Shale Economics 101: An Interview with O&G Giant Rusty Braziel
MDN has long been a fan of Rusty Braziel, co-founder of Bentek Energy (later sold to Platts) and founder/president of RBN Energy. Earlier this year we wrote about the release of Rusty’s new book, “The Domino Effect” and his appearance on Jimmy Cramer’s Mad Money program (see The Smartest Man in the Oil (& Gas) Patch: Rusty Braziel). A few weeks back Rusty sat down with Don Stowers, Chief Editor of Pennwell’s Oil & Gas Financial Journal, to talk about the big picture–some of the most important issues facing the oil and gas industry, the lasting impact of the Shale Revolution, and Rusty’s thoughts from 40-plus years in the energy business. It turned into the cover story of their June 2016 issue. Below is a recap of a few of the questions (and Rusty’s answers), along with a copy of the full article. Worth the read!…
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Maryland is a lot like New York–populated with lefty liberals who love to tell other people how to live their lives. Maryland is at least, and perhaps more, “progressive” than New York. So it’s no surprise to us to read how the Dem libs are having a cow over proposed regulations that would allow fracking to begin in the state starting in October 2017. Maryland went through a years-long process, just like New York, and eventually released what would likely be the strictest drilling regulations in the nation, in late 2014 (see 
Don’t worry, you stupid farmers in Belmont County, OH. A really really smart liberal from Yale University (who believes in the fairy tale of man-made global warming) has arrived in your midst and is willing to pay you big money–$20 (yes, twenty dollars)–to participate in a “study” with a pre-determined outcome that you’re being poisoned by fracking. The latest laughable “research study” by a small group of Yale “researchers” is underway in Belmont. The researchers are looking for 100 local yokels who are willing to tell them how they’ve been harmed by fracking, so the researchers can plaster the Yale name on yet another fraudulent study funded by Big Green organizations. We’ve seen this movie before. In 2014 Yale researchers released a similar study of 180 people in Washington County, PA, funded by Heinz Foundation and other Big Green funders (see 
Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy (DMME) wants an independent, third-party review of proposed natural gas drilling regulations in the state. The last time such regulations was reviewed was in 2004, over a decade ago. A lot has changed since then. At that time, a group called the State Review of Oil and Natural Gas Environmental Regulations (STRONGER) performed the review. It’s only natural that the same group do the new review–so the DMME hired STRONGER to do it. And that has anti-drilling nutjobs in a tizzy. Eight radical anti-drilling groups say STRONGER has industry backing and will not be fair and impartial in their review. In other words, STRONGER won’t recommend rules so strict as to ban fracking, which is what the radicals want. Here’s the thing: STRONGER has members of Big Green groups as part of the organization–including Earthworks and Trout Unlimited. STRONGER receives funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Dept. of Energy (DOE). So how do the nutters figure STRONGER isn’t objective or unduly influenced? If anything, STRONGER is influenced toward being too cozy with Big Green causes…
Big news to report with an effort to beat back President Obama’s wild and mad grab at executive power. Earlier this week a federal judge in Wyoming–appointed by Obama himself–ruled that the Dept. of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) fracking rules are an illegal power grab and has struck them down. MDN has written about this issue since the new rules were proposed in 2012 (see 
Maryland is actively looking at revising draft regulations that would allow fracking with an eye to adopting the new rules later this year, and letting fracking begin in the state in October 2017. The antis are, of course, apoplectic that fracking might happen in the liberal paradise of Maryland. However, the oil and gas industry is not all that thrilled with the proposed changes coming from the Maryland Department of Environment (MDE) either. We’ve been critical of new Gov. Larry Hogan and his lack of spine on the fracking issue (see 
Last December we asked the question: 
Last month MDN brought you some news that mainstream media in Pittsburgh intentionally ignored: a judge ruled that a new hyper-restrictive (defacto ban) ordinance passed by South Fayette Township, in Allegheny County, was “invalid, null and void” (see 
The odious and misnamed Food & Water Watch, a virulent anti-drilling organization, along with several other Big Groups, has just delivered a petition with the signatures of 90,000 wacko radicals to the Democrat National Committee to demand that the DNC add a fracking ban plank to the Party’s platform. Outlandish? Would never happen? Hey, radicals in Pennsylvania got the Dems there to adopt such a plank before the last gubernatorial election (see 
There’s an old saying that goes like this: “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” Not long ago MDN reported that Eclipse Resources had drilled what is believed to be the longest horizontal well (on land) in the world–the 3.5 mile “Purple Hayes” Utica Shale well (see 
Last week presidential candidate Donald Trump gave a speech on energy and energy policies at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismark, North Dakota. By all accounts, Trump hit the ball out of the park. Before a crowd of some 7,000 people, Trump delighted the audience with a pretty simple message: cut back on regulations that choke America’s exploration and production of energy–and frack a lot more. Which is contrary to “crooked Hillary’s” vision of enacting new regulations to the point that fracking will be banned (see