Will Pennsboro, WV Residents Let The Town Become One Giant Fracking Site?

Quaint Pennsboro, West Virginia (population 1,118) is a small town community of families and retirees in Ritchie County enjoying low cost housing and quiet living but all that is about to change if Antero has their way.

The Industrialization of Doddridge County, WV

Doddridge County, WV

Doddridge County, West Virginia once had a scenic rural landscape but today, the bright lights, incredibly loud noise of 24-hour fracking operations and heavy trucks barreling down rural roads (1,000 truck trips per well) are common. Gas wells (the traditional vertical wells dotting yards and hillsides) have been a fixture in Doddridge for years but we were never an industrial county.You never saw entire forested hills being clear-cut, burned, and bulldozed into five to ten acre flat well pads.

Doddridge County WV Fracking: Who Is Getting Rich?

The fracking of West Virginia was supposed to provide and eonomic boom to the state, with jobs for citizens and lots of tax money for the state. In Doddridge County, hopes were high but have we seen any of these promised benefits? At Fracking West Virginia, we want to know who is getting rich from fracking our county?

Is Fracking Shaking Up the Mountain State?

By Brian Allen wvpubcast.org

Is the growth of the gas business in West Virginia shaking up more than the economy? A new Concord University geological initiative could help scientists recognize the potential for man-made earthquakes caused by natural gas drilling.

According to Workforce WV, there were over 2,000 jobs associated with oil and gas extraction in 2012, earning nearly $175-million in wages. But does the drilling leave the ground more susceptible to earthquakes?

According to the West Virginia Geological Survey there have been about 20 measurable earthquakes in the state in the past five years, more than half of those were in Braxton County where Chesapeake Energy was disposing fluid via deep well injection.

How the Fracking Industry Avoids Paying Royalties to Landowners

By Abrahm Lustgarten

Don Feusner ran dairy cattle on his 370-acre slice of northern Pennsylvania until he could no longer turn a profit by farming. Then, at age 60, he sold all but a few Angus and aimed for a comfortable retirement on money from drilling his land for natural gas instead.

A Marcellus shale gas extraction well pad and farm in Pennsylvania.
 {Photo credit: Robert Jackson}

MarkWest Using Turboexpander to Separate “Wet-Gases”

Article by Casey Junkins, The Wheeling Intelligencer

MarkWest Turbo Expander Separator

CADIZ – The ethane being produced in the Marcellus and Utica shale region should be enough to support construction of several ethane crackers, officials with MarkWest Energy believe.

MarkWest has invested $2.2 billion into pipelines, processing and fractionation plants in the region. The fractionation plant at Hopedale served as the destination of the six “superloads” that recently made their way through Steubenville.

“There is plenty of gas to go around,” Greg Sullivan, area manager for MarkWest, said. “We probably have enough work here to expand for another five years.”

EnerVest Finds Buyer for Some Utica Holdings in Northeastern Ohio

Utica Holdings in Guernsey, Harrison, and Noble
Counties of Northeastern Ohio Being Sold

From Article by Edd Pritchard, Canton Repository

EnerVest announced it has a buyer for 22,535 acres of the more than 100,000 acres of Utica Shale leases it has been trying to sell. But the company also is looking at forming joint ventures to drill in the volatile oil window in Stark and Tuscarawas counties. The company revealed the pending sale and other Utica plans as it announced second quarter financial results for its EV Energy operation. EnerVest didn't name the buyer and said the deal should be completed in the third quarter. It’s a $284.3 million deal, with a per acre price of $12,900. The acreage is in Guernsey, Harrison and Noble counties, where other companies are seeing strong liquid natural gas production from Utica wells.

Fracking’s Controversial Image Is Your Investment Risk RE: Range Resources & Cabot Oil & Gas

From the THE  MOTLEY FOOL and Frack Check WV

Is fracked natural gas sustainable? Do its public relation risks hinder sound, long-term investing? Companies such as Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation  and Range Resources Corp.  are raking in profits from plays in the Marcellus Shale, but before making a long-term investment, I suggest you consider possible changes in states’ public policies. The potential for boom and bust in fracked natural gas is similar to public policy’s effect on the coal industry.

Fracking Isn't Solving Northeast Ohio's Job Woes

Posted by Eric Sandy on Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 10:50 AM

"Response to fracking in Ohio is a mixed bag, depending on whether you're talking with a local business leader or a local resident looking for work"

Following a Reuters dispatch and a Cleveland State University study, analysis of Northeast Ohio's burgeoning natural gas and oil drilling sector show that it's booming.

How to Energize the State of West Virginia?

Natural Gas Flame Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Resident Farmer, Jane Lew, Lewis County, WV America’s Natural Gas Alliance and Energize WV with Natural Gas held another of its Town Hall information meetings in Buckhannon Wednesday evening, May 22. The presentation and room decoration were similar to a one I attended at Bridgeport a year or so ago, perhaps a little less elaborate. There was a talk by a good female speaker emphasizing the points the industry wishes the audience to accept: economic effect, fracking is not new technology, everything is done to avoid water contamination, they are thoroughly regulated by the Department of Environmental Protection, gas is the coming thing, and basically no one is harmed. Then a well prepared video give much the same points with pictures and (very few) graphics. The visual displays around the room were much more limited than the previous meeting I attended. But the obligatory sweet food bar was present.

Massive Plans to Export US Natural Gas Stir Debate and Feed Fracking Frenzy

FILE - This June 13, 2003 file photo shows pipelines running from the offshore docking station to four liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanks at the Dominion Resources Inc. Liquefied Natural Gas facility in Cove Point, Md. A domestic natural gas boom already has lowered U.S. energy prices while stoking fears of environmental disaster. Now U.S. producers are poised to ship vast quantities of gas overseas as energy companies seek permits for proposed export projects that could set off a renewed frenzy of fracking.
Photo: Matt Houston
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