Co. Pleads Guilty, Fined $2M for Marcellus Truck Emissions Scam
In September 2018, MDN brought you the news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 6 Charged with Bypassing Emissions Controls on Marcellus Trucks). All six eventually pleaded guilty (see Man Pleads Guilty to Bypassing Emissions Controls on Marc. Trucks). The company involved in the scandal, Rockwater, has now pleaded guilty and will pay a $2 million fine.
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It might help anti-fossil fuel radicals if they at least got a few of their facts right. Facts are typically missing from their hysterical proclamations. Case in point: An anti addressed the Ransom Township board earlier this week (Scranton, PA suburb) to try and convince the board to pass a resolution against trucks hauling LNG from traveling through the community on the way to Interstate 81. Her wild claims were false.
Anti-fossil fuelers, like those who write for and edit the Scranton Times-Tribune, are still spitting and sputtering that an $800 million LNG liquefaction plant is going to get built in nearby Bradford County and that LNG from that plant is going to roll through the Scranton area on both rail cars *and* on trucks. New Fortress Energy is building the project, currently on pause until early next year (see 
Pittsburgh-based IntegrServ, a trucking company partly owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against EQT claiming discrimination against the company as a minority-owned company after it canceled a contract worth some $66 million last year. This is an involved story and of course, there are always two sides to every story (and two sides to every lawsuit).
Anti-fossil fuelers are on a holy mission to stop a 3.37-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being built under the Potomac River by Columbia Gas (see 
In September 2018, MDN brought you the news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
Last September MDN brought you news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emission systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
Must be something in the water in Vermont. They elect people to high office like crazy Bernie Sanders and Pat “leaky” Leahy. And now there is a serious effort to pass a bill that will result in a ban on any kind of new infrastructure that supports natural gas. No more new local gas utility pipelines to new housing developments, no more new hookups for businesses locating in the state, no new hookups for factories, farms–no nothing. The reason? An abject, irrational hatred of fossil fuels. This cancer of irrational thinking has got to stop.
Last week MDN brought you the exciting news that New Fortress Energy is planning to build an LNG (liquefied natural gas) liquefaction plant in Wyalusing (Bradford County), PA (see 
We may not always agree with certain rules and regulations, but skirting or ignoring them is not an option. Especially not in the Marcellus industry. A small group of men (six so far) in Williamsport (Lycoming County), PA are accused of conspiring to illegally alter emission systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines. The trucks belong to Rockwater Northeast of Canonsburg, a subsidiary of Rockwater Energy Solutions Inc. of Houston, Texas, used to haul fresh water and wastewater to/from Marcellus Shale wells being drilled. The men “tampered with and removed emission monitoring devices on trucks to reduce repair costs and maintenance down time.” Five of the six have already plead guilty, and a sixth was recently charged in the scheme. They all face jail time and stiff fines. Folks, this is not acceptable behavior for our industry…
We don’t know about you, but hardly a day goes by we don’t notice the word “blockchain” in the headlines. Increasingly that word is used in oil and gas news. We had some vague idea that blockchain has something to do with digital currency–using Bitcoin instead of dollars. Whatever Bitcoin is! So what could blockchain possibly have to do with oil and gas? As it turns out, blockchain the technology is much more than just a technology that makes digital currency possible. We spotted an article on the World Oil website about blockchain and took the opportunity to dig into this new tech sweeping the world by storm. Put simply, blockchain is an ironclad “way of tracking things.” Those things can be money (the earliest adopter of the technology), but also other things, like legal documents. The technology can also be used to guard against hackers breaking into a company’s network. Cybersecurity is often mentioned as a huge benefit of using blockchain in the oil and gas industry. Blockchain tech can protect against hackers breaking into a remotely controlled drilling rig, for example. Or breaking into a computer that controls shipments of goods and materials. Drilling companies have some of the most complex logistics operations in the world. They plan out drilling new shale wells up to a year in advance, coordinating it so that trucks hauling equipment (even the rig itself) arrive on the exact day they need to be there. And they coordinate deliveries of water and sand used in fracking–down to the day those deliveries need to arrive, figuring out how to get them shipped via train and truck. A year in advance! Can you imagine a hacker breaking into a network and screwing with that information? It could be economically catastrophic for the driller. Blockchain guards against it. Here’s more about blockchain and how it’s coming (fast) to the shale industry…