(Marcellus Drilling News - July 16, 2013) Pipeline to be reversed to serve mystery Utica shale producer (by Bob Downing)
What a difference a year makes. Last August, RBN Energy President Rusty Braziel said the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX), which originates in Rio Blanco County, Colorado and sends gas to Monroe County, Ohio, was in danger of drying up because there’s so much shale gas coming from the Marcellus. His prescription? Turn it around and send gas the other way (see REX NatGas Pipeline Faces Stiff Competition from Marcellus). Looks like REX has taken Rusty’s advice.
In a press release issued yesterday, REX announced they have a binding agreement with an unnamed “large Utica Shale producer” who wants to use the pipeline to ship 200,000 decatherms of processed natural gas per day to the Midcontinent region of the country. That is, REX is reversing the flow for at least part of the pipeline. And who might the unnamed “mystery” producer be? We think we know…
As for the identity of the unnamed producer in the agreement, the largest producer in the Utica by far is Chesapeake Energy. That would be a good guess–but we think it would be wrong. REX is building a 14-mile pipeline to connect to the MarkWest Seneca processing facility in Noble County. According to a May 2013 MDN story, MarkWest’s Seneca facility will service several active drillers in the region, including Antero Resources, Gulfport, Rex Energy, PDC Energy and CNX/Consol Energy (see MarkWest Announces Third Processing Plant in Noble County, OH). However, it’s also clear in that story that of the drillers named, Antero is their biggest and closest customer for the Seneca facility. Therefore, our best guess is that the unnamed major Utica producer for the REX pipeline is Antero Resources
