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Employment Opportunities

A

Anonymous

Guest
1 hour 36 minutes ago by CNNMoney

North Dakota wants you: Seeks to fill 20,000 jobs

Looking for a job? North Dakota wants you.

In a new recruiting campaign to be rolled out in May, the North Dakota Economic Development Foundation is aiming to fill more than 20,000 jobs - ranging from truck drivers and oilfield workers to receptionists and food servers.

North Dakota's huge oil boom has spurred thousands of job seekers to flock to the state for years now. In some cities, the population has quadrupled.

Yet, the growth continues and companies are still so desperate for workers that the state is teaming up with oil giant Hess Corp. to launch an $800,000 campaign to attract new talent.

"It is being developed to target people in states with chronic unemployment, and people in industries that are high-demand in North Dakota, including: engineering, healthcare, energy, skilled trades, transportation and information technology," the foundation said in a statement.

The push will include a website, marketing efforts and recruiting events.

The state is also trying to convince potential employees that North Dakota is not only a good place to get a job, but a great place to live, dubbing it the "Find the Good Life in North Dakota" campaign.

But this could be a harder sell.

Over the past few years, the flood of workers moving to the state -- specifically to the Northwest corner where oil activity is greatest -- has caused a severe housing shortage.

In Williston, a town at the center of the boom, home prices have more than tripled and rent there is currently the highest in the nation, according to a new report from Apartment Guide, a website for finding apartment rentals.

Even though many employees are now raking in six-figure salaries, they are essentially homeless, living in their cars in parking lots, in other peoples' basements, in RVs or even in churches.

Along with a housing crunch, crime has skyrocketed, traffic is grueling, and local restaurants and retailers struggle to keep up with the surge in demand -- resulting in higher prices and longer waits.

And, of course, there's always the below-freezing temperatures, with wind chills plunging under negative 50 during the winters.

These job opportunities expand to 250+ miles inside Montana- to areas which do still have housing... Healthcare and skilled can about name their wages...
 

Steve

Well-known member
Even though many employees are now raking in six-figure salaries, they are essentially homeless, living in their cars in parking lots, in other peoples' basements, in RVs or even in churches.

the most discouraging and quite outright disgusting point is we have oil and gas resources all over the country..

some are not as big.. others are larger.. but your good ol buddy Barack has sat on his throne and decreed that "we will not drill.. no we won't..

we won't drill here or even near.. not for your car or so you can sit in a bar..

but we will drill over there and send our cash everywhere..

but we will not drill here.. "



yep if Ol king barack and the liberals would allow rational well thought out drilling plans we could have good jobs sprouting up across this great country..
 

loomixguy

Well-known member
Several folks from right here couldn't badmouth our little town enough and made a big show of leaving for the gold paved streets in North Dakota. That was last summer.

Surprisingly, they all showed back up here after the first of the year. They caught a lot of crap about having the balls to come back after all the sh!t they talked about our town. EVERY ONE had fantastic jobs and were making hellacious money, but couldn't take the rest of it that came with it....living conditions, drugs, rampant crime, etc.

The juice wasn't worth the squeeze. At least not to them.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence...until you get there. :roll:
 

iwannabeacowboy

Well-known member
Glad there is some opportunity for those that can move, too bad that the energy industry isn't allowed to expand to where the work forces are more concentrated because of regulations.

What do you think will happen if BO uses his unchecked EPA to shut down fracking after the fall elections?

Heard a little rumor about that from some oil field guys.... it is just a rumor, but the fact that the EPA could do such a thing lets you know how little freedom we have and how much of an over reach our federal government has.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
loomixguy said:
Several folks from right here couldn't badmouth our little town enough and made a big show of leaving for the gold paved streets in North Dakota. That was last summer.

Surprisingly, they all showed back up here after the first of the year. They caught a lot of crap about having the balls to come back after all the sh!t they talked about our town. EVERY ONE had fantastic jobs and were making hellacious money, but couldn't take the rest of it that came with it....living conditions, drugs, rampant crime, etc.

The juice wasn't worth the squeeze. At least not to them.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence...until you get there. :roll:

My brother-in-law is up there, has been for over 2 years now. He went because the methane industry in Wyoming dried up. He told us that people were leaving ND in droves when winter really hit. Since he's from Wyoming and has housing provided, he stayed. But he said it's the coldest and most dangerous place he's ever been. He'd sure rather be back in Wyoming with his family.
 

Tam

Well-known member
Funny they are looking for truck drivers as I was talking to a guy in the industry this last winter and he said some of the local drivers were looking for other work as they were all being cut back to just a few hours a day. :?
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
Back in the early day booms of oil in North Dakota lots of the first workers were from Texas. Heard the story of the first cold day a rough neck climbed down the derrick and told the push he going to get a better hat. The push asked him where the hat was and he said "Texas". :lol: :lol:
 

iwannabeacowboy

Well-known member
Big Muddy rancher said:
Back in the early day booms of oil in North Dakota lots of the first workers were from Texas. Heard the story of the first cold day a rough neck climbed down the derrick and told the push he going to get a better hat. The push asked him where the hat was and he said "Texas". :lol: :lol:

When was that, end of August?
 

DustDevil

Well-known member
Big Muddy rancher said:
Back in the early day booms of oil in North Dakota lots of the first workers were from Texas. Heard the story of the first cold day a rough neck climbed down the derrick and told the push he going to get a better hat. The push asked him where the hat was and he said "Texas". :lol: :lol:
I think I've posted this little anecdote before, but a friend of mine was running a side-boom cat on a pipeline job one winter in WY and his feet were keeping him miserable till he found a pair of Mickey Mouse boots at a surplus store and then he was fine. A foreman on the job called snow "Texas drag-up dust" cause first dusting of snow a bunch of LA and TX welders'd drag up and head south.
 

Martin Jr.

Well-known member
Dressing for the cold is always important. I remember a number of years ago the neighbor kids wanted me to take them ice skating, they had skates. So we loaded up in my car and drove to the fish hatchery dam.
Then one girl who wasn't that much of an outdoor person came and told me that she wasn't having any fun because her feet were cold.

I had put on some heavy wool socks over my regular socks and my feet were warm, I was using a scoop shovel to clear off the snow and help keep me erect. So I told her to take off her skates and I took mine off and gave her the wool socks. A little later she said her feet were warm and she was having fun. My feet never got cold either for some reason.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
From listening to the local employment office and reading on FB--- there are lots of farm and ranch jobs open-- some temporary but most permanent... Most are real ranch jobs- with haying, fencing, and farming and equipment maintenance along with cattle work and don't fit the "cowboy only" job seekers...
 

Big Muddy rancher

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
From listening to the local employment office and reading on FB--- there are lots of farm and ranch jobs open-- some temporary but most permanent... Most are real ranch jobs- with haying, fencing, and farming and equipment maintenance along with cattle work and don't fit the "cowboy only" job seekers...

the paper is full of Ag jobs up here as well. Fewer people able to that kind of work. How many rookies do you want on a 80 ft airseeder or a 120 ft sprayer.
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Big Muddy rancher said:
Oldtimer said:
From listening to the local employment office and reading on FB--- there are lots of farm and ranch jobs open-- some temporary but most permanent... Most are real ranch jobs- with haying, fencing, and farming and equipment maintenance along with cattle work and don't fit the "cowboy only" job seekers...

the paper is full of Ag jobs up here as well. Fewer people able to that kind of work. How many rookies do you want on a 80 ft airseeder or a 120 ft sprayer.

heck, we even have a few jobs available in Alberta...but it sounds like North Dakota is the first "region" to ever deal with these types of situations.

:lol:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Canadian boom town gets taste of Bakken bustle

Posted by: Lydia Gilbertson in Bakken News, Oil March 13, 2014 0 113 Views



VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Hundreds of construction workers in booming northern British Columbia will take up residence this week in unique digs on board a cruise ferry revamped into a floating luxury hotel.

The aging ship will help relieve a housing shortage in one busy Canadian port town already bursting ahead of a promised energy boom that could last more than a decade.


The Silja Festival – a Baltic ferry made over as the Delta Spirit Lodge – will spend at least a year docked outside Kitimat, British Columbia, where it will provide housing for about 600 workers in town for Rio Tinto Alcan’s $3.3 billion smelter-upgrade project, which is expected to wrap up in 2015.

After that, the ship’s owners hope more contracts will float their way as major energy companies like Chevron Corp., Petronas and Royal Dutch Shell push ahead with proposed liquefied natural gas export (LNG) projects along Canada’s Pacific coast.

“This kind of investment would never occur without the kind of mega-opportunities that are growing in the Pacific Northwest,” said Andrew Purdey, vice president of Bridgemans Services Ltd., the privately held company behind the hotel. “We saw the opportunity and we put it all together, but it was effectively driven by industry.”

Despite the “No Vacancy” signs popping up all over town, the endeavor is risky. Bridgemans declined to say how much it is making from its first job, but it has already spent more than C$4 million ($3.6 million) to import and upgrade the ship, with further improvements planned. It has no contract after work wraps up at the Rio smelter.

But if just four major LNG projects go ahead, roughly 15,000 extra beds will be needed in coastal northern British Columbia at peak construction, according to a report from National Bank Financial.

For employers, offering free top-end accommodations complete with a basketball court, a theater, a fine-dining room that serves three hearty meals a day and a captain’s lounge for relaxing may be a draw in a very competitive labor market.

“We always go back to what our client wants. They want to build a platform that attracts and retains the best workers,” said Purdey.



Scrambling for skilled labor

The North American energy industry is booming. Yet as companies make new investments, there are doubts the sector will be able to find and keep the employees needed to complete all the potential projects.

Speaking at an event earlier this year, British Columbia’s energy and mines minister, Bill Bennett, said the province will need to import workers from other provinces and abroad.

“If every single high school kid in B.C. graduated, became an apprentice … it wouldn’t even come close to satisfying the demand we see coming,” he said.

Luring skilled labor away from other thriving areas, like the Alberta oil sands and the Bakken region driving North Dakota’s fracking boom, will take more than good pay. Workers are looking for perks.

The floating hotel, with its all-inclusive facilities and gourmet meals, may be just the ticket for companies that want to take temporary living to the next level.

The ship, which used to sleep more than 2,000 people on overnight trips across the Baltic Sea, has been retrofitted with 700 single-occupancy rooms, each fitted out with a memory foam bed and flat-screen TV.

In addition to providing room and board for the temporary construction workers, the ship has meeting facilities and even a private dining area that can be rented out for special events.

The hotel also provides jobs for local residents who don’t have a professional trade, the owners note, helping to ease the pain of a sharp increase in local housing costs.



Tripling rents, soaring home prices

A quick scan of real estate listings for Kitimat shows just how tight the market has become. Only two houses are listed for under C$200,000, and both are fixer-uppers.

“If the house is priced right, it sells within a few days,” said Ilona Kenny, a realtor with RE/MAX Kitimat Realty who has lived in the area for nearly four decades. “They’re being snapped up by people who live here, by investors who are renting out properties and families that are moving into town.”

The town’s typical family home – an older three-bedroom, one-bathroom bungalow – is selling for about C$250,000, said Kenny, compared with C$100,000 to C$150,000 last year. In one new subdivision, not yet under construction, townhomes start at C$288,500.

Rents too have skyrocketed, which is putting pressure on long-time residents who can no longer afford their homes, said Kitimat mayor Joanne Monaghan.

“All the apartment buildings that were built in the 1970s have been purchased and are being refurbished, and that’s causing problems,” she said. “People were paying C$400 a month rent, and now, in some cases, it’s up to C$1,200 a month.”

The worry is the town will soon find itself in a housing-affordability crisis, much like Williston, N.D., where a fracking boom delivered high-paying jobs for thousands of workers but also led to a sharp rise in homelessness.

While the housing crunch keeps Monaghan awake at night, she is happy the local economy is thriving. There are new hotels, restaurants and retail shops in the works, and the town of 11,000 just got its first Tim Hortons, a popular coffee shop chain that is the hallmark of a bustling Canadian town.



Parade of the U-Hauls

Still, the long-time politician knows that with every resource boom there is usually a bust. Indeed, the town was hit hard during the economic crisis when the local forestry industry collapsed.

“A few months after I became mayor, the Eurocan (paper mill) just pulled out. We had more U-haul trailers going out than I could shake a stick at,” said Monaghan. “Now they’re coming back in and I’m just thanking God.”

Floating lodges are nothing new along the west coast, where they have traditionally been used for road, lumber and fishery projects, but there’s never been anything close to the same size as the 11-deck Silja Festival ship.

As workers finish up last-minute vacuuming and polishing on board the floating hotel, the four investors are eager to secure their next contract. They have had meetings with various companies that plan to build LNG export projects.

To mitigate risk, the group did not buy the roughly $30 million cruise ferry outright but rather reached a type of rent-to-own deal. If things go well, the investors can buy it. If not, they can walk away.

“I think everybody is sitting here waiting to see if this is a success,” said Brian Grange, president of Bridgemans. “Am I terrified? No, I’m not. I think this is probably one of the most innovative ideas that has been seen on the B.C. coast in quite some time.”

With the national unemployment down t 6.6%, Montana's at 5.2%, and some local counties in the 2-4% range-- and with all these industries unable to find workers-- it appears to me like the economy is booming a lot better then what all the naysayers are saying...

Looks to me like if a person really wants to work- there are some darn good jobs out there...
 

hopalong

Well-known member
Yea right oldtimer,,,you really need to look and understand the whole situation.... which i doubt you have the mental capacity of doing.. why do all the obama babies refuse to work?? it is much easier to draw welfare and live off the rest of US
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Canadian boom town gets taste of Bakken bustle

Posted by: Lydia Gilbertson in Bakken News, Oil March 13, 2014 0 113 Views



VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Hundreds of construction workers in booming northern British Columbia will take up residence this week in unique digs on board a cruise ferry revamped into a floating luxury hotel.

The aging ship will help relieve a housing shortage in one busy Canadian port town already bursting ahead of a promised energy boom that could last more than a decade.


The Silja Festival – a Baltic ferry made over as the Delta Spirit Lodge – will spend at least a year docked outside Kitimat, British Columbia, where it will provide housing for about 600 workers in town for Rio Tinto Alcan’s $3.3 billion smelter-upgrade project, which is expected to wrap up in 2015.

After that, the ship’s owners hope more contracts will float their way as major energy companies like Chevron Corp., Petronas and Royal Dutch Shell push ahead with proposed liquefied natural gas export (LNG) projects along Canada’s Pacific coast.

“This kind of investment would never occur without the kind of mega-opportunities that are growing in the Pacific Northwest,” said Andrew Purdey, vice president of Bridgemans Services Ltd., the privately held company behind the hotel. “We saw the opportunity and we put it all together, but it was effectively driven by industry.”

Despite the “No Vacancy” signs popping up all over town, the endeavor is risky. Bridgemans declined to say how much it is making from its first job, but it has already spent more than C$4 million ($3.6 million) to import and upgrade the ship, with further improvements planned. It has no contract after work wraps up at the Rio smelter.

But if just four major LNG projects go ahead, roughly 15,000 extra beds will be needed in coastal northern British Columbia at peak construction, according to a report from National Bank Financial.

For employers, offering free top-end accommodations complete with a basketball court, a theater, a fine-dining room that serves three hearty meals a day and a captain’s lounge for relaxing may be a draw in a very competitive labor market.

“We always go back to what our client wants. They want to build a platform that attracts and retains the best workers,” said Purdey.



Scrambling for skilled labor

The North American energy industry is booming. Yet as companies make new investments, there are doubts the sector will be able to find and keep the employees needed to complete all the potential projects.

Speaking at an event earlier this year, British Columbia’s energy and mines minister, Bill Bennett, said the province will need to import workers from other provinces and abroad.

“If every single high school kid in B.C. graduated, became an apprentice … it wouldn’t even come close to satisfying the demand we see coming,” he said.

Luring skilled labor away from other thriving areas, like the Alberta oil sands and the Bakken region driving North Dakota’s fracking boom, will take more than good pay. Workers are looking for perks.

The floating hotel, with its all-inclusive facilities and gourmet meals, may be just the ticket for companies that want to take temporary living to the next level.

The ship, which used to sleep more than 2,000 people on overnight trips across the Baltic Sea, has been retrofitted with 700 single-occupancy rooms, each fitted out with a memory foam bed and flat-screen TV.

In addition to providing room and board for the temporary construction workers, the ship has meeting facilities and even a private dining area that can be rented out for special events.

The hotel also provides jobs for local residents who don’t have a professional trade, the owners note, helping to ease the pain of a sharp increase in local housing costs.



Tripling rents, soaring home prices

A quick scan of real estate listings for Kitimat shows just how tight the market has become. Only two houses are listed for under C$200,000, and both are fixer-uppers.

“If the house is priced right, it sells within a few days,” said Ilona Kenny, a realtor with RE/MAX Kitimat Realty who has lived in the area for nearly four decades. “They’re being snapped up by people who live here, by investors who are renting out properties and families that are moving into town.”

The town’s typical family home – an older three-bedroom, one-bathroom bungalow – is selling for about C$250,000, said Kenny, compared with C$100,000 to C$150,000 last year. In one new subdivision, not yet under construction, townhomes start at C$288,500.

Rents too have skyrocketed, which is putting pressure on long-time residents who can no longer afford their homes, said Kitimat mayor Joanne Monaghan.

“All the apartment buildings that were built in the 1970s have been purchased and are being refurbished, and that’s causing problems,” she said. “People were paying C$400 a month rent, and now, in some cases, it’s up to C$1,200 a month.”

The worry is the town will soon find itself in a housing-affordability crisis, much like Williston, N.D., where a fracking boom delivered high-paying jobs for thousands of workers but also led to a sharp rise in homelessness.

While the housing crunch keeps Monaghan awake at night, she is happy the local economy is thriving. There are new hotels, restaurants and retail shops in the works, and the town of 11,000 just got its first Tim Hortons, a popular coffee shop chain that is the hallmark of a bustling Canadian town.



Parade of the U-Hauls

Still, the long-time politician knows that with every resource boom there is usually a bust. Indeed, the town was hit hard during the economic crisis when the local forestry industry collapsed.

“A few months after I became mayor, the Eurocan (paper mill) just pulled out. We had more U-haul trailers going out than I could shake a stick at,” said Monaghan. “Now they’re coming back in and I’m just thanking God.”

Floating lodges are nothing new along the west coast, where they have traditionally been used for road, lumber and fishery projects, but there’s never been anything close to the same size as the 11-deck Silja Festival ship.

As workers finish up last-minute vacuuming and polishing on board the floating hotel, the four investors are eager to secure their next contract. They have had meetings with various companies that plan to build LNG export projects.

To mitigate risk, the group did not buy the roughly $30 million cruise ferry outright but rather reached a type of rent-to-own deal. If things go well, the investors can buy it. If not, they can walk away.

“I think everybody is sitting here waiting to see if this is a success,” said Brian Grange, president of Bridgemans. “Am I terrified? No, I’m not. I think this is probably one of the most innovative ideas that has been seen on the B.C. coast in quite some time.”

With the national unemployment down t 6.6%, Montana's at 5.2%, and some local counties in the 2-4% range-- and with all these industries unable to find workers-- it appears to me like the economy is booming a lot better then what all the naysayers are saying...

Looks to me like if a person really wants to work- there are some darn good jobs out there...

WORK??? Many of those in the oilfield/Bakken don't want to work, they just want a paycheck.

Not working has become 'cool' under this 'cool' administration.

Too many are late for work, if they show up at all. If something goes wrong, they just want to stand around and not fix it. Some of the best hands can't pass the drug test. Yep, they need workers in the Bakken alright. The key word being WORKERS.
 

TexasBred

Well-known member
hypocritexposer said:
Oldtimer said:
Canadian boom town gets taste of Bakken bustle

:lol:

Canada has been booming for years, it is the Bakken that has got a taste of the Canadian bustle.

True and this type situation has been going on in oil boom towns since oil ws discovered. We have the same thing going down here in Texas in the Eagle Ford Shale.....bigger even than the Bakken.....Truth is oil field workers are tough, hard nosed SOBs and if you dn't believe it try one on for size. Fat Boy sheriff's had made big reputations arresting and beating drunk oil field workers.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Giant Marcellus shale coming of age

By Dan Sharp for the Bismarck Tribune

Not quite two years before the Civil War started, an out-of-work railway conductor named Edwin Drake brought in America’s first oil well in western Pennsylvania. Drake, who had risked every cent he had to help fund the venture, hit oil at 69 feet. Not only was his 1859 discovery just in time to help fuel the Union’s successful war effort, but it also laid the groundwork for what was to become the drilling industry as we know it.

Others followed Drake’s drilling lead and ushered in the first authentic American oil rush in the middle Appalachian Mountains. Other states along with Pennsylvania (West Virginia, western New York State and extreme eastern Ohio) became the country’s major producers of what was at the time called “rock oil.” By the end of the Civil War in 1865, drillers had honed their skills so well that they were drilling as deep as 1,100 feet.

While technically speaking Drake’s well near Titusville was the country’s first true oil well, natural gas had been produced from shallow wells in New York State for some 30 years. The gas was used mainly for small-town street lighting. In 1828, a natural gas line was laid to fuel a lighthouse on Lake Erie and promptly became a major tourist attraction.

Appalachia’s oil production peaked before the turn of the 20th Century. Thereafter, with the shallow fields depleted, companies used the new technology of reflection seismology to find promising oil-bearing structures as deep as 7,000 feet. But, drilling in Appalachia required an additional skill – one that often meant the difference between success and failure, sometimes between life and death.

Situated above promising oil-bearing units was a zone that – once penetrated – abruptly disgorged immense quantities of high-pressure natural gas. Crews sometimes had little warning to abandon rig and let the well “degas,” which often took several days. Indeed, a stray spark could cause an explosion and lead to disaster at the wellhead. Predicting when the drill bit would enter the nuisance zone was often just a seasoned rig operator’s best guess.

Bakken-like tightness

What drillers didn’t then know (and what petroleum geologists would later find) is that the nuisance zone is actually the largest repository of natural gas in the United States – and second largest in the world. In time, the zone would be named the Marcellus shale (or Marcellus formation) and be found to underlie an area of more than 100,000 square miles. Its name derives from small Marcellus, N.Y., where the shale crops out nearby.

The Marcellus shares several commonalities with the Bakken. First, it is a tight, shale formation that – in the days of vertical drilling – was largely overlooked. Second, it was laid down at roughly the same point in geologic time as the Bakken. And it responds well to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing and holds great promise in helping the nation gain energy self-sufficiency.

The Marcellus shale was deposited between 384 and 393 million years ago in a quiet sea. (The Bakken’s age is about 360 million years.) At that time, North America straddled the Equator with that shallow sea lying in the Southern Hemisphere – at about the same latitude as present day Darwin, Australia. Rivers and streams draining mountains to the east (along what is now America’s Atlantic coast) washed in the black clays that would form the Marcellus. Those highlands had been recently created when a small continent slammed into eastern North America and – combined with molten bodies from deep within the earth’s crust – pushed upward. Land plants were just starting to arise and prehistoric fish were at the top of the food chain.

The shale underlies parts of nine states – New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, plus small areas of Virginia, New Jersey, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee and southern Ontario, Canada.
Unlike the Bakken, the Marcellus’ depth varies greatly – from being exposed at the surface in central New York to over 9,000 feet deep in eastern Pennsylvania. Its thickness ranges from a few feet in Ohio to more than 900 feet near the Pennsylvania-New Jersey state line.

Expanding market share

The most striking difference, however, between the Marcellus and the Bakken is that the Marcellus produces very little crude oil. It is nearly singularly a natural gas reservoir (See sidebar). It might be said that the Marcellus is to natural gas what the Bakken is to oil. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) the Marcellus now produces about 18 percent of the country’s natural gas.

Ft. Worth, Texas-based Range Resources started the present interest in the Marcellus shale in 2003 when the company drilled a well in central Pennsylvania using the same horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking technology it was successfully employing in Texas’ Barnett shale. Heightened interest by other companies began in 2005 with a marked increase in leasing. By 2008, drillers were applying Bakken-like technology with extremely high initial natural gas production rates. Range Resources continues to be a major player in the Marcellus play, which also includes Chesapeake Energy, Anadarko Petroleum, XTO Energy, EOG Resources, Cabot Oil & Gas and others.

How much natural gas is present in the Marcellus? Estimates are wide ranging, but everyone agrees that the shale gas reserves here are huge. In 2002, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimated the Marcellus could ultimately produce two trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas. By way of comparison, annual United States production is about 30 Tcf.

In August 2011, the USGS significantly increased its Marcellus shale estimate to 84 Tcf of technically recoverable natural gas and 3.4 billion barrels of recoverable natural gas liquids (propane, butane, and other liquid hydrocarbons removed from natural gas at processing plants). Last year, the USGS estimated the Bakken to contain 6.7 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.


According to EIA, 2013 Marcellus shale natural gas production reached 3.9 Tcf. Pennsylvania accounted for 3.2 Tcf and is now the second leading natural gas producing state behind Texas. West Virginia and Ohio accounted for nearly all of the remainder of Marcellus natural gas production. In mid-February 2014, 82 rigs were operating in the Marcellus play compared to 174 in the Bakken. Driller interest is highest in central and northeast Pennsylvania where the shale is deepest and thickest. Pennsylvania accounts for six of every 10 wells now drilled into the shale.

Changing industry dynamics

The rapid development of the Marcellus play is changing long-standing dynamics in the natural gas industry. Since the end of World War II, transmission of natural gas to the densely populated, energy-parched Northeast has been from the Gulf Coast, and more recently from western Canada. However, with the Marcellus literally right next door, a major is shift is underway, which is reducing the role of Gulf oil.

In early February 2014, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved three desperately needed pipeline projects that will enhance delivery from the Marcellus play eastward and help relieve current capacity constraints. The three new pipelines – Texas Eastern’s TEAM 2014 Project; Williams’ Constitution Pipeline; and Iroquois Pipeline’s Wright Interconnect Project – have in-service dates in 2015-16. The TEAM 2014 Project will allow for bidirectional flow, which will enable shipping companies to ship gas southward and westward as well as eastward.

Unlike the Bakken play, development of the Marcellus is being vigorously challenged by well organized groups opposed to hydraulic fracking. Their primary concern is degradation of water resources and air quality. One study contends that the introduction of thousands of drilling sites will amount to a paved area equal to the size of Delaware. Most active protest is taking place in Pennsylvania and Ohio, however, communities across the Marcellus play have banned fracking within the city limits. New York instituted a statewide moratorium on fracking in 2008. Industry analysts believe Governor Cuomo will wait until after the November 2014 election to decide whether to allow fracking to proceed.
 
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