Youngstown Anti-Fracking Ballot Vote Defeated…for 9th Time
The voters in Youngstown have finally, after seven years, had enough of the the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and its useful idiots who have tried, and failed, to get a so-called Community Bill of Rights ballot measure (i.e. frack ban) passed. Last November Youngstown voters rejected the CELDF measure for the eighth time (see CELDF Now an 8-Time Loser re Youngstown Frack Ban Ballot Vote). And now the “community organizers” who canvassed for signatures to put the same lunatic measure on the ballot again this November have failed to get enough signatures–so it won’t appear for a ninth time.
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Last year the Pennsylvania House of Representatives debated and voted to approve a slate of five bills aimed at fixing not only the slowmo way the DEP approves shale permits, but also roll back some of the egregious regulatory overreach that now exists in PA (see 
Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), published an article yesterday in which their expert number crunchers predict the world will use 50% more energy than it does today by 2050–in 30 short years. While so-called renewable sources of energy (which include hydro as well as solar and wind) will see a big jump up in supplying that increased need, the very sobering observation is that then, as today, fossil fuels will continue to supply the lion’s share of energy worldwide. How much?
There is no way to track exactly how much royalty revenue is received by Pennsylvania landowners, because royalty income is not reported separately on the Pennsylvania income tax return. Royalty income is combined with rental, patent and copyright income on line 6 of the PA-40 state income tax return. However, the crack researchers at the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office, a state government agency created in 2010, has a way of estimating how much revenue has been generated by oil and gas royalties. The IFO just released a report (full copy below) that shows they estimate royalties in 2018 hit their highest level since they began tracking oil & gas royalty revenue in 2010.
The Sierra Club, along with some lesser-known but equally radical enviro groups, filed a court challenge to an air quality permit granted by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for the PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker plant project in Belmont County, OH back in January (see 
Although we haven’t (yet) had the pleasure of a tour at the massive Shell ethane cracker plant complex in Beaver County, PA (near Pittsburgh), we’ve spoken to others who have. Universally they say it is a marvel to behold. The world’s second largest crane, dubbed “the Mother of All Cranes” is on site, along with about 100 other cranes (no lie, at least 100 cranes). The site is teeming with thousands (yes thousands) of construction workers–some 5,000 right now, and will reach 6,000 by year’s end. But we’ve turned a corner. According to officials, most of the large structures have now been built and the work is shifting to connect them all. Come along with us for a video tour of the facility.
We recently received a press release from IHS Markit, a major analytics company that tracks data in the oil and gas industry. They have a new report that says (sit down please, we’re talking to you MDN reader)…the average price for natural gas over the course of 2020 at the Henry Hub (the NYMEX traded price) will average less than $2 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). In other words, get ready, the bottom is about to fall out of the market for the price of gas once again. And it’s going to be far worse than a few years go. The last time the price was lower than $2/Mcf on average was in 1995–nearly 25 years ago!
West Virginia shale producers pay a 5% severance tax on all natural gas produced–you knew that, right? And in 2018 WV’s oil and gas producers (mostly shale) paid $138 million in severance taxes (see 
The town of East Goshen, in Chester County, PA (near Philadelphia) has a noise ordinance in place from 10 pm to 7 am. Sunoco Logisitics, working on installing a section of the Mariner East 2 pipeline through the township, requested an exemption to allow them to work all night long. Their argument is that once you start pulling pipe through the hole you’ve just drilled, you can’t just stop. Last week the town supervisors voted against granting the exception. Shhh, quiet after 10.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) recently pulled together a report (“findings”) that were circulated to Congress, making the case for a large-scale natural gas liquids (NGL) storage and trading hub in the Marcellus/Utica region. No doubt this report was a response to moves by the radical left to prevent such a hub from receiving any kind of federal loan guarantees.
Consolidated Edison (Con Ed), the electric and natural gas utility that services parts of New York City and to the north of NY, Westchester County, is getting desperate in their bid to locate sites where they can unload CNG (compressed natural gas) trucks into their pipeline network in Westchester County. You may recall Con Ed was the first utility to slap a moratorium on any new natgas customers from hooking up to their supply system in Westchester, back in March (see 
On August 1, Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Pipeline Company (TETCO) pipeline exploded in Lincoln County, Kentucky–killing one and sending six to the hospital (see 