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PA DEP: We’re Not Close to Being Done with New Drilling Regs

you ain't seen nothing yetYou know what happens when you elect Big Government liberals to important positions, like governor? You get high taxes and onerous regulations across all industries–but particularly on the drilling industry. Welcome to Pennsylvania and the floundering administration of Gov. Tom Wolf and his PennFuture sidekicks who pretty much run the whole show for Wolf–including the PennFuture Sec. of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley. PennFuture is an anti-drilling environmental group that Quigley used to work for prior to being appointed by Wolf to run the DEP, the agency in charge of drilling (how’s that for ironic?). On a conference call yesterday Quigley said, of the current round of new drilling rules and regulations, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. He plans to attack the Marcellus industry with even more onerous rules and regulations in the coming months and years of a (hopefully) one-term Wolf administration. Quigley is making his onerous list and checking it twice; gonna find out who’s naughty and naughtier (there is no nice in fossil fuels, ya know)…
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Group of Kids Sues U.S. Govt to Force Action on “Climate Change”

A truly sad and maddening story, all at the same time. A group of 21 kids, ages ranging from 8 to 19, have been so thoroughly brainwashed by their schools and Saturday morning cartoons that they have banded together and filed a lawsuit in federal court (in liberal Oregon) against the federal government to force the government to “do something” about mythical climate change. OMG! It got hot yesterday–must be we’re burning too much fossil fuels and belching out carbon!! OMG! It got cold yesterday–must be…we’re burning…too much fossil fuels and belching out…carbon?! The answer is always the same–man causes the climate to change–so the question doesn’t really matter. Neither does common sense or actual, real science. The folly is, of course, that since the first Big Bang or Act of Creation or whatever you believe, the climate has always changed. It’s always gotten hotter, or colder, over spans of millennia. Ice ages come, ice ages go. Warm spells come and warm spells go. But climate changers don’t bother with history or science. They just make it up as they go. And so these precious, young, very stupid kids believe the wacko adults around them and have, with the assistance of hardened leftist adults, launched a sue-and-settle lawsuit. What’s a sue-and-settle lawsuit?…
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Dominion Buys 26% of Iroquois Gas Transmission Pipeline

Dominion has just purchased themselves a bigger seat at the Marcellus/Utica midstream (pipeline) table with the purchase of 26% of the Iroquois Gas Transmission System. The Iroquois, you may recall, is one of two pipelines that will connect to the Constitution Pipeline to be built by Williams starting later this year. The Constitution will flow 650 million cubic feet (MMcf) per day of Marcellus Shale gas mostly from Cabot Oil & Gas wells in Susquehanna County, PA. The 125-mile Constitution will run from PA into New York and connect with the Iroquois (and the Tennessee Gas Pipeline) in Schoharie County, NY. The Iroquois is a 416-mile interstate natural gas pipeline running from the U.S.-Canadian border at Waddington, NY, through NY and western Connecticut to its terminus in Commack, NY, and from Huntington to the Bronx, NY. The Iroquois supplies clean-burning natural gas to local distribution companies (LDCs) an electric power generators in New England and the greater New York City area. Increasingly the Iroquois is flowing Marcellus Shale gas. It is that pipeline that Dominion has just purchased a major piece of…
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Carole King: VA Pipeline Makes Me Feel Like an Unnatural Woman

Another famous white, rich, aging, hippie woman has lined up against pipelines. At least this famous white, rich, aging hippie, Carole King, has talent–unlike Yoko Ono who is talentless, someone who still rides the coattails of her famous husband, God rest his soul. Carole King doesn’t need fame or to increase her personal fortune, unlike Ono. So why is she speaking out against the Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline and where it will run in Virginia? Because the pipeline will come close to land owned by Yogaville, an “ecumenical spiritual retreat” in Buckingham County, VA that King has $upported for decades. Most folks think of yoga as funky pretzel-like stretches people do at the gym or at a special class at your local community college. What they may not know is that yoga is as much a spiritual practice (i.e. religion) as it is an exercise routine. Apparently King is one of its practitioners. Makes her Feel Like A Natural Woman. Good for her. Whatever gets you through the day, right? King wrote directly to Dominion CEO Thomas F. Farrell II to request he ax the pipeline plan and instead stick up solar panels and windmills. Here’s why King is wrong about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline affecting Yogaville…
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2 Marcellus LNG Export Projects Get Canadian Approval

Two Canadian LNG export projects have made significant progress–but both are still far away from actually getting built. A year ago MDN supplied you with a list of five potential Canadian LNG export projects along the East Coast of Canada (see List of LNG Export Projects for Marcellus/Utica Shale Gas). Two of those projects–Bear Head LNG and Goldboro LNG, both located in Nova Scotia–have received a green light from the U.S. Dept. of Energy (see 2nd Canadian LNG Plant Gets U.S. Approval to Export Marcellus Gas). Both projects received a green light last week from the Canadian National Energy Board (see the article below). The gazillion dollar question is: Where will the natural gas come from that gets exported via these facilities? We’ve long hoped that Marcellus Shale gas would be some of that gas–we have way more than we can use here at home. But at the recent RBN Energy “State of the Energy Markets” conference in New York City, RBN’s Rusty Braziel said virtually none of the gas going to New England via the proposed Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline nor the Spectra Energy Access Northeast pipeline would be exported. Frankly, if Marcellus gas doesn’t get piped to Canada, we think there’s virtually no chance these LNG projects will get built. Our sentiments were recently echoed by Moody’s Investors Services (see Moody’s: “Vast Majority” of LNG Export Projects Will be Canceled). So, read the following article, but do so with your head swiveling around as ours is. Will Marcellus gas get exported? Will the Maritimes & Northeast pipeline get FERC permission to reverse its flow and send gas from the U.S. into Canada? Will Kinder and Spectra actually build their pipelines to New England? A lot of unanswered questions when you consider whether or not Canada will actually build any of these LNG projects…
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Medical Doctor Exposes Anti-Pipeline Lies about PennEast

Dr. Gilbert Ross, M.D., is the senior director of medicine and public health at the American Council on Science and Health in New York. Dr. Ross penned an eloquent article that exposes the lies being peddled by the “leaders” of Hopewell Township, New Jersey in their vote to prevent construction of the PennEast Pipeline in the township. Dr. Ross makes the point that we have repeatedly made (although far less eloquently) for years here on MDN: The real philosophy that underpins the actions of people opposing fracking, pipelines, anything to do with shale–is an irrational hatred of fossil fuels. But opposers can’t cast their opposition in those terms or they would be laughed out of office and out of public meetings. So they use FUD–fear, uncertainty and doubt–to make the hoi polloi believe oil and gas drilling and pipelines are somehow a threat, a danger to everyone and everything. That is, they lie about the risks associated with oil and gas in order to advance their own twisted anti-fossil fuel agenda. Here to make the point better than we do is Dr. Ross, writing in a major New Jersey newspaper…
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PA Releases Study on Bakken Crude Shipments Passing Through

God protect us from politicians whose “top priority” is to protect us. MDN previously told you that America’s most liberal governor, PA Gov. Tom Wolf, hired a high-priced consultant from the University of Delaware in April to do a top to bottom review on railway safety with a focus on how PA might better “protect” (i.e. prevent) Bakken shale oil shipments traveling through the state on the way to refineries (see PA Gov Wolf Takes Aim at Bakken Oil Trains Traveling Thru PA). The high-priced consultant, Dr. Allan Zarembski, has turned in his assignment with 27 recommendations (full copy of his report below). In eyeballing the list some of the recommendations certainly look reasonable: slow down to 35 mph if you’re passing through a city with a population of 100,000 or more; test the tracks three times a year; hire inspectors who know what they’re doing; etc. We suspect when the experts at Norfolk Southern and CSX have had a chance to review the report we’ll hear how these recommendations are intended to slow or stop crude by rail (CBR) shipments through PA. We’d like to be wrong about that, but given Wolf’s behavior an uppity attitude toward the railroads so far, we’re pretty sure we aren’t wrong…
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Well Completion/Operational Safety Co. Comes to PA Marcellus

Gulf Coast Western, an oil and gas driller that focuses on the Gulf Coast region in the U.S., announced yesterday they have formed an oilfield services subsidiary after acquiring Midland, Texas-based Frac Restraints LLC in late 2014 and Weatherford, Texas -based CND Energy Services in early 2015. The new subsidiary–Gulf Coast Western Energy Services–will provide well completion and operational safety services to the oil and gas industry. The new company’s target markets? Shale plays in South and West Texas, and the Marcellus and Utica Shale fields in Pennsylvania…
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