcon made the decision that they were going to leave the basin. Their expectations were not realized,” Mark Van Tyne, Pin Oak chief business development officer said. “Pin Oak was able to transact with Halcon and acquire all their assets in the Appalachian basin, which included wells and leases and whatnot.”

This includes seven wells in Trumbull County, as well as equipment and gathering lines, the Grenamyer well in North Jackson in Mahoning County and the two wells in Mercer County, Pa.

“We’ve acquired producing assets from Halcon and Halcon also acquired two of the three wells from BP,” Van Tyne said. “And the acreage that came with it was a follow on transaction with Halcon.”

The company also announced in February the successful acquisition of 70,000 leasehold acres in the Northern and Southern Utica, concentrated in Trumbull, Mahoning and Mercer counties.

Van Tyne clarified the acres have been acquired as a consequence of their push to acquire assets across the Appalachian basin, and they have not begun the leasing phase in anticipation of starting production.

“There is a slight misconception that we are out actively leasing. We are not at, this stage. What we are doing we are acquiring producing assets, cash-flowing assets,” he said. “Those transactions came with acreage, came with leases.”

Once they have developed their plan for these assets, they will acquire the necessary leases for further development and production.

“Back in the day, the idea was just to do a land grab and get everything you possibly could and then start drilling,” he said. “We are a little more pragmatic in our approach … At some point in time, after we evaluate the potential for these areas and these assets, we’ll probably fill in leasing and start to expand leasing. That will probably be sometime next year.”

While the area did not prove profitable for BP America and Halcon, this has presented an opportunity to Pin Oak.

“Entry costs are one thing. We can get in at an attractive entry cost versus, right now, if we were going to go and try to buy wells or assets in the counties that everyone refers to as the core. It would be a multiple of what we’ve been able to acquire these for,” he said. “We hope the area has strong opportunity, though it may not be as widespread as in other areas.”

“The first movers into areas utilized the technology and the understanding of geology that were available at that point in time, and things have changed and been enhanced,” he said. “As an industry, we can look back at the thousand of wells that have been drilled and try to understand why some areas are better than others.”

While Pin Oak might expand drilling in the Utica in the Valley, drilling has far from ceased despite BP and Halcon’s faltering — with 20 of the 25 wells drilled in Mahoning and Trumbull’s slice of the Utica actively producing as of February 3rd.

Raymond Beiersdorfer, a professor of geology at Youngstown State University and an anti-fracking advocate with experience in the oil and gas industry, was particularly critical of drilling in the Utica shale.

“The risks haven’t changed, and the more we are finding out, the worse they are getting. One of the big concerns I have with the Utica is that it is 450 million years old. It is the oldest shale in the U.S. that they are fracking. These shales, the same reason that they are rich in organic matter makes them rich in uranium, which overtime decays, along the way to lead, to radium and radon,” he said. “It makes it a public health hazard. Radium behaves like calcium, it is water soluble, and eventually it leads to bone cancer, and radon is the second-leading cause to bone cancer after smoking. … The Utica and the Marcellus are both very high in radioactivity.”

A John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health study found radon levels in U.S. homes in Pennsylvania have risen since fracking of the Marcellus shale began, with structures located in areas of high density shale gas mining having “significantly higher” readings than other areas.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates radon is responsible for about 21,000 lung cancer deaths each year.

Beiersdorfer said the benefit of fracking is not worth a relatively paltry rate of job creation. In 2016, the core shale-related industries employed 10,662 people in Ohio, representing about .1 percent of employees, and industries indirectly involved employed about 178,238 people, representing about 3 percent of employees.

“That has always been a lie about the number of jobs. In fact it is even less now,” he said. “If you look at jobs per unit, it is the lowest. If you wanted to create jobs, you’d go with developing photovoltaic energy.”
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Check out this SlideShare presentation

WVU Students: Justin Mathias & Nanette Raczka

From an Article of WVU Newswire, September 20, 2017

MORGANTOWN, W. Va.—Biology students at West Virginia University are studying the impact of climate change on the forests of the Appalachian Mountains.

Justin Mathias and Nanette Raczka, Ph.D. students in the Department of Biology, have received Smithsonian Center for Tropical Forest Science-ForestGEO grants to support their research.

“These grants are prestigious and very competitive to get,” said Richard Thomas, chair of the Department of Biology. “It is very unusual that one university gets more than one in a year.”

Mathias is using his $13,000 grant to investigate changes in tree growth in the Appalachian Mountains over time and identify the drivers of those physiological changes. He will use a site in Front Royal, Virginia, that is part of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute’s ForestGEO network.

“Trees can’t get up and move if they become stressed by their environment. They just deal with it in some way,” Mathias said. “They are telling us a story; we just have to figure out what that story is.”

By studying stable isotopes and tree rings, Mathias will identify the elements that comprise the trees, such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen or sulfur, to better understand their physiology.

“Each of those different elements tell you something different about how the tree is functioning. When a tree adds on wood, the carbon that it gets to form biomass comes from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Given that, at least in the forests around the Appalachian Mountains, you have a growth ring every single year added on,” Mathias said. “It’s a really neat way to retrospectively examine both the physiology and the environment the tree is in, in a given time period.”

Through her $7,000 grant, Raczka will incubate soil from the same ForestGEO network plot to study the complexities of leaf litter. Using a technique called Quantitative Stable Isotope Probing, she will examine how soil microbes process carbon from leaf litter.

“This is a new technique, but it’s really useful because we can measure the amount of leaf litter that’s incorporated into the microbial biomass. We can see what microbes, whether they are fungi or bacteria in the soil, incorporate what type of leaf litter,” Rackza said. “This is really cool because it’s a critical step in understanding how carbon is stored in the soil and how it’s utilized from the inputs of the tree and the leaf litter to what stays in the soil or what is respired.”

Raczka learned qSIP from her research experience in Ember Morrissey’s lab, an assistant professor of environmental microbiology in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design. She is applying the technique to her research with Assistant Professor of Forest Ecology and Ecosystems Modeling Eddie Brzostek, which focuses on below-ground interactions and potential responses to global change.

“It’s a great partnership with her because I can learn this molecular technique that’s new to us to incorporate something that we do in our lab,” Raczka said. “The interaction with the graduate students and the professors here has been the best part of my WVU experience so far. To be able to learn new techniques in different labs is a really great opportunity, and I love the cross-disciplinary collaboration.”

-WVU-

Wildfire Locations in 8 States

Some 14,000 mountain residents evacuated and hundreds of buildings destroyed

From an Article by Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch.com, December 1, 2016

Wildfires have devastated eastern Tennessee. The blaze has claimed seven lives, forced about 14,000 people to evacuate and destroyed hundreds of buildings in Sevier County.

The wildfires started Sunday from the Great Smoky Mountains and was carried by nearly 90mph winds into the city of Gatlinburg by Monday. Making matters worse, the strong winds also knocked over power lines, sparking even more fires. National Park Service spokeswoman Dana Soehn told CNN that investigators believe the fire started on a mountain trail and was “human caused.”

As of Wednesday night, the main fire has only been 10 percent contained, fire commanders told NBC News. More than 17,000 acres in the Great Smoky Mountains have been scorched, causing untold damage to wildlife and other natural resources.

“The Great Smoky Mountains are one of the most biologically diverse places in the United States, partly due to the geologically ancient nature of the landscape, as well as the wet and humid forests covering their slopes and hollows,” Bruce Stein, associate vice president for conservation science and climate adaptation at the National Wildlife Federation, said.

“While fire is a natural phenomenon in Appalachian forests, these extreme, drought-fueled fires are not,” Stein continued. “Rather, they are a glimpse into what many southeastern forests and communities will experience as climate change continues to intensify.”

Indeed, much of the southeastern U.S. has been inundated by wildfires in recent weeks. Record-breaking drought and unseasonably warm temperatures have fueled the region’s devastating wildfires.

As the New York Times pointed out, there’s a clear connection between the wildfires and an ever-warming planet:

“The fires spread through Tennessee as much of the South has been enduring a crippling drought, even though rainfall this week offered some relief. The United States Drought Monitor reported last week that 60 percent of Tennessee was in ‘exceptional’ or ‘extreme’ drought, the two most severe ratings.

“Wildfires, once a seasonal phenomenon, have become a consistent threat, partly because climate change has resulted in drier winters and warmer springs, which combine to pull moisture off the ground and into the air.”

A study in Nature Communications revealed that from 1979 to 2013, wildfire season has lengthened and the global area affected by wildfire has doubled. CNBC also reported that we are entering an era of “super fires” due to climate change causing hotter and drier weather.

“Based on what we know and in which direction the climate is going, yes, we can expect more frequent super fires,” Marko Princevac, a fire expert at the University of California at Riverside, told CNBC. “There is scientific consensus that climate change will lead to much more intense fires, more dry areas.”

The Tennessee wildfires have crept to Pigeon Forge, the home of singer and actress Dolly Parton’s Dollywood. While the theme park was not damaged, Parton released a statement saying that she was heartbroken about the fire damage and had been “praying for all the families affected.”

On Sunday, the Sevier County native released a public service announcement with Smokey Bear to promote wildfire preparedness amidst troubling drought conditions. “This extended drought has resulted in high wildfire danger,” Parton said. “As dry as it is, please help fire fighters avoid wildfires.”

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Charleston, WV 5/20-21

WV Chapter of the Sierra Club and WV Interfaith Power & Light join forces for gathering the week of Earth Day (April 22, 2015)

From an Article by Michael Barrick, Appalachian Preservation Project, April 1, 2015

Charleston, WV – The West Virginia chapters of The Sierra club, one of the nation’s most renowned environmental preservation groups, and Interfaith Power & Light (IPL), a new entity in the Mountain State, have partnered to support a conference being held in Charleston on April 20th and 21st at the St. John’s XXIII Pastoral Center. The unprecedented interfaith and interdisciplinary gathering, “Preserving Sacred Appalachia: Gathering, Speaking and Acting in Unity,” is being held to educate Appalachian people and others about the many threats to the well-being of the people, ecology and wildlife of West Virginia and Appalachia.

The gathering will features about 20 speakers, including ministers, laity, environmental activists, educators and artists. The event is being sponsored by St. Luke’s United Methodist Church of Hickory, N.C. and coordinated by the Appalachian Preservation Project of Bridgeport, W.Va.

Founded by legendary preservationist John Muir in 1892, the Sierra Club is the nation’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with more than two million members and supporters. The Sierra Club exists to protect the wild places of the earth, to practice and promote responsible environmental stewardship, and to educate the public about how to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.

While the Sierra Club can trace its roots to the 19th century, Interfaith Power & Light was formed at the beginning of this century. It was established to draw together the religious community and spiritual people to provide a voice of conscience to address the dangers to people and the environment associated with climate change. The national organization began as a single state chapter; it now has not only a national outreach, but also 40 state chapters. A core group of West Virginia faith community leaders have joined to foster formation of the 41st state IPL chapter, West Virginia Interfaith Power & Light.

The West Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club is working on energy efficiency and renewable energy and also has joined with other preservation groups to counter the public health and safety problems associated with fracking and mountaintop removal. Bill Price, the organizing representative of the West Virginia chapter said, “Members of the Sierra Club in West Virginia are excited to be working on the ‘Preserving Sacred Appalachia’ conference. For too many years, the health and well-being of people in West Virginia have been damaged by the extractive industries. For many years, the Sierra Club in West Virginia has worked to reduce those impacts and move to a brighter future. Partnering with people of faith is a key component of that ongoing work. I hope to see many old and new friends at the gathering.”

The Rev. Mel Hoover, a member of the steering committee of West Virginia Interfaith Power & Light, offered, “This partnership demonstrates that we are at a crossroads in the Mountain State. We have always known that we must work together to address the many environmental issues impacting the people and ecology of West Virginia. This conference, by joining together people of faith with scientists, educators, artists and others, sends a clear message that cannot be ignored – we are united in purpose.” He continued, “Global warming is one of the biggest threats facing humanity today. The very existence of life – life that religious people are called to protect – is jeopardized by our continued dependency on fossil fuels for energy. Every major religion has a mandate to care for Creation. We were given natural resources to sustain us, but we were also given the responsibility to act as good stewards and preserve life for future generations.”

He added, “We are excited about forming the nation’s newest IPL chapter. The rapidly growing movement has more than a decade of success in shrinking carbon footprints and educating hundreds of thousands of people in the pews about the important role that we play in addressing the threats to public health and the environment.”

Hoover concluded, “As people of faith, our mission includes being advocates for vulnerable people and communities. It is poor people who are being hit first and worst by environmental degradation. We also aim to make sure that all people can participate in and benefit from the growing clean energy economy.”

The conference is open to the public, though advance registration is required. Folks can register by visiting the website of the Appalachian Preservation Project. They can also learn more about the agenda and view a brief video explaining the conference.