Trump Promises Expedited Enviro Permits for New Investments of $1B+
Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump posted an interesting message to his Truth Social account: “Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!” The implication is that the incoming Trumpsters will move heaven and earth to ensure more major manufacturing and infrastructure projects are built here in the U.S.A. Finally, someone who gets it! Read More “Trump Promises Expedited Enviro Permits for New Investments of $1B+”
What is the Biden Department of Energy (DOE) hiding? Four times now, Republican lawmakers from Congress have asked the DOE to reveal the scientific process it is using to “evaluate” how the federal government approves LNG export requests. The Bidenistas are stonewalling and refusing to comply with the request, implying they are using less-than-rigorous standards to produce a fake report. The Bidenistas are using political science instead of real science to evaluate LNG exports. You can expect a politically motivated report when the ditsy Jennifer Granholm (DOE Secretary) finally issues the LNG report we’ve been waiting for for the past year. 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final rule updating its regulations to include Version 4.0 of the Standards for Business Practices of Interstate Natural Gas Pipelines, as adopted by the Wholesale Gas Quadrant (WGQ) of the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB). The revisions are designed to promote greater efficiency and reliability of the natural gas industry’s operations and strengthen the cybersecurity protections provided within the standards. This action builds on (works in tandem with) the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) annual Security Directives aimed at protecting pipelines from being hacked. 
Yesterday, the Ohio Oil and Gas Land Management Commission (OGLMC) voted to award a contract to Gulfport Energy to drill and frack under (not on) about 30 acres of the Egypt Valley Wildlife Area in Belmont County. Commissioners also voted to open an additional 884 acres of Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County for oil and gas development. During the meeting, commissioners had to work above the chaotic noise from anti-fossil fuel zealots who dressed up in Christmas attire and sang Christmas “carols” substituting anti-fracking lyrics. Yeah, antis made horses’ rear-ends of themselves, as they typically do. 
Pennsylvania assesses an impact fee (PA’s version of a severance tax) on shale drillers, raising revenues that are paid to local municipalities and the black hole of Harrisburg politicians. Yesterday, the PA Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) issued an estimate for how much the impact fee will raise this year, which will be distributed next year. The IFO says it thinks, based on the price of low natural gas and the number of new and existing wells, that PA will generate $163.8 million from the impact fee in 2024, a decrease of $15.8 million (8.8%) from 2023. Looking back further, the price is down $115.1 million (41%) from 2022. Why did impact fee revenues drop so dramatically over the past two years? 
One month ago, we brought you the news that Diversified Energy and EQT Corporation had settled a class action lawsuit originally brought by several West Virginia landowners (see 
Last week, MDN told you the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection, which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV, is making changes to how it decides which new power plants can connect to the system first. The new policy *favors* adding natural gas-fired power over other types of power like unreliable solar and wind (see 
Yesterday, the Energy Workforce & Technology Council released its monthly jobs report, highlighting a rebound in employment across the U.S. energy services sector. Total jobs in the sector were reported at 655,630 for November 2024, reflecting an increase of 1,890 positions from October, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and analysis conducted by the Energy Workforce & Technology Council. Overall employment in the energy sector has been higher each month compared with corresponding months last year beginning in June—an indicator that activity in oil and gas is ever-so-gradually beginning to increase again. 
The Baker Hughes national rig count dramatically increased last week, adding seven rigs for a national count of 589. Note that the national count continues to be rangebound between 581 and 589 since June (except for Sep. 13, when it hit 590 for a single week). Will we break out of the rut and go higher? Stay tuned. Meanwhile, the Ohio Utica lost one rig last week, but the Pennsylvania Marcellus picked it up, keeping the combined M-U count at 35. 
Upper Burrell (Westmoreland County, PA) town supervisors have historically been receptive (or at least tolerant) to the Marcellus Shale industry that has so blessed their town and Westmoreland County (
Two pipeline industry titans are going after each other again. Energy Transfer and Williams previously tangled over an aborted proposed merger, a saga that stretched from 2015 until it was finally settled in 2023 (see 
In January 2023, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, an extremist, floated a plan to ban natural gas hookups in every single new home and business across the “Empire” State (see 
You’ve heard of UFOs—Unidentified Flying Objects. What about UOWs? That would be Undocumented Orphaned Wells. Not to be confused with undocumented illegal aliens. Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, located in Berkeley, California, have figured out how to use artificial intelligence (AI) to scan and read old maps, recognizing oil and gas well symbols on those maps to generate potential well locations that can then be verified via satellite imagery and field surveys. This may be the first practical thing to come out of Berserkely in years!