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Senate Democrats Attack Big Oil Again, Propose Huge New Taxes
What can we say? Once again, the Democrat Party is trying to demonize fossil fuels and is going after “Big Oil,” proposing insanely high new taxes on a handful of oil companies because, for a single year (2022), they have actually made some money. All money and profits belong to the government in the left’s twisted worldview. A cabal of seven Senators led by Sen. Robert Menendez from New Jersey has launched this latest attack against our industry.
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It appears that Williams (pipeline company) and Coterra Energy (driller), along with end-customer Dominion Energy (local gas utility) have developed their own “responsible gas” certification scheme apart from the three such schemes widely used by many Marcellus/Utica drillers currently. In an announcement yesterday, Williams said the deal struck with Coterra and Dominion establishes “the industry’s first next generation natural gas certification process across all segments of the value chain from production through gathering and transmission with deliveries through 2023.”
Last week (Nov. 28-Dec. 4), the number of permits issued to drill new shale wells rose slightly to 21 from the prior week’s 17. The big surprise is why. Pennsylvania only handed out five new permits. Ohio issued even fewer–just three. It was West Virginia with 12 new permits that saved the day.
Gas-focused drillers in the U.S. tracked by RBN Energy (most of them with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region) had a stellar third quarter financially. The group of 11 publicly-traded drillers that RBN tracks tripled their earnings on average, and cash flows were up 150% over the same quarter last year. EQT Corp., now helmed by Toby Rice, was the most profitable company on the list, earning $2.6 billion in Q3 while generating $3.1 billion in cash flow. What about the others?
In October, MDN brought you the news that the company created and backed by Dan Rice (and his brothers), called Archaea Energy, is selling itself to BP for $4.1 billion (see 
In September, EQT Corporation announced it is buying Tug Hill Operating’s West Virginia shale assets for $5.2 billion (see Confirmed: 
Just last week, we told you that a West Virginia Circuit Court judge who allegedly waved and pointed a gun at an attorney for EQT Corporation during a hearing about a case brought against EQT by landowners for improper deductions of post-production expenses from their royalty payments had resigned (see 
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (other regions too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with close to 70,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. Diversified has aggressively moved to control methane emissions from its operations over the past year (see 
The partisan bully Josh Shapiro, far-left Attorney General in Pennsylvania (who is becoming Governor on Jan. 1, to PA’s shame), has claimed victory in converting what was at best an accident into a crime against Coterra Energy (née Cabot Oil & Gas). Yesterday in a courtroom in Susquehanna County, PA, Coterra plead “no contest” to a single misdemeanor charge Shapiro ginned up against the company over stray methane in a few water wells in Dimock, PA going back 14 years. It is a horrible miscarriage of justice. We wouldn’t blame Coterra if they NEVER drill another well in the state.
