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Cabot Oil & Gas Does it Again – $2.5 Million Gift to Lackawanna College

do it againEveryone knows how mercenary and evil those oil and gas companies are. They’re just in it for the buck. Rape and pillage poor Mother Earth–pollute the air, pollute the water, pollute everything! Those shale drillers are actually some of the worst, ya know. That’s what the anti-drilling left would have you believe. That’s the meme constantly drummed by mainstream media. Throw in a “Halliburton loophole” and “Dimock” or maybe a “Pavillion, Wyoming” and you’re good to go with the typical mainstream coverage of our industry. Just a teeny, tiny problem…none of it is true.

MDN previously told you about Cabot Oil & Gas’ largess in helping raise $4.4 million for a rural hospital in Montrose, PA (see Cabot Effort Raises $4.4 Million for PA Physicians Clinic). Of that $4.4 million, Cabot themselves donated $2.2 million to the kitty. That is serious money folks. And now, Cabot has done it again. Today, if you’re reading this on April 11, 2014, Cabot announced a $2.5 million gift to Lackawanna College (Scranton, PA). The gift will directly fund the School of Petroleum & Natural Gas located in New Milford, PA. It marks the largest single private donation in the history of Lackawanna College. Kudos to Cabot! Cabot is a sterling company–one of the backbones of the Marcellus Shale, the biggest (and best) shale play in the United States…
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Sierra Club Pumps Out More Yada Yada in Anti-Fossil Fuel “Report”

yada yadaThe Sierra Club continues to marginalize itself as an extremist, out-of-touch, agenda-driven huckster of fascist idealism (we know how to run your life better than you do), as proven by their latest diatribe against the miracle of safe, clean hydraulic fracturing and all things fossil fuel. Yesterday the extremists at the Sierra Club vomitted out yet another so-called report called “Dirty Fuels, Clean Futures” (full copy embedded below) in which they espouse the same old same old yada yada yada. Solar is wonderful yada yada. Fracking is evil yada yada. Burning fossil fuels will fry the planet yada yada. Obama’s dictatorial ways are to be praised, Heil Barack! yada yada. Everything is “dirty” if it’s not on the Sierra Club’s approved list.

And so it goes. Complete and utter refuse. (Please don’t EVER give the Sierra Club a dime of your money.) They even stoop so low as to profile Susquehanna County minor celebrity anti-driller Vera Scroggins in the report (page 23). Apparently Vera is a hero in the wacko world of enviro-extremists. Good–they can have her. We provide you with the so-called “press release” and a full copy of the so-called “report” below, simply because it’s a slow news day and we like to express our utter contempt and disgust with the lies pumped out daily by the odious Sierra Club…
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Gastar Helpfully Provides Update on Williams WV Pipeline Outage

Last Saturday a 12-inch natural gas pipeline owned by Williams Partners in Marshall County, WV ruptured and caught fire, likely due to a landslide (see Williams Pipeline Rupture/Fire in Marshall County, WV). Not long after, one of (perhaps the) driller affected by the pipeline outage, Gastar, announced it had shut in their wells in the area–a necessary precaution to warn investors that certain targets may not be met because of the pipeline outage (see Gastar Shuts-in Marshall County Wells Due to Pipeline Explosion).

We continue to get our best information on the pipeline outage from…Gastar! We haven’t spotted a single public statement from Williams about the outage (Williams PR department, get on the ball!). Yesterday Gastar said most of their gas is flowing again, through a different Williams pipeline. Gastar also says Williams told them the ruptured/down pipeline should be repaired and operating again in “approximately three weeks.” Thanks Gastar, for keeping us up to date on the Williams pipeline…
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JLCNY Says Nirav Shah Departure Won’t Slow Down Fracking Lawsuit

Ya just can’t keep good help if you only pay ’em $130,000 a year. So says the man-child who is governor of New York–Andy Cuomo. In a vainglorious attempt to spin the very bad news (for him) that his top health official has had enough of his dithering ways, Gov. Cuomo yesterday told reporters the ongoing so-called health review of new fracking rules has nothing to do with Shah’s departure. Shah is heading as far from New York as he can get, to California. Cuomo’s convinced we’re all idiots and don’t see the truth (see our article from yesterday, State Health Com. Nirav Shah has Enough of Andy Cuomo, Leaving NY).

In comments yesterday Cuomo said Shah makes $130,000 per year, when it’s actually $136,000. Like most politicians, Cuomo plays fast and loose with numbers. The health department first said Shah is leaving in June, but then Shah said no, I’m outta here on May 4th, and so the health department backpedaled, sputtered, and said well yeah, we guess it is May 4th after all. What a dysfunctional joke (that’s not very funny for the residents of NY). The Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) is certainly not amused. They issued a statement yesterday that their lawsuit against Shah (and/or his replacement), and Gov. Cuomo and DEC Commissioner Joe Martens will proceed full speed ahead, regardless of Shah’s departure. We hope the JLCNY continues their lawsuit against Shah all the way to California for his collusion with Cuomo and Martens to prevent drilling for the past year and a half…
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EIA: Marcellus #1 Proved Reserves Shale in U.S., PA #2 for Gas

Yesterday the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), our favorite government agency (the only one worth funding in our opinion) issued its annual U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves for 2012 report (full copy embedded below). It takes a long time to crunch and analyze the numbers, hence these kinds of reports are 2 years delayed. But wow! What an interesting report. It shows that in 2012 the Marcellus Shale became the nation’s largest shale play–at least by proved reserves–surpassing the Barnett Shale in Texas, the former reigning champ of proved reserves. Pennsylvania rocketed from fifth to second largest gas reserve state. The report also shows the Texas Eagle Ford Shale play passed the North Dakota Bakken to become the largest tight oil shale play in the U.S. That’s the big big news. But there’s plenty of smaller big news too.

First up, what the heck is proved reserves? The EIA defines it this way: “Proved reserves are volumes of oil and natural gas that geological and engineering data demonstrate with reasonable certainty to be recoverable in future years from known reservoirs under existing economic and operating conditions.” You might think proved reserves are our best guess as to how much total oil or gas is down there, based on sound scientific data. But you would be wrong. It’s what’s down there that we’re willing to go get based on today’s economics. Important distinction. What that means is the commodity price for oil and gas has a lot to do with proved reserves numbers. The oil and gas can be locked away down there (indeed it is down there), but if we’re not willing to get it out of the ground because we can’t make a profit–it might as well not exist…
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OH Severance Tax Blues – Kasich Says the Tax Trains’ a Comin’

With apologies to the memory of the late, great Johnny Cash, to be sung to the tune of Folsom Prison Blues

I hear the severance tax train a comin’
It’s rolling round the legislative bend
And I ain’t seen a better vote-buying scheme since, I don’t know when
I’m stuck in Tea Party prison, and time keeps draggin’ on
But that severance tax train keeps a rollin’, on down to a legislative vote.

RINO Gov. John “foreigner hunter” Kasich is so excited, he may pee his pants. After a year of debating stupid Tea Party Republicans, his administration is “really close” to reaching an agreement with those in his own party to start soaking the Utica Shale drilling industry in his state. Really close. Really. But, you’ll have to wait until next month to find out just how much the industry will get soaked. They want to announce it and slam bam vote on it before anyone can raise the alarm. So deliberative. So open and transparent. What paragons of authority and leadership to emulate. What jerks.

Here’s the story of a RINO governor and Republicans who apparently are willing to cave on their principles…
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Sham Study by UK Authors Says PA Shale Wells Fail at High Rate

A new “study” is starting to make the rounds in the incestuous echo chamber of anti-drillers and their sycophantic supporters in the mainstream media. The study, titled “Oil and gas wells and their integrity: Implications for shale and unconventional resource exploitation” is published in the “peer-reviewed” Marine and Petroleum Geology journal (full copy of the study embedded below). It’s written mainly by UK authors, with a couple of US authors thrown in to sweeten the pot. None of them are from universities in Pennsylvania. Here’s a typical headline generated by this new study: “Pennsylvania Fracking Wells Are Dangerous, Study Finds.” Which is a lie. But the media hopes you won’t read beyond the headlines. We actually do.

Here’s the first thing to know about this “study”: There is no (that is zero) new data in the study. It’s a review of other people’s data and research in “the published literature and online.” That is, the authors didn’t do any actual science or field work–they just read what anti-drilling wackos have published on websites and in print and rounded it all up and called it science. The second thing to know, regarding their evaluation of the data from Pennsylvania, is this: “the search criteria used to categorise leakage incidents in Pennsylvania followed the approach described by [Anthony] Ingraffea.” That is, the authors intentionally chose to ignore the better data of what constitutes well leakage in Pennsylvania tabulated and tracked by the agency charged with monitoring it (the PA DEP) and instead chose to use Cornell anti-drilling professor Tony Ingraffea’s wild interpretations of the DEP data. That right there tells you all you need to know about this sham of a “study”…
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