Encino Offered OH $1.8B Deal to Drill Under Salt Fork State Park
Yeah, you read the headline correctly. Encino Energy offered the State of Ohio $1.8 BILLION (estimated) to drill for natural gas and oil under Salt Fork State Park, located in Guernsey County, OH. The park includes 17,229 acres of land and 2,952 acres of water. In December, Encino made an offer to the state immediately after House Bill (HB) 507 passed. The offer includes a payment of $5,500 per acre as a signing bonus and 20% royalties. No drilling would be done inside the park. All drilling would be done on land surrounding (on the outside of) the park.
Read More “Encino Offered OH $1.8B Deal to Drill Under Salt Fork State Park”
One of two original “anchor” applicants in the billion-dollar hydrogen hub Hunger Games contest that was part of Pennsylvania’s application was Equinor (the Norwegian super major formerly known as Statoil). The Pittsburgh Business Times reports Equinor is now out and has been replaced by Mitsubishi Power, which (among other things) builds natural gas and hydrogen turbines to generate electricity. Why did Equinor leave? Is this proposal in trouble?
You knew it was only a matter of time. On March 1, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued a 297-page biological opinion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s (MVP) potential impact on threatened and endangered species if the 94% complete pipeline is allowed to finish (see 
Last week MDN told you about the long-festering issue of building a shale wastewater injection well in Clara Township in Potter County, PA (see 
These days oil and gas companies (and other types of companies, too) have to “prove” they are helping to make Mom Earth better by achieving (giggle) “net-zero” carbon emissions. We giggle because net-zero is a myth. It’s a sham. And everybody knows it. But, these are the games people play now. Every night and every day now. Never meanin’ what they say now. Never sayin’ what they mean. (Whoops! Back to center.) Our own Marcellus/Utica companies, including the largest natural gas producer in the country, EQT, are forced to play the games too. Yesterday, EQT announced the company’s first “nature-based carbon offset initiative.” EQT will pay for trees to be planted in a Wheeling, WV park as atonement for emitting (sinning) CO2.
We’ve often written about “permitting reform” needed to build new pipeline projects and finish existing projects like the stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline. Last year U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (Democrat, WV) tried and failed to get permitting reform passed (see 
On several occasions, we have compared the current abdication of rational thinking in the global warming debate to the Dark Ages and the Catholic Church’s policy of selling indulgences to sinners. Got a few big sins you’ve committed? No problem. Just pay your money to a priest, and it gets magically absolved. Compare that with paying for carbon offsets today. We dare you to tell us how there’s a dime’s worth of difference! The Renaissance (and Reformation) delivered us from the practice of buying indulgences to absolve sins. An article in Forbes says we may be on the cusp of a new Renaissance to deliver us from the lunacy of buying carbon credits.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Government inaction hinders energy opportunities; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Is this the next Permian mega deal?; Morrow plant completes coal-to-natgas conversion in Mississippi; NATIONAL: What will Henry Hub gas price be at end of the year?; Oilfield facing loss of key tax deductions; INTERNATIONAL: Energy sector routinely target of cyberattackers, experts say; OPEC+ attempting to train traders to not fight its decisions.