In early January, Chesapeake Energy and Southwestern Energy, two companies with major assets in the country’s two leading gas plays — the Marcellus/Utica and the Haynesville — announced an agreement to merge into one company (see Deal is Done! Chesapeake & Southwestern Announce $7.4B Merger). Such a merger would create the country’s largest natural gas…
Read More...The Bidenistas at the EPA announced last night the agency will delay, until AFTER the November election, implementing harsh new regulations aimed at closing down gas-fired power plants across the country. The unstated purpose is to remove this highly unpopular edict as a campaign issue so the bag of bones known as Joementia can try…
Read More...Yesterday, the Biden White House announced it is nominating three new members to join the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). There are supposed to be five commissioners, although the commission can still function with as few as three. Currently, there are three (two Democrats, one Republican), with one of the Dems, radical Allison Clements, leaving…
Read More...Earlier this month, MDN told you about Pennsylvania’s two U.S. Senators, John Fetterman and Bob Casey, and their wishy-washy, mild criticism of Joe Biden’s decision to “pause” any new LNG export permits (see PA’s 2 Democrat U.S. Senators Mildly Chide Biden for LNG Pause). We published their joint statement, which appears to criticize Biden’s LNG…
Read More...Sometimes, we get a miracle. A liberal Democrat judge from Franklin County, OH, ruled on Friday that anti-fossil fuel fanatics don’t have the right to appeal a decision by the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) to meet and award contracts to drill under (not on) several Ohio state parks, including the 20,000-acre…
Read More...Members of the Wet Virginia State Senate voted on Friday to permanently retain a flawed oil and gas well valuation formula. The Senate vote comes after the House had previously voted to do the same thing (see WV’s Botched NatGas Property Tax Gets Messier with House Vote). The formula used has been the cause of unending…
Read More...On Feb. 15, members of the South Carolina Public Service Commission approved a proposed project to build a 1,020-megawatt (MV) gas-fired power plant in the state’s Lowcountry, in Colleton County. The project is a 50/50 partnership between Dominion Energy (formerly South Carolina Electric & Gas) and Santee Cooper (South Carolina’s state-owned electric and water utility)….
Read More...Although Shell maintains flaring and accidental emissions from its new multi-billion-dollar ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA, have not violated state and federal air standards, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) says they have — on numerous occasions. Shell didn’t argue the point, and last May, the company agreed to pay nearly $10 million…
Read More...While drilling in Chester County, PA, in August 2020 in the Marsh Creek State Park area, Energy Transfer’s (ET) Mariner East 2X pipeline experienced an “inadvertent return” — nontoxic drilling mud coming up out of the ground where it’s not supposed to (see Mariner East 2X Construction Causes Another Drilling Mud Spill). It took more…
Read More...Democrats will never be satisfied until they tax you for breathing and even existing, which was perfectly illustrated by a proposal submitted by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to its so-called Climate Change Advisory Committee on Tuesday. Not satisfied to try and force a Marcellus-killing carbon tax (called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative,…
Read More...Townships and local municipalities in Pennsylvania are now beginning to deal with a new issue, particularly where there is active natural gas drilling. For years, local towns in PA have dealt with the issue of zoning and where to allow gas drilling. A recent (past few years) development is that cryptocurrency “miners” are beginning to…
Read More...Last summer, MDN told you that a new system to assess valuations of shale wells in West Virginia had turned into a royal mess (see WV NatGas Property Tax Rule Still a Mess, 303 Cases Appealed). In January, that mess got a whole lot messier — what we call a hot mess — when a…
Read More...Earlier this week, MDN reported on a bill making its way through West Virginia’s legislative sausage-making process (see WV Bill Triples Conventional Well Royalty Payments if Made Late). WV House Bill (HB) 4292 attempts to close a loophole affecting landowners and mineral rights owners with a conventional oil or gas well, some of whom suffer…
Read More...In 2021, PennEnergy Resources made a request to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to withdraw up to 3 million gallons of water a day from Big Sewickley Creek and one of its tributaries for shale fracking (see Dem PA Lawmaker Wants to Block Use of Creek Water for Fracking). In March 2022, PennEnergy…
Read More...In 2018, Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), proposed to extend MVP (when it’s done) by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The 75-mile extension is called MVP Southgate. Last year,…
Read More...