Oil & Gas Industry LOVES New House Speaker Mike Johnson – We Do Too

While the newly elected Speaker of U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (from Louisiana), is relatively unknown to the oil and gas industry, the industry likes what it sees in Johnson. We do, too. Did you catch Johnson’s first media interview since winning the Speakership? It was a live interview last night with Sean Hannity on Fox News (watch it below). What an interview! While he didn’t speak much about oil and gas issues, it was clear from his responses that he is favorable to the fossil fuel industry. It was also clear he’s a true-blue conservative and has his head screwed on right.
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Shrill antis have their answer from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit) in a request to (once again) shut down construction on the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP): NO! A small group of uppity Virginia landowners don’t want MVP crossing their horse pastures, leaving a mark. So they conspired with Big Green lawyers in a lawsuit challenging the right of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to use eminent domain to build pipelines across private land.
The Baker Hughes rig count has crashed this year compared to last year’s numbers. A few months ago, we began to chronicle the weekly rig count to keep track of this alarming situation (which we post about every Monday). U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts have taken notice of the crashing rig count and asked themselves: Why? It may seem obvious, but EIA points out in a new post on its Today in Energy website that the crash in the natural gas rig count directly correlates to the crash in the price of natural gas.
On Sept. 1, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), part of the Biden Dept. of Transportation, issued a federal rule suspending a 2020 authorization of LNG transportation in rail tank cars granted under the Trump administration (see
A company called Southern Tier CO2 to Clean Energy Solutions, based in Binghamton, NY (where MDN is located), is sending fliers to landowners in Broome, Tioga, and Chemung counties (along the border with Pennsylvania, where there is no doubt large amounts of Marcellus and Utica gas beneath the ground) inviting landowners to sign up for what appears to be an exciting opportunity to sell gas rights. The flier (below) and company website say the company plans to use carbon dioxide (CO2) to (a) store it underground, but also (b) use it to extract natural gas from underground and then (c) either sell the gas via pipeline or burn it to produce electricity. The technology envisioned is an alternative to fracking. Will it work? And, will it be profitable for landowners?
Last week, MDN brought you the news that the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) will not be completely done and online until sometime in the first quarter of 2024 (see 
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the U.S. Two years ago, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see
A few weeks ago, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its annual International Energy Outlook for 2023. The last time we highlighted this report was in 2021. At that time the EIA (even though controlled by the Bidenistas) predicted that by 2050 the world’s energy supplies will still mostly come from fossil fuels — some 70% from fossil energy, to be exact (see
This is one of those times where we scratch our heads and say, Huh? Just last week, we brought you the news that American Energy Partners, Inc. (AEPT), based in Allentown, PA, with its fingers in several different pies, including subsidiaries in drilling, remediation, water, and more, is changing its name to American Environmental Partners, Inc. (see
In June 2015, MDN told you about a cool plan by a Pennsylvania company to establish a CNG (compressed natural gas) terminal in Lycoming County, PA, as a way to get natural gas to manufacturers, fleets, and businesses where no pipeline infrastructure now exists (see
A dozen residents from Greene County, PA, filed a lawsuit on Monday against the East Dunkard Water Authority and several private companies, including CNX Resources, claiming (among other things) that wastewater from CNX’s fracking work in the Marcellus Shale “tainted the water supply in Dunkard Creek” and that the tainted water has affected the health of those drinking and using it. Just remember, anyone can sue anyone for anything. That doesn’t mean the party being sued is culpable in any way, nor the lawsuit is legitimate.
A long-running lawsuit filed by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners argues the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia. Big Green and the uppity landowners filed an emergency request last Tuesday with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking that the construction of MVP be stopped while the lawsuit continues to play out (see 