WV Drillers Must Now Pay $2,500 Fee to Modify O&G Well Permits
Shale and conventional oil and gas drillers in West Virginia listen up: If you file for a modification to a previously filed permit request, it’s going to cost you $2,500. Currently, it costs nothing. Two weeks ago we told you about Senate Bill (SB) 404 (see WV Bill Creates New $2,500 Fee for Modifying O&G Well Permits). WV Gov. Jim Justice signed SB 404 into law on Monday. It goes into effect on June 16, 2021. You might want to file any change requests you have now, while it still costs nothing.
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Stiff opposition from officials in Marcellus/Utica-producing counties in West Virginia has flared up over House Bill (HB) 2581 (see 
For years PA’s small, independent conventional oil and gas drillers have objected to the one-size-fits-all regulations concocted by the Wolf DEP that applies the same regulations to small conventional drillers as those used for big shale drillers. The two types of drilling are apples and oranges. Making small conventional drillers jump through the same hoops as big shale drillers will bankrupt many of the smaller companies. As in previous years, a bill will soon be introduced to separate the regulations for the two…
Elon Musk is like a god to the wacko environmental movement. For those who don’t know, Musk founded PayPal in 1999. He then founded SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Tesla manufactures electric-only cars. Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers. In January 2021, Musk reportedly surpassed Jeff Bezos as the wealthiest man in the world. But some of the bloom is coming off the rose of Elon Musk–at least for woke leftists. You see, Elon has a nasty natural gas habit. The god has fallen…
Hey, it’s that time of year when thoughts turn to the events of some 2,000 years ago and a Jewish rabbi named Jesus who was raised from the dead. Although nowhere near as world-changing as that event, we have another rise-from-the-dead situation: Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project. We told you in May of last year after the corrupt Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, and Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey refused to grant permits to build NESE, that Williams had walked away form the project (see 
The Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is purposefully dragging its feet in an attempt to derail Equitrans’ Mountain Valley Pipeline project. DEQ is telling the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it will take the rest of this year to review and plan for roughly 120 stream crossings in the state, requesting a time extension of at least six months to do so. If the Army Corps (now controlled by Joe Biden) agrees to DEQ’s request, there is no way MVP, currently 92% complete, can reach 100% completion by the end of this year.
Eureka Resources currently operates three frack wastewater treatment facilities in the Marcellus Shale, two in Williamsport (Lycoming County), PA (where the company is headquartered), and one in Wysox (Bradford County), PA. In October 2019 the company began extracting lithium from Marcellus wastewater at its Wysox facility (see 
Pipelines are necessary and critical to move supplies of gas (and oil) from where the product is extracted to where it’s needed. In the case of Marcellus/Utica natural gas, there is demand from markets in Canada, the Midwest, the Gulf Coast, and the Southeast. There are six major interstate pipelines that flow our gas to Gulf Coast and Southeast. The big question is, will those pipes max out again this spring? It’s a distinct possibility according to the experts at RBN Energy.
MDN friend Tom Shepstone has published a fascinating confessional from an attorney who used to be a committed “environmentalist” but who has left the left and now calls himself a conservationist. This is an important article to read because it captures the essence of everything that is wrong with the environmental left in this country and around the world. It chronicles the change in the environmental movement over the past 20-30 years. It illustrates the difference between reasonable and unreasonable.
Almost every year during the West Virginia legislature’s 60-day regular session (which happens at the beginning of each year) a forced pooling bill gets introduced. It happened again this year (see 
In February West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice announced a plan to eliminate the state’s personal income tax. In order to replace the $2.1 billion received annually from the personal income tax, Justice would raise other taxes, including a tiered system that potentially raises the state’s oil and gas severance tax…potentially by a lot (see 
Olympus Energy, the renamed Huntley & Huntley Energy Exploration (HHEX), concentrates its drilling in the Pittsburgh suburbs, including Upper Burrell and Allegheny Townships in Westmoreland County, PA. Olympus has just cut a $1.2 million deal with the Municipal Authority of the City of New Kensington to extend three miles of waterlines near three Marcellus well sites in Upper Burrell and Allegheny Townships.
Whether or not drilling companies have the right to deduct post-production expenses (processing the gas, pipeline transportation, etc.) has raged for more than a decade here in the Marcellus/Utica. Even if landowners have ironclad, very specific language in the contract prohibiting post-production deductions from royalties, some companies (*cough* Chesapeake Energy *cough*) still find ways to claim deductions anyway, leading to expensive and years-long lawsuits that benefit the lawyers more than anyone else. A decision in a recent Texas Supreme Court case gives landowners in the M-U some hope.
For years Vermont has made millions of dollars selling Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to other states–a scam that allows pretentious environmentalists to claim they’re helping out the environment when in fact they still burn the same fossil fuels and biomass (i.e. woodburning) as they always did by paying a fee, a REC, and absolving themselves of feeling bad about it. Think of modern-day RECs like the Catholic Church selling indulgences in the Middle Ages to absolve you of your sins, or at least lessen the punishment for your sins. RECs are the new indulgences of the post-everything era we live in now. Selling REC indulgences is about to go away for Vermonters, and it may lead to widespread blackouts.
Joe Biden is proposing an insane “infrastructure” plan that will run into the trillions of dollars. All of that money comes from somewhere folks. Money is not free and you can’t simply print it forever without inflation going haywire and the U.S. becoming the new Venezuela. But we digress. As part of spending more money on infrastructure, Biden is looking to change the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which regulates construction of infrastructure, by putting back into place strangling regulations that Donald Trump relaxed so it doesn’t take a decade to build a new road.