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New Pipeline Permit Rules Delay Landowner Royalties in PA

paperworkA new set of rules governing pipeline construction permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps or Engineers is causing extreme delays in getting gas from wells to market according to Chesapeake Energy. The new rules have turned what was an average 45-day process to file paperwork into a 300-day process.

The bottom line is that wells that are drilled and completed sit idle because gathering pipelines aren’t being built to them, and consequently landowners are not receiving royalty checks.

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PA Lt Gov Cawley Addresses Severance Tax in Chat Session

On Monday, Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley, the head of Gov. Tom Corbett’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission, did a Q&A session via text chat with readers of the Philadelphia Inquirer to answer questions about the final report of 96 recommendations filed by the Commission and about the work they performed to arrive those recommendations. The questions covered jobs, taxes, regulation, pollution and more. Among the Q&A was this excellent exchange on taxes that puts to bed the widespread misunderstanding that the drilling industry is not paying taxes and “if only PA had a severance tax it would solve the budget problems in the state”:

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MarkWest Processing Plants in PA & WV Ramp Up Output

MarkWest Energy Partners and its subsidiary companies concentrate on what the industry calls the “midstream” area of natural gas drilling—that is, gathering, processing and transporting natural gas. MarkWest’s quarterly report includes an update on their expanding capacity to process natural gas and natural gas liquids in the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania and West Virginia as well as news about a new pipeline to Canada:

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You Know the New York Times is in Trouble When…

Just an observation, but you know the New York Times is in trouble when political blog sites like the Politico, a popular (and leftist) website has to write puff pieces to prop up the journalistic malpractice being printed by the Times against the natural gas industry. Case in point:

Politico: New York Times vs. natural gas industry

Don’t forget to vote in this week’s MDN poll, which asks the question:

With respect to shale gas drilling, is the New York Times a reliable source of information?

The poll is found on the right-hand side of any page on the MDN website.