Experts: Global Energy Crisis Threatens YEARS of NatGas Shortages
Several energy experts interviewed for a Bloomberg article are sounding the alarm that the world is heading for a natural gas, and energy in general, shortage. Natural gas is a “key component” that keeps the world economy humming along. It’s used to power factories, heat homes, and produce electricity. It’s also used to make plastics. With the world coming out of the pandemic, and with most of the world avoiding the use of Russian gas supplies, something’s gotta give. We either need more natural gas supplies (not likely to happen in the short term), or a recession or another COVID lockdown, to balance the market, say the experts.
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Two northeastern Pennsylvania State Senators, Gene Yaw and Lisa Baker, along with members of the PA Senate Republican Caucus (27 Senators in all, filed a lawsuit in January 2021 against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) over its illegal ban on fracking (see PA 
We spotted an article about scarcity for “super-spec rigs” affecting the shale marketplace. Super-spec rigs are high-end rigs with lots of bells and whistles. They drill better and faster than standard rigs. With inventories of super-spec rigs running low, prices to lease them are running high. The “day rate” to lease a rig with lots of bells and whistles is running over $30,000 per day. Base rigs, according to rig company Patterson-UTI, have days rates starting “in the mid-$20,000s.”
In June 2017, MDN brought you the news that the very first application to drill a shale well in Illinois had been made (see 
Penn State has launched a new research project to see if it can prove there is a link between water contamination in southwestern Pennsylvania and fracking. We’ve seen this movie before…or have we? In 2018 PA Gov. Tom Wolf, a liberal Democrat who sometimes supports the shale gas industry (as long as he can tax it) caved to demands from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to launch a “study” in a bid to “prove” cases of rare childhood cancer in southwestern PA can be tied to shale drilling in the region (see 
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley), which drills in southwestern Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh, has just entered into a contract with U.S. Well Services (USWS) to provide the company with electric fracking. The deal calls for USWS to provide electric fracking to Olympus for 2022 with a potential contract extension until 2024. What is electric fracking?
One of the great things about the oil and gas industry is that it never stops innovating. O&G companies are always tinkering, trying new things. That includes both new technology and new techniques. Such innovation was on full display at the recent Hydraulic Fracturing Technology Conference (HFTC), held in The Woodlands, Texas, on February 1-3. Ian Palmer, author of “The Shale Controversy” and a Forbes website contributor, attended the event and provides an update on new innovations in low-tech, high-tech, and climate-tech.
In May 2017, Murrysville Township (Westmoreland County) struck a zoning compromise with local drillers on the distance of setbacks (see 
Last week Philadelphia lawyer Dan Markind, a real estate and corporate attorney who speaks and writes widely on the Marcellus, showed a connection between the developing situation of Russia invading Ukraine, and the Marcellus/Utica (see 
A new study out of Harvard University purports to link fracking with early deaths of senior citizens. It is fake research. Here’s the main finding of the study: Senior citizens who lived closest to fracked shale wells (including seniors in the PA Marcellus) had an early death risk 2.5% higher than people who did not live close to the wells. If it were an opinion poll we would say it’s within the margin of statistical error. In other words, these “researchers” didn’t find a darned thing. And yet the headlines have already begun in fake news media…
You know it’s the end of the world when (in this case) the far-left editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who universally hate shale drilling, support shale drilling under public parks in Allegheny County (Greater Pittsburgh). Last week MDN told you that anti-drilling zealots in Allegheny County were making yet another play, as they did eight years ago, to get County Council to pass a permanent ban on fracking under (not on) county parks (see 
Yesterday we told you that a program would air last night on the Fox Business channel featuring Cameron Energy, a conventional oil driller in western Pennsylvania (see 