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EIA Jan ’20 Drilling Report: M-U NatGas Production Drops Again

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and their monthly Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), the Marcellus/Utica region will produce 56 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) less of natural gas in the coming month of February than it will have produced in this month of January. That’s the second month in a row M-U gas production has dropped in the modern shale era. Last month’s DPR forecast a 74 MMcf/d drop for this month (see EIA Dec ’19 Drilling Report: M-U Production Drops 1st Time in Yrs).
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PA Enviro Quality Board Approves Massive Hike in Shale Permit Fee

In Ohio, it costs drillers $5,500 to file for and receive a permit to drill a new shale well. In West Virginia, the cost is $10,150. In Pennsylvania, it has (until now) cost drillers $5,000 for a new shale well permit. Following a vote yesterday by the state Environmental Quality Board (EQB), that number is zooming to the top of the M-U list: $12,500 (2 1/2 times the previous fee). With current low gas prices, it’s pretty easy to predict new drilling permits in PA are going to crash and burn in 2020. The received wisdom is true: You always get less of what you tax more.
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Big Green Launches Effort to Defeat PA Petchem Investment Bill

In a coordinated attack on Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 1100, aimed at attracting NEW petrochemical investment to the state, Big Green has launched a letter-writing campaign to newspapers to try and shame PA Senate Republicans into voting against the state’s future economic and jobs bonanza. Fat chance Big Green!
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Anti-Pipeline Dems from Chester County Face Primary Challengers

The ticket to getting elected in uber-liberal southeastern Pennsylvania (in the Philadelphia suburbs) is to track left with your politics. Even the few elected Republicans in SEPA are nothing more than Democrat-lite in their philosophy and voting. Two Democrats who unseated PA House Republicans in Chester County in 2018 by running against the Mariner East pipeline project, are now being challenged because of their pipeline positions.
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PA Big Green Supports Lawsuit to Gut FERC re Pipe Approvals

The sleaziest of Pennsylvania’s Big Green groups–THE Delaware Riverkeeper and PennFuture–have filed a “friend of the court” (amicus) brief in a federal lawsuit hoping they can help gut the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by denying FERC the only way the agency has of combating these sleazy groups–something called a tolling order.
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NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo Wants to Make Frack Ban Permanent

Andrew Cuomo makes us puke. Literally. Cuomo, Governor of New York, became a dictator and stripped away the property rights of citizens living in NY in 2015 when he autocratically decided to prohibit shale fracking throughout the state (see It’s Official: Cuomo Bans Economic Opportunity & Prosperity in NY). He knows he won’t be the dictator of NY forever. Someday there will be a Republican governor who can unilaterally lift the frack ban in the same way Cuomo unilaterally imposed it. Yesterday Cuomo, in his so-called State of the State address, said he wants the legislature to pass a law permanently banning fracking in NY. Forever.
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Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Jan 22, 2020

MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio Supreme Court to rule whether ODMA supersedes OMTA in severed O&G interests; Dominion Energy donates $1.6 million to nonprofits; M-U rig counts steady this month, down sharply from last year; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Virginia Senate panel OKs offshore drilling, fracking bans; NATIONAL: EIA predicts crude oil prices to fall 1H20, then rise in 2021; Climate serfdom is no future, it’s the road to destruction; Halliburton right sizing North American land business to hold market share; INTERNATIONAL: Trump tries out new climate line of attack; Trump urges Europe to embrace LNG, reject climate ‘pessimism’; A competitive analysis of the European gas market: implications for natural gas producers.
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