Shortline Railroad Wins Award for PA Marcellus Transload Facility
We can’t resist a good railroad story. The American Shortline and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) has just recognized the Reading & Northern (R&N) Railroad, based in Port Clinton, PA, with one of the industry’s highest honors for marketing achievement. The ASLRRA recognized R&N for its development of a large Marcellus Shale transload facility in Tunkhannock (Wyoming County), PA. Opened in late 2021, the facility began full operations in early 2022 and handled over 2200 carloads of frack sand despite many challenges facing the Marcellus Shale region.
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Using numbers from its recently published Annual Energy Outlook (AEO) for 2023, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts natural gas production coming from oil-focused plays, called “associated gas,” will continue to grow for the next 30 years. EIA says associated gas will make up somewhere between 20% and 32% of all natural gas produced over that period of time. As oil drilling continues to expand, so too will associated gas production.
Some interesting insights from S&P Global Commodity Insights into how the world has changed. S&P’s analysts say the Russia-Ukraine war is in the process of “resetting” the energy sector, with natural gas turning into a global and interconnected market affected by events and dynamics far beyond its traditional physical scope. In fact, S&P says natural gas is now similar, to some extent, to what oil used to be for decades. We will explain.
One of two original “anchor” applicants in the billion-dollar hydrogen hub Hunger Games contest that was part of Pennsylvania’s application was Equinor (the Norwegian super major formerly known as Statoil). The Pittsburgh Business Times reports Equinor is now out and has been replaced by Mitsubishi Power, which (among other things) builds natural gas and hydrogen turbines to generate electricity. Why did Equinor leave? Is this proposal in trouble?
You knew it was only a matter of time. On March 1, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued a 297-page biological opinion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s (MVP) potential impact on threatened and endangered species if the 94% complete pipeline is allowed to finish (see 
Last week MDN told you about the long-festering issue of building a shale wastewater injection well in Clara Township in Potter County, PA (see 
These days oil and gas companies (and other types of companies, too) have to “prove” they are helping to make Mom Earth better by achieving (giggle) “net-zero” carbon emissions. We giggle because net-zero is a myth. It’s a sham. And everybody knows it. But, these are the games people play now. Every night and every day now. Never meanin’ what they say now. Never sayin’ what they mean. (Whoops! Back to center.) Our own Marcellus/Utica companies, including the largest natural gas producer in the country, EQT, are forced to play the games too. Yesterday, EQT announced the company’s first “nature-based carbon offset initiative.” EQT will pay for trees to be planted in a Wheeling, WV park as atonement for emitting (sinning) CO2.
We’ve often written about “permitting reform” needed to build new pipeline projects and finish existing projects like the stalled Mountain Valley Pipeline. Last year U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (Democrat, WV) tried and failed to get permitting reform passed (see 
On several occasions, we have compared the current abdication of rational thinking in the global warming debate to the Dark Ages and the Catholic Church’s policy of selling indulgences to sinners. Got a few big sins you’ve committed? No problem. Just pay your money to a priest, and it gets magically absolved. Compare that with paying for carbon offsets today. We dare you to tell us how there’s a dime’s worth of difference! The Renaissance (and Reformation) delivered us from the practice of buying indulgences to absolve sins. An article in Forbes says we may be on the cusp of a new Renaissance to deliver us from the lunacy of buying carbon credits.
The left’s insane push to ban the use of all fossil energy, including natural gas, is beginning to bear fruit with large utility companies. Dominion and National Grid–huge electric and gas companies providing service to millions of customers–are rumored to be shopping some of their natural gas pipeline networks. So says the venerable Wall Street Journal. The reason? They believe the end of providing natural gas to customers is now on the horizon, and they want to dump their gas pipeline assets now, while those assets will still fetch big money.
In January, Ohio House Bill (HB) 507 became law with the signature of Gov. Mike DeWine (see 
Two weeks ago, MDN did something we don’t often do: We broke news, providing an exclusive that Naceo’s plan to build a $6 billion gas-to-liquids (GTL) refinery on the site of a former coal mine in Newport Township and Nanticoke in Luzerne County, PA, is still alive and active (see 
Since 2015 we’ve reported on the case of Grant Township (Indiana County, PA), a town that passed an ordinance cooked up by the radical Big Green group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) to try and block a state-approved injection well proposed by Pennsylvania General Energy (
As we reported back in February, the Biden EPA plans to allow private citizens to police oil wells and pipelines for methane leaks–meaning Big Green groups actually do the “policing” (see 
It’s not often we’re rendered speechless, but this is one of those times. To say we are incensed, that we are deeply concerned, outraged, etc. doesn’t begin to cover it. Last Friday, the film “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” a screen adaption of Eco-Marxist Andreas Malm’s book of the same title, was released. The film, which is a fictional story, justifies eco-terrorism. It encourages people to become terrorists and blow up fossil fuel pipelines.