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Ohio About to Net $60+ Million for Drilling Under State Parks
A request by the Ohio Office of Budget and Management (OBM) to set up two new bank accounts to accept payments from drillers is the tipoff that drilling is about to begin under some of Ohio’s state land, including state parks. The state will receive nearly $60 million in lease signing bonus payments to drill under Salt Fork State Park (in Guernsey County), Valley Run Wildlife Area (in Carroll County), and the Zepernick Wildlife Area (in Columbiana County). The vast majority of that is for drilling under Salt Fork.
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We often mention gas-fired power generation here on MDN for a reason — it’s a HUGE customer for the natural gas locally extracted. The more power plants we build in the Marcellus/Utica region, the more our gas stays right here at home (a win/win for everyone). The power grid that covers the M-U region is called PJM. New data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows coal-fired generation in PJM accounted for 14% of the market’s total generation in 2023, down from 44% of total generation in 2013. That’s a whopping 68% fall in the use of coal in just ten years. The reason? Coal generation was largely replaced by natural gas-fired generation.
Being reasonable and seeking compromise and the middle ground exited American politics about a decade ago. Maybe 20 years ago. What we have today, at least on the left of the political spectrum, is “my way or the highway.” Tyranny. It is the very definition of unreasonableness. Here is a perfect example: Yesterday, the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee, chaired by Democrat Rep. Greg Vitali (a Marcellus shale hater), held a hearing on Hydrogen Hubs and Climate Change. The name of the hearing says it all. Vitali paraded mind-numbed robots (“we hate fossil fuels, we hate fossil fuels”) from radicalized organizations like Earthjustice to testify before the hearing. The stupidity on display was breathtaking.
Tallgrass Energy, majority owner of the Rockies East Express (REX) pipeline — a 1,712-mile pipeline that runs from Colorado and Wyoming to Ohio — has owned 75% of REX since buying out a 25% share from Sempra Energy in 2016 for $440 million (see 
President Joementia Biden’s regulators recently finalized a flood of major energy and environmental rules in hopes they’ll stick when Donald Trump returns to the White House next January. A sort of “burn the ships” strategy. Bidenistas embedded across the D.C. swamp hustled to complete sweeping new regulations in recent months — including everything from a high-stakes power plant rule to a policy governing the conservation of public lands. When Trump came to power in 2016, he used something called the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to reverse such policies put in place by the Obamadroids. The Bidenistas think they have bullet-proofed their regulations against the use of the CRA.
NATIONAL: Berkshire now owns nearly 29 percent of Occidental; Oil rises above $80 for first time in a month; Front month Nymex natural gas fell 3.23% to settle at $2.7880.