Mike Knapp just added a new blog entry concerning the growing problem of dwindling landowner rights.
Check out http://knappAP.blogspot.com. written on December 28th! Right on,Mike!

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the gas futures price is still ok and climbing

Thanks for the kind words!

Happy 2012.

  -Mike

Mark & David,

I expect it will stay low for a little while longer, which does have some positives.  The sustained low price, even in the face of skyrocketing oil prices, is proving every day that the abundance of shale gas in the US has permanently decoupled the price of nat gas and oil.  This will give industries the confidence to convert their power plants, fleets of vehicles, etc over to natural gas.

Concerning the unfortunate communities overtaken by a very few vocal anti-drilling bullies,  scientific facts do not deter them, polite conversation does not stop them,  landowner/ mineral rights' ownershp does not slow them down.  Of course those who speak loudest do not own mineral rights.   Do interested gas companies run away from this situation or does it not matter?  EVERYONE is concerned about clean air and water, but these extremists love a cause.

We've met quite a bit of resistance out in Indiana County.  No way in hell we're running away from anything because a small minority of people have up and decided that we're criminals, even though they've been safely and without incident been using our product for 150 years. 

 

Isn't that the truth!  Good to hear it!

    I think it is interesting how vocal the opponents are and how silent the industry is.  I have found this strategy somewhat confusing, and frustrating at times.  That being said, the harder they (anti-drilling people) shake the tree the more facts come out.  Their campaigns have just been debunked time and time again.  At some point natural gas will become economic and will boom by default alone.  It is just going to make too much sense, and i think we are getting close to that point.

    

The problem is that the natural gas industry has never faced many, if any, significant hurdles.  We've been the sleepy industry that always just operated beneath the radar due to our operations being so innocuous.  Whereas other extractive industries have faced pushback (prompting them to come together and fight back), we've never had to fight.  Also, traditionally most gas wells were drilled by local folks, not international congolmoreates.

Current polls put over 80% of Pennsylvanians either supportive or indifferent of natural gas drilling, with only 17% in opposition.  They are an noisy, mostly harmless, minority.  Where attention must be paid is on the local level, where government can easily be influenced if you can get a few people to show up you can have a very loud voice (usually because the room is empty).   The fractivists know this, and that is the battleground they have chosen.   If a couple of dissenting voices show up, it balances them out and the thing is a wash. 

PLus, Mr. Knapp's January 5, 2012's entry, "You may be a fractivist if..." was also well written and entertaining!  How narrow minded our special gas  extemists can be~  Anti-drilling-do-gooders can live in a cave if they want, but when they begin to make decisions for against other people, heckle those who have a diffrent opinion BASED ON SCIENTIFIC research from years and years of clean energy success, we have reached a dangerous point where a 'freaking kite' is definitely needed!

New blog post up this morning:  Oil vs Wet vs. Dry:  How cooked is your shale?... and why you should care.

http://knappap.blogspot.com

Mike; you have two different maps there with wet/dry lines that don't agree with each other.  Is one map for Marcellus and the other for Utica? And how accurate is either one? How defined is the transition? Is it a rapid transition or is it very gradual?

Thanks,

PS Loved the school bus comparison.  It is a great example of how the crazies in this world operate.

Thanks Jim, appreciate the kind words. Amazing how people accept certain risks without a second thought but other, infinitely smaller risks, are the end of the world. 

Yes, the first map shows the wet/dry line for the Marcellus, according to Penn State:

 http://marcellus.psu.edu/resources/maps.php  

I georeferenced this map into my mapping software and pulled out the wet/dry line so it could be seen clearer. 

The second map comes from Ohio DNR.  It was pulled from this PDF (which has a bunch of other interesting maps on the Utica as well:  http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Portals/10/Energy/Utica/Utica_SourceRock... )


The transition should be fairly gradual but I'm sure it varies from area to area. 

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