Ohio Comm. Says 12.5% Royalties for State Land Drilling Too Cheap
In January, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see OH Gov. Signs Bill Expanding Drilling in State Parks, NatGas “Green”). The new law allows shale drilling under (but not on top of) Ohio state-owned land, including state parks. HB 507 encourages (pushes for) more drilling under state-owned land. The special commission created to award contracts — called the Ohio Oil & Gas Land Management (OGLM) Commission — met yesterday to consider the 12+ “nominations” (requests to drill) received so far. The meeting was beset with silly anti-fossil fuelers (most of them old hippies) behaving like the silly horse’s rear-ends they are. Dressed up, parading around, and singing (ever notice how lefties like to play dress-up?). Aside from the distraction of antis, the topic of discussion that caught our attention was the royalty rate supposedly established by the state legislature that must be used in all contracts. OGML members say the established rate they must use is WAY too low and somehow needs to be changed.
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Commonwealth LNG is developing a 9.3 MTPA (million tons per annum) liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project located on the Calcasieu River in the Gulf of Mexico near Cameron, Louisiana. Commonwealth anticipates a final investment decision for the project in the first quarter of 2024, with the first cargo deliveries expected in 2027. According to an announcement yesterday, just over 10% of the gas that will get liquefied and exported will come from EQT Corporation’s Marcellus/Utica operations.
Have we finally turned a corner? Hit rock bottom and have begun a rebound? We are referring to the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count. Last Monday, we reported the weekly rig count had finally gained a rig–the first time since June (see 
Dominion Energy, a huge utility company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, recently revived a plan to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, a Richmond suburb (see 
Last week, MDN tracked a story that developed all week long. The Freeport LNG export facility, located on Quintana Island along the Texas Gulf Coast (south of Houston), is the second largest LNG export facility currently in operation. When operating at full capacity, Freeport can export 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of liquefied natural gas–roughly 20% of the U.S.’ entire LNG export output. A little over a week ago, the facility experienced some sort of issue (Freeport has been silent and refuses to respond), reducing output, at one point, to zero (see 
Everyone is telling the Bidenistas at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the same thing: Dump the faulty regulations you composed at the last minute that will result in closing most (if not all) of America’s natural gas-fired power plants. The latest group to tell (off) the EPA is a coalition of 87 businesses and associations from multiple states–including Pennsylvania and Ohio. Among the groups in the coalition are the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA), the American Petroleum Institute — both the Pennsylvania and Ohio chapters, and the Ohio Oil & Gas Association. The coalition represents millions of people.
There’s some major corruption going on in the world of the left, and it got exposed last Wednesday at a Congressional hearing on Capitol Hill. The House Committee on Oversight and Reform held the hearing, chaired by Rep. James Comer (Republican from Kentucky). It was a hearing about a distortion of the justice system called third-party litigation funding (TPLF). It is the practice of a party with no direct stake in a lawsuit funding the plaintiff and the plaintiff’s lawyers as they pursue litigation. Example: billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Big Green groups (funded in part by foreign countries like China and Russia) paying for lawyers for smaller green groups and mom-and-pop plaintiffs to repeatedly sue the oil and gas industry to block drilling and pipelines, or to force a change in regulations. There are, believe it or not, investment funds set up to invest in lawsuits! And the investors (the people with the money) can control whether or not the plaintiffs they are backing can or cannot settle the lawsuit. It is no longer about justice but about money. It is a GROTESQUE bastardization of the entire justice system. And it MUST STOP.
Thanks to the good work of Pennsylvania’s Senate Republicans, residents and ratepayers across the Commonwealth have been spared a spike in their electricity rates for a seventh time. The state just missed the latest so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) “auction” that forces coal- and gas-fired power plants to pay obscenely high taxes to continue operating. As a bonus, missing the auction denies Democrats in Harrisburg millions of dollars in play money they can line their pockets with (and line the pockets of those who support them). That’s called a win/win!
In April 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to review Section 401 of the Clean Water Act–the section that grants states (and tribes) the right to have a say in pipeline and other infrastructure projects (see 
U.S. LNG exports dropped in the week ending September 13 compared to the prior week because the Freeport LNG terminal shipped only one cargo during that time. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its weekly natural gas report that 18 LNG carriers departed the U.S. between Sept. 7 and Sept. 13, down by eight cargoes compared to the week before. As we reported yesterday, Freeport is known to have canceled at least 3-4 cargos over the past week (see 
Jennifer Granholm, former governor of Michigan and current Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Energy under dementia Joe, sat before Members of Congress in a hearing and lied to their faces, which is called perjury. Granholm told Congress she does not own individual shares of stocks in companies. She and her husband, in fact, do own stocks. As Secretary of Energy, Granholm promoted companies in which she and her husband own stocks, using federal government money to enrich herself. It’s gross corruption, and it’s perjury. Granholm needs to go. Congresswoman Claudia Tenney from Upstate NY is calling for an impeachment inquiry of Granholm to help the process along.
Yesterday, the Potential Gas Committee (PGC) released its year-end assessment of the nation’s estimated natural gas resource base, “Potential Supply of Natural Gas in the United States,” at an event hosted by the American Gas Association. Experts from the PGC presented the current state of technically recoverable reserves in the United States, providing valuable information on a region-by-region basis. We have the executive summary below. Of particular interest for us was the finding that the U.S. has enough gas to supply current and future needs for the next 100 years! Yet we do not, says the PGC, have enough pipelines to flow it.