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Chester DA Charges Against ME Pipe Security Chief Tossed by Judge
Former Chester County, PA District Attorney Tom Hogan (RINO), and his successor Deb Ryan (Democrat) are 100% humiliated after a Chester County Magisterial District Judge dismissed the entire case against the local head of security for Energy Transfer in what the DA’s office lyingly calls a “buy a badge scheme.” Judge John Bailey dismissed all 54 criminal counts against Frank Recknagel over his hiring of constables as off-duty security guards for the Mariner East pipeline project. The DA’s office tried to criminalize moonlighting for the pipeline.
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We’ll try not to sound arrogant, but once again *only* MDN nailed it–which is why you subscribe, right? Yesterday we brought you the news that Chesapeake Energy has finally filed for bankruptcy (see 
This is one of those “follow the bouncing ball” stories with lots of names. Bear with us because there is a connection to the Marcellus/Utica region. BP Energy Partners, a private equity firm based in Dallas, TX, invests in (and ultimately controls) a number of companies. Two of their portfolio companies are Thigpen Solutions and Blue Roads Solutions, both virtual pipeline companies delivering CNG and LNG to different types of customers. BP is merging the two into one company and renaming it Sapphire Gas Solutions.
A landowner in Allegany County, NY who tried to block National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) from crossing her property with its Northern Access Pipeline to flow PA fracked gas into the Empire State, has failed. Last week New York’s highest court, called the State Court of Appeals, overturned a lower court ruling. The high court decision clears the way for NFG to use eminent domain to cross the woman’s property when (not if) the pipeline gets built.
We’re still steamed about a totally fake/manufactured “report” issued by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro last week bashing the shale industry (see 
National Grid, a huge utility company that supplies natural gas to all of Long Island, including two New York City boroughs (Queens and Brooklyn) has both a short-term and long-term gas supply problem. Corrupt Gov. Andrew Cuomo single-handedly decided to deny National Grid new natural gas supplies via a new pipeline (see 
Yesterday Pennsylvania’s corrupt Attorney General, Josh Shapiro (who is running for governor trying to curry favor with Big Green wackadoodles) issued a 243-page report (full copy below), the result of two years of muckraking “investigations” into the Marcellus Shale drilling industry. Shapiro announced a new hotline where people can call and complain about frackers. And he had the gall to issue his own legislative agenda to further restrict fracking! In normal, sane states prosecutors uphold laws created by the legislature (and signed by the executive). In PA, Shapiro (in the judiciary) wants to make new laws. The man is out of control and needs to be locked in a padded room for his own safety.
The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) does a good job of guesstimating how much impact fee revenue will get generated in the coming year, based on permit and producing wells activity in the current year. Impact fees are PA’s equivalent of a severance tax–a fee paid by drillers for each new well they drill, paid over a 15-year period. This year IFO is offering up two scenarios for how much money the state will receive in impact fee revenues next year (based on wells drilled and active this year). One scenario is based on natgas prices averaging at least $2.25/MMBtus (million British Thermal Units) on the NYMEX, and the other scenario assumes gas prices slip below that level.
McCandless, a township in Allegheny County, PA (near Pittsburgh) is attempting to block any and all shale drilling within its borders by getting creative. The town is in the process of adopting changes to its zoning laws that make it illegal to drill a well in land zoned for commercial development. Since towns have to allow drilling in at least one zone, McCandless will allow it only in “institutional districts.” That means drilling will only be allowed on land with schools, hospitals, universities, and parks. Fat chance any drilling will ever happen in those places!
Reuters is reporting natural gas prices “collapsed” over 7% and hit a “near 25-year low” yesterday. The article says demand destruction from the coronavirus and worldwide shutdowns, along with an excess supply in storage caverns which are “expected to be full by the end of the summer season,” is the reason. Gas in storage is currently 18% above the 5-year average. The July futures NYMEX natural gas price contract, which expires today, was down -9.5% yesterday to $1.44/MMBtu. The August contract closed down -7.9% to $1.53/MMBtu.
We feel as though we keep talking to an empty room. That nobody is hearing, or if people are hearing, they don’t believe what we say when we tell you that Joe Biden and the people surrounding him are promising the total destruction of the fossil fuel industry in the U.S.A.–if he gets elected. All you have to do is listen to what he says! We’re not exaggerating nor overstating the case. If you work for the oil and gas industry, if you sell to the industry, if you care about freedom, you simply cannot vote for Joe Biden for President. To do so is to vote for the destruction of our country as we know it. The stakes are that high! Biden is signaling loud and clear his intent to block all new pipeline and LNG projects if he gets elected.
Shell slowly but surely continues to ramp back up the work being done at its mighty ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a shutdown of activity due to the coronavirus pandemic. When the COVID-19 coronavirus hit in March, Shell stopped all work on the cracker plant, sending nearly 8,000 workers home in mid-March for what was thought to be “a few days to a few weeks” (see 
In April of this year, MDN told you that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) had finally, after more than two years of evaluation, granted a permit to build a shale wastewater injection well in Plum Boro in Allegheny County (see 
We should have guessed this was coming. A New York City law firm has launched what it hopes will turn into a class action lawsuit against Cabot Oil & Gas for securities fraud following the sleazy attempt by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro to turn a 12-year-old accident (methane migration) into a felony (see 
Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (or PIPE) grants cover part of the cost of building new natgas pipelines to connect homes and businesses in rural parts of the state to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the more-than-a-dozen (so far) PIPE grant projects in the past (