PA Supremes Allow Out-of-Town Hearsay in SWPA Zoning Dispute

It’s hard enough for drillers to get permits town by town in Pennsylvania, where the standards are all different thanks to the seven selfish towns that appealed the Act 13 law passed in 2012 (see PA Supreme Court Rules Against State/Drillers in Act 13 Case). The PA Supreme Court has just made it even harder

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NY DEC Asks Federal Court to Overturn FERC Approval of NY Pipe

Last August the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a decision overruling the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to allow National Fuel Gas Company’s Northern Access Pipeline project to proceed (see Big News: FERC Overrules NY DEC to Approve Northern Access Pipe). The DEC subsequently asked FERC to reconsider the decision. FERC did,

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PA Sen. Yaw Sees the Light – Doesn’t Support Severance Tax

Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw, Republican from Lycoming County, PA, seems to have changed his mind about a severance tax on Marcellus Shale production. The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) visited Williamsport in Yaw’s home district yesterday. At a joint press conference to discuss the superiority of an impact fee to a severance tax, Yaw called

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NY DEC Releases Draft Air Permits for Orange Cnty Gas-Fired Plant

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tried to stop a fully built, brand new natural gas-fired electric generating plant in Orange County from going operational last year by instructing his Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to deny renewing an air permit it had approved just five years earlier (see Cuomo Strikes Again: Blocks Completed Gas-Fired Plant

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NGSA Summer Forecast: High Demand + High Production = Flat Prices

The Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) yesterday released its 2019 Summer Outlook for Natural Gas report (summary below). It’s not much different than the Winter Outlook was (see NGSA Winter Forecast: High Demand + High Production = Flat Prices). NGSA predicts natural gas demand will reach new all-time highs this summer. However, natural gas production

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Chinese Study Claims CO2 Better than Water in Fracking

From time to time MDN highlights new technologies used in shale drilling. We’ve talked about companies developing alternatives to water as a fracking fluid, things like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or propane) fracking (see eCORP Tests New Waterless LPG Fracking Method on First Shale Well), and using baby oil as a fracking fluid (see ecorpStim

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Riverkeeper Sounds Alarm re New LNG Export Facility on Dela. River

Maya van Rossum, who fancies herself as THE Delaware Riverkeeper, has her knickers in a twist. She’s just woken up to the fact that New Fortress Energy, which is building an LNG liquefying plant in northeastern Pennsylvania (see Big News! Marcellus LNG Export Plant Coming to Landlocked NEPA), will truck the LNG to a port

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Antero Resources Sues EnerQuest O&G Alleging Stolen Trade Secrets

Antero Resources sued EnerQuest Oil & Gas in a Texas court last year claiming EnerQuest had solicited and received trade secrets for a pair of landmen who live and work in Texas. A lower court dismissed the lawsuit based on a technicality (because the solicitation from EnerQuest came via email), claiming Texas does not have

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List of NatGas & NGL Pipeline Projects in Marcellus/Utica & Beyond

Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, collects data on all aspects of the U.S. energy industry. We spotted a newly updated spreadsheet issued by EIA that lists all “liquids” pipeline projects from 2010 to the present (and planned into the future). That caused us to look for another spreadsheet EIA produces (also

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US Supreme Court Rejects Landowner Case Against Atlantic Sunrise

The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected hearing a case appealed from a lower court by a group of Lancaster County landowners who claim Williams and their Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project abused eminent domain authority by building the pipeline before litigating (for years) how much money landowners should receive–landowners who refused to negotiate in good faith

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PA Republicans Push Alternative to Wolf’s Insane Severance Tax

In April MDN told you that Pennsylvania State Senators Camera Bartolotta (Washington County) and Pat Stefano (Fayette County) had beaten PA Gov. Tom Wolf at his own game by offering to pay for his so-called Restore PA plan, not by using a severance tax on shale production, but instead by allowing more shale drilling on

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Oil & Gas Industry has Already Spent $110M Fixing WV’s Bad Roads

In April, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who is pro-coal (because much of his personal fortune comes from coal), took a swipe at shale drillers claiming shale is responsible for the poor condition of roadways in the Mountain State (see WV Gov. Justice Blames Shale for Bad Roads, Wants Higher Taxes). The shale industry begs

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Continues Vendetta Against Range Resources

Pennsylvania Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, and the anti-drilling Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, continue their tag-team effort to criminalize and humiliate Range Resources. Shapiro, a sleazy politician, is investigating so-called environmental “crimes” committed by shale companies in a bid to boost his chances of being the next nominee to run for governor (see PA AG Investigates Shale Drillers

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First US “Small-Scale” LNG Facility Launches in Jacksonville, FL

JAX LNG (click for larger version) Something’s happening in Jacksonville, Florida with respect to LNG. It seems LNG plants of various types are popping up all over in Jacksonville! Nearly one year ago Eagle LNG opened its Maxville facility which liquefies natural gas into LNG for loading onto ships that use it as fuel (see

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Columbia Gas Sues Maryland to Allow Pipeline Under Potomac

Expressing dismay at needing to do so, Columbia Gas Transmission has been forced to haul the State of Maryland into court over the state’s refusal to grant an easement to drill a tiny 3.5-mile pipeline under the Potomac River. In January, Maryland’s emasculated RINO governor, Larry Hogan, along with two other state officials (both Democrats)

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