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Range Resources Forced to Cop to Environmental “Crimes” in SWPA

After spending years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate Range Resources over a simple regulatory matter settled years ago by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, PA’s leftist Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, announced on Friday he had finally bullied Range into pleading “no contest” to so-called environmental crimes (misdemeanors), forcing the company to pay $50,000 in fines and $100,000 to Shapiro’s favorite Big Green charities. Does that sound like a success to you? Shapiro spent multiple hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to force the company to pay $150K. Sounds like Shapiro is The Biggest Loser to us.
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Tioga County, PA Excited About Shell Asset Sale to NFG

In early May Shell and National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) announced a deal for Shell to sell all of its remaining Appalachian assets, which includes 450,000 acres and some 350 producing M-U shale wells along with pipeline assets, to NFG for $541 million (see Fire Sale: Shell Sells All Remaining PA M-U Assets for $541M). The deal is expected to close by the end of July. Most of the assets are located in Tioga County, PA. Folks in Tioga County are excited that NFG (via its drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources) will soon ramp up drilling on the Shell acreage. The county is rolling out the red carpet.
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FERC Approves Feed Gas for Elba Island LNG Train #9

In early May MDN reported Elba Island LNG, a Marcellus Shale gas export facility located near Savannah, Georgia, was in the process of firing up train #8 of the 10 mini-trains being built (see KM’s Elba Island LNG Fires Up 8th Liquefaction Unit). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has just granted permission to Kinder Morgan, the builder, to introduce feed gas into train #9, meaning that train is nearly ready to go live.
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NY PSC Must Decide by Jun 30 How to Handle Coming NYC Gas Shortage

Fossil fuel haters in New York successfully pressured New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reject the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline in May (see Cuomo Rejects NESE Pipe Again, Williams Walks Away). And, as we reported two weeks ago, the same antis now insist Cuomo not allow *any* new quantities of natural gas get delivered to the Long Island and New York City vicinity by non-pipeline means (see NYC Green Wackadoodles Meet Online to Oppose New NatGas Supplies). So what happens when gas supplies run out?
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Leftwing Academic Hacks Trash Talk PA, OH Cracker Plants

A group of leftwing radical professors (all of the Democrats) from seven universities in Ohio and Pennsylvania have colluded to write a letter to the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The letter trash talks the billions of dollars in economic impact and tens of thousands of jobs ethane cracker plants and the petrochemical industry will have in the region. The leftist gang of seven poo-poos those estimates and says the proposed PTT cracker is too “risky” to approve. How do they figure?
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Doug Lawler Drilled Chesapeake’s Grave – Not Aubrey McClendon

Chesapeake Energy faces a series of deadlines to make payments to debtors. Today, June 15, is the first such deadline when something like $17 million in interest payments is owed. The company has a $134 million bond interest payment due on July 1 for its second-lien notes. Between today and the end of the month, rumor has it the company will declare bankruptcy (see Chesapeake Stock Soars, Bankruptcy Rumors Soar Too). It is possible for Chessy to delay a bankruptcy filing for an extra 30 days, until the end of July, if they exercise a “grace period.”
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Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jun 15, 2020

MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Natural gas industry adapts to ‘new normal’ of pandemic; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Texas oil, natural gas sector sees $30-59 WTI by next May, views Biden as biggest threat; NATIONAL: 97% Myth (video); The end of petroleum products would be the end of society as we know it; INTERNATIONAL: New York lender JPMorgan says Saudi’s oil market share set to hit the peak of 1980s; Covid: OPEC gets chance to gain upper hand in long battle with shale production.
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