Partisan Group Wants to Double or Triple WV’s NGL Severance Tax
The partisan (Democrat) West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy, which pretends to be nonpartisan and above the political fray but isn’t, has just published a so-called policy brief titled “A Win-Win Marcellus Shale Tax Incentive” (full copy below). The “brief” attempts to make the case for doubling or tripling the severance tax on natural gas liquids produced in WV (from 5% to 10% or 15%)–giving exemptions to the tax increase for those who keep the NGLs extracted in the state. The recommendation hopes to boost the attractiveness of petrochemical plants like the proposed Odebrecht cracker plant that would use ethane, the primary NGL extracted in WV, by making it more expensive to send WV’s ethane across the border, to say either Shell’s proposed cracker in PA or PTT Global’s proposed cracker in OH. The tone of the “report” is that WV has been raped and pillaged in the past–their precious coal stolen and carted away to other states–and WV can’t let that history repeat itself again. Better to shut down drilling rather than have any of it “exported” to other states. It is misguided and faulty thinking…
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Two years ago MDN reported on a University of Michigan research project called the Hydraulic Fracturing in Michigan Integrated Assessment (see 
Last week MDN told you that Ohio’s RINO legislators continue to work on raising the Utica Shale severance tax in the state “behind closed doors” (see 
It’s strange, but true. Sometimes a single article that quotes a single financial expert/leader can dramatically affect a company’s stock price. Such is the case with CONSOL Energy. Last week an article in the Wall Street Journal quoted a hedge fund manager (investor playing with big piles of money) who said, in essence, he continues to bet that CONSOL’s stock will continue to drop in value, called a “short position” (for background on understanding short selling, see our article 
Gulfport Energy recently announced they have awarded $35,000 in grants for 10 projects in four Ohio counties, including projects benefiting local citizens in Guernsey and Belmont counties (Utica Shale country). The grants in varying amounts were given to schools, labor unions and colleges–for educational programs. One of the grants, for $5,000, will be used to purchase Google Chromebooks for 150 middle school students. Google’s Chrome OS is the official operating system for MDN (we LOVE it). Nice to see Gulfport blessing local schools and organizations in the regions where they operate…
Weatherford International is the fourth largest oilfield services company in the world, employing some 44,000 people. They have a branch office in Canonsburg, PA (Pittsburgh area) with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica. By comparison, Weatherford competitor Halliburton is the #2 largest oilfield services company in the world. A strange thing happened to Weatherford on Monday. The public company floated new shares of stock and new IOUs (i.e., convertible notes) hoping to raise $1 billion in cash. But a few hours after they announced the offering, they withdrew it because “while investor interest was strong for this offering” (so said the company), the price those investors were willing to pay for the new stock and notes was not anywhere near what Weatherford wanted. After withdrawing the offering, Weatherford’s stock tanked. Last Thursday Weatherford’s stock (WFT) traded as high as $11.15 per share. Yesterday it closed at $8.87 per share, down 20% from Thursday’s high…
MDN spotted an interesting report released yesterday by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. The report evaluates the change in GDP by metropolitan areas across the county. What the heck is GDP? It is gross domestic product (GDP), one of the primary indicators used to gauge the health of a region’s economy. GDP represents the total dollar value of all goods and services produced over a specific time period. Think of it as the size of the economy in a given metropolitan (or state or country) region. What is interesting about the report to MDN is that it mentions shale energy and the Marcellus in particular as one reasons why certain areas of the country expanded. When you look at the map (below) we want you to note two things: (1) Most of the metro areas/regions in upstate NY are shrinking, rapidly; and (2) those areas in northeast and southwest PA, eastern OH and northern WV that have Marcellus/Utica drilling are expanding, rapidly. It is no accident. The Marcellus/Utica is a huge economic engine…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: job cuts continue in the Marcellus; NY town mulls supporting waterless fracking; NY energy prices go down thx to shale; MA energy prices go down thx to shale; secretive Rogersville Shale; Hillary disses XL pipeline; Leo DiCaprio dissess all fossil fuels; many myths about fracking; Obama enviro policies making blacks poorer; OPEC says they’re winning against US shale; and more!