Antero Clearwater Facility for treating fracking wastewater (“brine”) on hilltop overlooking US Route 50 in Doddridge County, WV
From an Article of Kallanish News Service, May 3, 2019
First-quarter net daily natural gas-equivalent production for Antero Resources averaged 3.10 billion cubic feet-equivalent per day (Bcfe/d), a 30% increase over Q1 2018, as the company took advantage of the Mariner East 2 liquids pipeline.
The Colorado-based company said 29% of Appalachian Basin production was liquids by volume. Liquids production for the quarter averaged 148,003 barrels per day, a 44% increase, and contributed 35% of the company’s total product revenue pre-hedges.
The liquids included 11,305 Bpd of oil, natural gas liquids production of 97,710 Bpd, and recovered ethane production of 38,989 Bpd. It estimated 135,000 Bpd of ethane remained in the natural gas stream.
Exporting using Mariner East via Marcus Hook
The NGL prices averaged $31.63 per barrel for the quarter and $34.70/Bbl in February and March, after Antero began to export significant ethane volumes from Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, via the Mariner East 2 pipeline that transports liquids from the Marcellus and Utica shales.
Those shipments provided “a material uplift” to the company’s cash flow with premium prices, said chairman and CEO Paul Rady in a statement. It realized a 17-cent-per-gallon premium to Mont Belvieu, Texas, prices in February and March.
Antero claims to be ‘Well positioned’
Antero, the largest liquids producer in the U.S., is “well positioned to achieve superior margins on our liquids volumes moving forward,” Rady said.
It shipped 29% of its C3+ Ngls production. Antero has a firm commitment on Mariner East 2 of 50,000 Bpd, with 35,000 Bpd for propane, and 15,000 Bpd for butane. It could double that capacity to 100,000 Bpd, depending on need.
Antero said its realized natural gas-equivalent price averaged $4 per thousand cubic feet after hedges and including liquids.
Net income jumps for 1st quarter
The company reported first-quarter 2019 net income of $979 million, or $3.17 per share, a huge jump from $14.8 million, or 5 cents/share in the year-earlier quarter.
It reduced its debt by $360 million in the quarter with the proceeds from its midstream simplification transaction and $68 million of free cash flow generated in Q1 2019.
Its adjusted net income was $106 million (non-GAAP), or 35 cents per diluted share. Its adjusted EBITDAX was $443 million (non-GAAP).
Marcellus Shale wells turned-to-sales
Antero reported it placed 23 horizontal Marcellus wells to sales in the quarter, with an average lateral length of 9,500 feet and an average production rate per well of 18.6 million cubic feet-equivalent per day (Mmcfe/d) on choke.
It also drilled 36 wells with an average lateral length of 10,000 feet, taking on average 11.6 total days from spud to final rig release. That is 6% reduction in drilling time from 2018.
The company said it drilled an average 5,300 lateral feet per day in the quarter, the highest quarterly rate in company history. It drilled 9,184 feet of lateral in 24 hours, a feat it believes is a world record.
In 2019, Antero said it expects to drill 120 to 130 wells and place 115 to 125 wells online. It plans to operate four rigs and an average of three completion crews for the rest of 2019. That is a reduction from the five drilling rigs and four completion crews in Q1 2019.
Its 2019 natural gas production is fully hedged, Antero said.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Antero Resources reaches settlement with federal and state agencies over violations in West Virginia, WBOY News 12, February 11, 2019
CLARKSBURG, WV — The Department of Justice, the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection announced that they have reached a settlement with Antero Resources Corporation resolving alleged violations of Section 404 of the Clean Water Act at 32 sites in Harrison, Doddridge and Tyler counties.
The settlement requires Antero to pay a civil penalty of $3.15 million and to conduct restoration, stabilization and mitigation work at impacted sites, according to the United States Department of Justice. Antero will also provide mitigation for aquatic resource impacts.
Impacts to aquatic resources will be partially offset at a 51.5 acre permittee-responsible mitigation site that will restore, enhance, create and preserve more than 11,500 linear feet of streams and more than three acres of wetlands, according to a press release. The EPA-estimated value of the proposed mitigation and restoration is $8 million.
The violations involved the unauthorized disposal of dredged and fill materials into waters at or near sites where Antero had constructed well pads, compressor stations, impoundments, pipeline crossings, access roads and other structures associated with Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction via fracking, according to the Department of Justice.
The unauthorized activities impacted more than 19,000 linear feet of streams and more than four acres of wetlands and included stream impoundments, filling wetlands and streams for compressor station pads, realigning and culverting stream segments and failing to fully restore “temporary” impacts, according a press release.
Approximately half of the sites were identified by Antero through a self audit. Several of the sites were associated with construction failures or slips from access roads and pads, according to the Department of Justice.
The proposed settlement is subject to a 30-day public comment period.
Point Your RSS Reader to FrackCheckWV.net/feed/
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Settlement Requires More Radioactivity Monitoring at Antero Treatment Facility in West Virginia
Article by Jamison Cocklin, NGI Shale Daily, December 22, 2017
An Antero Midstream Partners LP subsidiary has reached a settlement with two West Virginia environmental groups that resolves their appeal of permits for a 60,000 barrels/day wastewater treatment facility in Doddridge County that will require the company to monitor more closely for radioactivity there.
The West Virginia Rivers Coalition and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy filed an appeal with the state Environmental Quality Board in June protesting the stormwater and solid waste permits for Antero’s Clearwater Facility and the landfill next to it. They claimed the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection failed to adequately evaluate the potential for disposal of radioactive waste at the site and asked that the permits be vacated and modified to protect against potential harms.
Instead, Antero Treatment LLC has agreed to file a plan with state regulators to comply with the more stringent requirements to guard against radioactive discharges. The settlement requires monthly analysis of salt samples randomly selected from trucks delivering to the landfill for a year. It also requires Antero to take monthly groundwater sampling for different types of radium over the same time and expands the company’s surface water monitoring to include bromide and total dissolved solids. Those results are to be shared with the environmental groups.
Antero, which soon expects to place the facility into service, has invested $275 million on the project. One of the largest facilities of its kind in the Appalachian Basin, the plant would process wastewater from Antero Resources Corp. shale wells in Ohio and West Virginia.It would produce salt and sludge byproducts in the process.
While the sludge can be trucked off site, the landfill would dispose of any salt the company can’t sell to third parties such as those that manufacture rock salt for roads. Oil and gas waste is known to have radioactive properties after coming into contact with naturally occuring materials deep below the earth’s surface.
The plant is centrally located in Antero’s core acreage position and is set to treat 95% of the producer’s water, eliminating the need for disposal wells and providing 41,000 barrels/day of freshwater for reuse in new wells.
The company’s permits allow it to discharge stormwater and other wastes into tributaries of the Hughes River and dispose of waste in the landfill. The settlement is legally binding and set to expire once the permits are renewed.
There was no evaluation for the potential for radioactivity from waste to be disposed of at this site, and no numeric effluent limitation sufficient to protect water quality standards related to radioactivity.
https://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/112842-settlement-requires-more-radioactivity-monitoring-at-antero-treatment-facility-in-west-virginia
Environmental group says problems persist at Antero landfill
By Kate Mishkin, Charleston Gazette, Nov 23, 2018
The Antero Landfill in Doddridge County was cited this summer for environmental problems, and a local watershed organization says this kind of violation is exactly what it warned officials about.
The Antero complex, which is on the Doddridge-Ritchie county line and includes a water treatment and adjacent landfill, was built to help get water to drill gas and then dispose the water that’s contaminated with salt and chemicals used to release the gas. Residents in the region were worried from the beginning that the treatment facility would pollute the drinking water, among other things.
The environmental problems began in April, when Antero noticed elevated chloride levels in a stormwater pond, and found liquid had been escaping through the landfill, according to an inspection report from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.
Almost a month later, Antero found another section of the liner at the landfill had been torn. Antero didn’t call its designated spill line, didn’t tell the Division of Water and Waste Management, didn’t provide a five-day written submission with a description of the incident and a plan to fix it, and didn’t call the Hughes River Water Board, like it’s required to. The DEP didn’t know about the spill until it inspected the site in May, the violation notice says.
The violation notice also cites Antero for letting the leachate escape in the first place.
A response to the notice of violation was due at the end of July, but the DEP granted Antero an additional 10 days. In its response, Antero said it “agrees that a courtesy notification was in order.” Moving forward, the company said it would notify the Division of Water and Waste Management, the spill line and Hughes River Water Board out of “an abundance of caution and in a spirit of cooperation.”
But, Antero noted, it did try to contact the DEP on May 4 to describe the April 25 chloride levels and didn’t hear back from the DEP until May 17, “when it was informed that DEP would be inspecting the nearby Antero Clearwater Facility that day.”
This violation is exactly what Friends of Hughes was concerned about, said Jim Shreves, president of the citizen group. “It’s your responsibility to make sure the operator calls in the reported spill. Everything’s going undocumented, there are no answers for why this is getting into the water,” Shreves said.
Antero did not respond to requests for more information for this article. The DEP confirmed the Notice of Violation did not include a monetary fine but did not comment on the quality of the drinking water.
In October, Shreves wrote to the DEP asking for more information about the status of the facility. “Allowing them to continue operation and go on with a leaking liner is negligence to the people of this county,” he wrote.
In response, Dennis Stottlemyer, deputy environmental advocate for the DEP, said the top layer of the landfill liner was repaired and nothing had released into the environment.
About an hour later, Stottlemyer wrote back to Shreves: “I stand corrected. Very corrected as you can see in the attachments that I am sending you.” He attached the Notice of Violation and Antero’s subsequent response.
But, Shreves said in an interview, the landfill has remained an “environmental nightmare.” “We’ve gotta get these laws and regulations enforced,” Shreves said. “It was put there for a reason.”
A conference call between Friends of Hughes and the DEP is scheduled for later this month.