Could the Marcellus boom be going bust in PA? We can start to hope!

[femmocrat]

Market for Western Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale land changing

By Timothy Puko
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Published: Saturday, May 4, 2013, 12:01 a.m.

There was a time not too long ago when oil and gas companies would gobble up whatever land they could buy in the Marcellus shale.

Those times are long gone.

EQT Corp. is buying nearly 100,000 acres of land in the region, it announced Friday — and it doesn't plan to bother with even half of it.

The Downtown-based gas producer is paying Chesapeake Energy Corp. $113 million in the deal, more than half of it for gas rights on about 99,000 acres of Marcellus and Utica shale land. But only 25,000 acres of Marcellus acreage in Washington, Greene, and Allegheny counties really matter, company officials said. They don't have any plans for the rest, because the leases are about to expire.

More at LINK:

Read more: http://triblive.com/business/headlines/3958887-74/eqt-chesapeake-companies?printerfriendly=true#ixzz2SKeZGxNg


From femmocrat: I hope this is a good sign that the land grab is over and they are starting to pull out of western PA?? The end of the article also mentions some scaling back in eastern PA.

[JPZenger]

1. Fracking Profits All Go to Texas

The fracking profits go back to Texas, which is now the nationwide leader in job creation by far. Many Texans came to PA. to grab the best jobs, and then went back when the drilling boom slowed.

Chesapeake is under severe financial strain because of the high risk strategy of their all powerful CEO, before he was canned. Chesapeake has been selling energy assets at bargain basement prices to the Chinese to reduce their overwhelming debt.

Meanwhile , Dominion Resources is spending billions on a liquified natural gas shipping facility along the Chesapeake Bay. Once that facility and multiple new pipelines are completed, it may lead to another drilling boom, so we can send the gas to Asia. So much for energy independence.