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New Cabot Drilling Program Kicks Off This Week in Ashland, OH

As we have reported since last December, Cabot Oil & Gas, long-known for the incredible amount of Marcellus natural gas they produce out of a single northeastern Pennsylvania county (Susquehanna), is eyeing north central Ohio as a potential spot for “what’s next” after the Marcellus (see Cabot O&G Considers Drilling in Ashland County, OH). Cabot locked up leases and is planning to drill a number of test wells in not only Ashland, but also Holmes, Knox, Richland and Wayne counties in the Buckeye State (see New Details Emerge on Cabot’s Shale Plans in Central Ohio). The company doesn’t know exactly what it will find–gas, NGLs or perhaps even oil (see Just What is Cabot Looking for in Ohio – NatGas, Oil or NGLs?). Cabot is about to find out. Beginning tomorrow (Tuesday), Cabot says they will start to push dirt around and build their very first well pad in Ashland County. If all goes according to plan, Cabot will spud (begin to drill) the well itself in about three weeks. Plans for a second well, also located in Ashland County, are already in the works and will come along after the first well is drilled…
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Cove Point LNG Ships First Marcellus Cargo to Japan

LNG Sakura

Last week MDN reported that a ship called Adam had departed the Cove Point LNG facility in Maryland with the very first shipment of Marcellus molecules (see First-Ever Shipment of Marcellus LNG Leaves Cove Point, Maryland). Although the first shipment of Marcellus LNG was/is owned by Japan, the destination for the cargo was/is still unknown. The second shipment, ever, of Marcellus LNG from Cove Point left port yesterday–also owned by Japan. However, the ship’s manifest indicates this second shipment IS heading to Japan…
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Stolen Dynamite from Atlantic Sunrise Site Discovered in Creek

Stolen dynamite looked like this

As we’ve reported daily since the news broke, someone stole a bunch of dynamite and the blasting caps (used to ignite the dynamite) from a locked storage trailer sitting at an Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline construction site in Lancaster County, PA (see Dynamite Stolen from Atlantic Sunrise Pipe Site in Lancaster County, PA). As of last Thursday, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had doubled the reward money to $20,000 and upped the estimated amount of explosives and blasting caps stolen (see ATF Doubles Reward re Stolen Dynamite; 40 Agents in Lancaster Co.). Someone walking across a bridge in Riverfront Park (East Donegal Township) last Friday peered into the creek and noticed a lot of something that didn’t look like it belonged–the missing dynamite and blasting caps. Except the amount recovered is only half of the amount the ATF previously said was stolen. A day after the discovery the ATF changed its story and now says it is “increasingly confident” that all of the stolen dynamite has been recovered. The ATF says the contractor botched the paperwork recording how much dynamite was actually in inventory. The ATF has still not awarded the $20,000 reward money–because a suspect has not yet been apprehended. The investigation is ongoing. So has the ATF recovered all of the dynamite, or not?…
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Arrest Warrant Issued for MVP Tree Sitting “Grandma Red”

Enough is enough. It’s time to end the silly charade of a 61 year-old kook sitting 30 feet up in the top of a tree that needs to come down to make way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Mainstream media could no longer maintain the veneer of credibility and continue to intentionally conceal the identity of the woman who would only call herself “Red”–which they did for weeks. No more. Her name is Theresa Terry. She goes by the nickname “Red.” We call her Grandma Red because she’s older (no idea if she’s actually a grandmother or not). Red’s daughter, also named Theresa, is up the same tree with her. The two Theresas are illegally trespassing on property (the tree) that now belongs to MVP, via eminent domain. As we told you on Friday, a group of far-left, liberal Democrat Virginia lawmakers actually support Red’s illegal action (see Virginia Democrat Lawmakers Side with Lawbreakers in MVP Protest). Sometime in the past week or so police began to deny Red’s supporters from passing food and water up the tree. They also turn bright lights on the two Theresas during the night, in an effort to deny them sleep and force them down. As the police say: They are meeting the “non-violent protest action” with “non-violent police action.” Which the radicals, hilariously, claim is “police abuse.” You see, antis can do whatever the heck they want to do–even breaking the law–and it’s righteous and pure as the wind-driven snow. But when you use their own tactics against them, that’s brutal. That’s persecution. That’s police abuse. Here’s an update on Grandma Red and the quest to remove her from her magic tree house 30 feet up in the air…
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Seneca Resources Wastewater Recycling Plant Largest in PA

A few years ago Seneca Resources (wholly-owned drilling subsidiary of National Fuel Gas Company) purchased a wastewater treatment facility at the McKean County Landfill and began using it to recycle Seneca’s brine (wastewater). The operation was renamed Highland Field Services and now handles all of the “sourcing, handling and recycling of fluids associated with the Seneca’s Appalachian development program.” Because of the facility, last year Seneca was able to recycle 100% of it’s brine/wastewater, and because of that, some 75% of all the fluids Seneca used in their 2017 drilling activities came from the Highland facility. Put another way, Seneca had to acquire and use fresh water sources for only 25% of all the water they needed to drill and frack–far less fresh water was needed in Seneca’s operations last year than in previous years. Not only did the Highland facility handle 100% of Seneca’s wastewater, it also handled wastewater for other drillers too–a total of 7.9 million barrels between Seneca and other drillers, making Highland the largest oil and gas wastewater recycling facility in PA…
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New York Frack Ban a Result of Russian Collusion? Yes!

A blockbuster article appearing in the Heritage Foundation’s publication The Signal connects the dots to show how a Russian-funded and backed front group called the Sea Change Foundation funneled (money laundered) millions of dollars of Russian money to Big Green groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, and then how those groups used that funding to pressure Gov. Andrew Cuomo into banning fracking in the Empire State. It is a case of either knowing, or unknowing, collusion with Russia to shut down the shale industry in MDN’s beloved home state. And yet mainstream media actively blocks any reporting of this story. It is complicated and tough to show enough evidence to take to a prosecutor or judge, but when has that ever stopped mainstream/liberal media? The biased press has hounded Trump mercilessly for two years over collusion with Russia–something that never happened. And yet we now have a story about money laundering in Bermuda and a trail that shows Russian money influencing a frack ban in New York–and it’s silence. Crickets. The press is curiously uncurious about a connection between Russia and Cuomo and the frack ban. Why is that?…
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Other Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Apr 23, 2018

The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: IFO assesses PA Gov Wolf’s severance tax proposal; wasted ethane in Appalachia a “crime”; natgas storage for winter already underway in WV; Utica Shale Academy mulls expanded courses; high school kids stage mock shale wastewater spill; Baltimore utility to move gas pipeline away from swamp area; Trump chides OPEC over high oil price; it’s all about ethane in petchem industry; Boulder, CO sues oil companies over mythical man-made global warming; EPA to unveil new policy to help the oil & gas industry; Qatar hopes Chinese orders will bail them out; and more!
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