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EnerVest Puts 539,000 Utica Shale Acres on Auction Block

auction gavelEnerVest has put leases for 539,000 Utica Shale acres in Ohio on the auction block and hopes to get more than $6 billion dollars for it. That would be something north of $11,000 per acre. Pretty optimistic, but hey, you never know!

Apparently EnerVest is the accidental energy company who just happened to amass a 3/4 of a million acres of leases some time ago and now wants to take advantage by selling some of it. From the Wall Street Journal:

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Guest Viewpoint: Why the APGA is Wrong on LNG Exports

MDN reader and friend Chris Acker, who splits his time between northeast Pennsylvania and Savannah, Georgia, recently sent MDN a note about the American Public Gas Association (APGA) and their call to ban the export of natural gas from the U.S. The APGA has over 700 members in 36 states and is the only nonprofit trade organization that represents America’s publicly owned natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs).

In February, the APGA sent a letter to Congressman Edward Markey (D) supporting his legislation that would ban the export of domestically produced liquefied natural gas (see the letter here). Chris points out what he perceives are the fallacies in the APGA’s arguments to ban LNG exports. MDN has had mixed emotions on the topic of exporting natural gas, but Chris makes some compelling arguments.

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Civil Disobedience, or Eco-Terrorism? Go Climb a Tree

Somewhere, at an undisclosed location “just outside Athens, Ohio” starting on Saturday of this week, anti-drillers will go to camp to learn how to…climb trees? Yeah, climb trees. Apparently people with the anti-drilling gene missed out in their early years and now need corrective instruction to teach them how to “go climb a tree.”

After you stop laughing (like we did), and read a bit further, you’ll find out the intent of the anti-driller tree-climbing camp is a bit more nefarious. It’s to teach people how to engage in civil disobedience (we call it eco-terrorism) by climbing trees, stretching ropes between trees, and oops, guess that nutjob protester just happened to fall on the road right in front of that truck on the way to a drill site. Isn’t that a shame/coincidence? (Yes, that’s exactly what they planned to do near a drill site in central Pennsylvania before it was stopped by the police, read this MDN story.)

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Anti-Fracking Hippies Gather at Otsiningo Park Last Saturday

A group of 60s hippies and hippie wannabes gathered at Otsiningo Park (in Binghamton, NY) over the weekend to hold a press conference and make noise about fracking—anti, of course. Among them were failed Binghamton Mayor Matt Ryan, his failed sidekick (running for County Executive in a laughable campaign), Tarik Abdelazim, socialist Binghamton Council member Leah Webb and others. Read more about the event by clicking for the Press & Sun-Bulletin article the link below.

However, the better and frankly more perceptive coverage of the event, came from a former Press & Sun-Bulletin reporter who’s also anti-fracking, Tom Wilbur. Tom points out the rather small group assembled (maybe 100 people total, out of a metro area of 125,000), are signing pledges that if fracking is allowed in New York, they’re going to try and stop it using so-called “civil” disobedience (we’ve personally never seen the anti crowd act civilly!). In his coverage, Wilbur reaffirms what MDN has said for years now: These people are lost in the 1960s.

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Cornell University’s Anti-Fossil Fuel Brainwashing Sessions

The Cornell University Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences along with the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (also a Cornell group) have launched a lecture series for undergraduates they call “Sustainable Earth Energy and Environmental Systems” (see the flier embedded below).

MDN calls it brainwashing sessions for young students to ensure they’re properly indoctrinated into the cult of hating fossil fuels.

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Columbia Gas & Hilcorp Meet with Landowners in Brinker Field

More than 50 years ago, landowners in a 35,000 acre area of Columbiana County, Ohio signed a lease with Columbia Gas that allows Columbia to store natural gas supplies in the Berea Sandstone formation. Known as the Brinker property back then, today it’s referred to as the Brinker Storage Field. The lease that was signed, and passed on to new landowners purchasing “Brinker” property, means landowners won’t see a penny from drilling that’s about to begin on their property by Hilcorp Energy (see this MDN story for more background). Columbia Gas will keep all of the signing bonus and royalty money for itself. Unless…

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WV Gas Utility Files to Reduce Rates for All Customers

Once again an abundance of clean-burning Marcellus Shale natural gas is benefiting everyone—not just energy companies and landowners. Mountaineer Gas Company, serving 226,000 residential and business customers and the largest natural gas distribution company in West Virginia, recently filed to lower rates on natural gas for its customers by a substantial amount:

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