The Daily Digger

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. ,  April 23, 2013  (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --  Rex Energy Corporation  (Nasdaq:REXX) today announced first quarter 2013 production volumes of 75.3 MMcfe/d, consisting of 53.2 MMcf/d of natural gas and 3.7 Mboe/d of oil, condensate and NGLs, an increase of 24% over the first quarter of 2012 and 2% over the fourth quarter of 2012. Oil and NGLs accounted for 29% of net production during the first quarter of 2013. First quarter 2013 production of 75.3 MMcfe/d exceeded the high end of the company's guidance of 71.5 — 73.5 MMcfe/d by 2%. The company also announced its first quarter 2013 natural gas, oil and NGLs price realizations (including the effect of cash-settled derivatives). For the three months ended  March 31, 2013 , realized prices were  $4.28  per Mcf for natural gas,  $90.70  per barrel for oil and condensate and $45.92  per barrel for NGLs, which was approximately 49% of the average quoted  NYMEX  oil p...

From Bloomberg: Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK)  former Chief Executive Officer  Aubrey McClendon  will be paid $11.1 million in cash after leaving the company he founded 24 years ago. McClendon is already seeking assets as he builds a new oil and natural gas company. The terms of McClendon’s separation agreement also will entitle him to a 28.125 percent interest in a Citation X aircraft through the end of 2016, the Oklahoma City-based company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. McClendon, 53, stepped down on March 29 after a shareholder revolt led by  Carl Icahn  and Southeastern Asset Management Inc. In an April 16 e-mail to industry contacts, McClendon announced he has formed  American Energy Partners LP , an Oklahoma City- based enterprise that he wants to build into a “substantial” exploration and production company. “I will be looking for deals with a lot of drilling left on them and will also consider undev...

From the Zanesville Times Recorder: Art Berman is a shale skeptic.   Berman, an energy consultant in Houston, has been a dissenting voice on the viability of recently discovered oil and gasfields in Louisiana, Texas and Pennsylvania. He may very well end up a doubter of the economics of Ohio’s Utica Shale as well but right now, he said, it’s impossible to take a side.   “One of the problems with the Utica Shale play is that nobody — nobody — has the ability to determine how long these wells are going to last,” Berman said, before noting the companies themselves may keep this information private.   Ohio only requires companies to report their production volumes once per year, rather than monthly as many of the traditional oil and gas producing states do. That limits Berman and other independent analysts from estimating how gradually or sharply these horizontal wells deplete the oil and gas trapped in the shale. Read the rest of the article here. Companies had to...

From the Worldwatch Institute: Washington, D.C.-Over its full cycle of production, distribution, and use, natural gas emits just over half as many greenhouse gas emissions as coal does for equivalent energy output, according to a new study from the Worldwatch Institute and the Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors. The analysis clarifies the role of methane releases in the calculation of comparative emissions between the two fossil fuels and explores how the growing share of natural gas production from shale formations could change that fuel's footprint.   Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated its methodology for estimating methane emissions from natural gas systems, generating concern that the new, higher methane figures could minimize the greenhouse gas advantage that natural gas is seen widely to have over coal.   Applying the EPA's new estimates, the life-cycle greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas-fired electricity increased rou...

From the Youngstown Vindicator: Supporters of an anti-fracking charter amendment in the city unveiled two billboards in their campaign to persuade voters to cast ballots May 7 for the issue.   Members of Frack Free Youngs-town also urged registered voters in the city to cast ballots early for the “community bill of rights.” And further: Alan Wenger, a member of the Mahoning Valley Coalition for Job Growth and Investment, an organization working to defeat the charter amendment, said the proposal isn’t enforceable.   When asked about Meander, Wenger said, “Why don’t they shoot for the Atlantic Ocean while they’re at it? They can’t force anything in the city, let alone outside Youngstown.”   The state controls all fracking in Ohio, and the charter amendment wouldn’t be enforceable, if approved, said Wenger, an attorney with Harrington, Hoppe & Mitchell and chairman of the law firm’s oil and gas practice group. But if the issue passes, “it will be very ...

From Breitbart.com: A group of at least 20 farmers, some who woke at 4:30 a.m. in order to travel to Manhattan for a Tribeca Film Festival screening of  Gasland Part II , were barred from seeing the film after questioning celebrity anti-fracking director Yoko Ono, according to filmmaker Phelim McAleer. Festival security officials allegedly blocked the farmers from entering, and soon area police officers reportedly arrived to make sure none of the farmers could enter. Some of the farmers, said McAleer, had yelled tough questions at both  Gasland Part II  director Josh Fox and anti-fracking advocate Yoko Ono as they walked the red carpet before the 3:30 p.m. screening. Both films insist the process of fracking poses an environmental hazard that far outweighs its power-producing benefits. McAleer told Breitbart News that the tough questions apparently convinced festival officials to prevent them from seeing the actual film. "Any farmer who had the temerity to q...

From the Times Herald-Record: Sure, the folks who might drill wells for natural gas know that many people say fracking will pollute the water we drink. Not true, say those drillers. So why the bad rep? "Because of uneducated people and bad information," says Mike Frey, a certified water-well driller from Salisbury Mills and president of the Empire State Water Well Drillers Association, which met at the Town of Wallkill's Holiday Inn this weekend. He added: "Our mission statement is to provide and protect the ground water resources of New York. We're all environmentalists." Frey was one of the drillers from across the state who gathered at a site in the town Friday to watch a demonstration of water-well drilling. That's a much smaller, less intrusive process than the horizontal gas extraction method of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which uses a mixture of sand and chemicals to fracture underground shale and extract the gas — often far ...