USFWS Pulls the Trigger and Lists Bumble Bee as Endangered
As the ignominious rule of Barack Hussein Obama draws to a close on Jan. 20, government agencies that are part of the Executive Branch, like the EPA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), continue to issue “midnight” rulings and edicts that will have tragic consequences–until Trump arrives and reverses it (hard to do, but not impossible). We’ve written before about the thuggish nature of USFWS. They are a (police) force unto themselves, kind of like the old East German Stasi. The USFWS is responsible for recommending and listing varies species, empowered to do so under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). They have WAY too much power under dictatorial rulers like Obama. On September 22, 2016 the USFWS published a proposed rule to list the rusty patched bumble bee (Bombus affinis) as “endangered” under the ESA. The rusty patched bumble bee is found in the Midwest and eastern parts of the U.S. If it gets listed, it will have SIGNIFICANT impacts on drillers and midstreamers (see “Endangered” Bumble Bee May Slow/Stop O&G Projects in Northeast). Well, with just a few days left in Obama’s reign of terror, they’ve pulled the trigger and done it. The USFWS has just listed the lowly bumble bee as endangered…
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Yesterday MDN ran an important story about 10 proposed (or already under construction) Utica Shale gas-powered electric plants planned for Ohio (see 
Maryland is a lot like New York–populated with lefty liberals who love to tell other people how to live their lives. Maryland went through a years-long process, just like New York, and eventually released what would likely be the strictest drilling regulations in the nation, in late 2014 (see 
As is so often the case, when leftists/liberals claim they are doing one thing, it is, in fact, the opposite they are doing. Case in point: Obama’s Dept. of Energy (DOE) Secretary Ernest “hair” Moniz has released an 11th hour “scientific integrity” policy for the DOE that supposedly inoculates and protects “real” scientists who work for the agency from politics–allowing them to freely vomit their political, whoops, scientific views whenever and wherever they want, without fear of retribution or losing their job. What it does is to set up a situation where the incoming Trump Administration (specifically Rick Perry, the new DOE Secretary) are handcuffed to a bunch of leftists in the department–people who insist on the fairy tale of man-made global warming. If Perry wants to clean house, there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, along with lawsuits that it violates agency policy. This is a typical sleazy move by the Obamadroids to dirty things up before they leave town–scorched earth policy. In case you think we’re engaging in hyperbole, the Union of (Liberal) Concerned Scientists are “thrilled” with the new policy. Need we say more?…
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is fresh out with analysis of wholesale electricity prices in 2016 and finds electric prices were down for the year primarily because of the low price of natural gas–and the switching currently under way from coal to natgas. EIA says for the first 10 months of last year electric generating plants paid an average of $2.78/Mcf (thousand cubic feet) for natgas–down 17% from the same period in 2015. Because of the ongoing switching from coal to natgas, EIA says electricity generated from natgas power plants rose 6% in the first 10 months compared to the same period a year earlier. The truly astonishing factoid from EIA: “Natural gas was the primary source of U.S. electricity generation (when measured on an annual basis) in 2016 for the first time.” Here’s the full EIA analysis…
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is…what adjective can we use? Recalcitrant. Stubborn. Pigheaded. Stupid. Perhaps all of the above. Wolf is clearly in over his head and the most ineffective PA governor in more than a generation. When he assumed office in 2015, he floated a budget calling for a new 5% severance tax on the Marcellus industry–a tax which even his supporters admitted would be closer to 17% (see 
Enough is enough. As MDN reported last June, anti-drilling zealots in Youngstown, OH filed a petition to place a frack ban resolution on the November ballot–for the 6th time (see 
In June 2015 MDN told you about a really cool plan by a Pennsylvania company to establish a CNG (compressed natural gas) terminal in Lycoming County, PA as a way to get natural gas to manufacturers, fleets and businesses where no pipeline infrastructure now exists (see 
In October EQT announced a deal to buy Trans Energy, Inc., a public pure-play driller in the Marcellus in West Virginia, which will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of EQT (see 
A West Virginia law professor and one of his students (who went on to become a trial attorney with the U.S. Dept. of Justice), have just published a research paper on the topic of surface and mineral rights in the Mountain State. The paper, titled “Horizontal Drilling Vertical Problems: Property Law Challenges from the Marcellus Shale Boom” (full copy below) discusses property law challenges that can impede business development and negatively impact landowners and mineral owners in shale regions, with a focus on the West Virginia Marcellus. The paper explains the horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing process. A widespread problem in WV is that (because of coal) in many cases the owners of the mineral rights under the ground are not the same people who own the property on the surface. The paper makes the point that while courts can handle one-off cases, the WV legislature should develop better “large-scale policies” to deal with an ongoing, contentious situation…
A special offer to MDN readers from the Appalachian Pipeliners Association (APA). MDN readers are invited to the January 2017 APA Dinner Meeting and Presentation: Oil & Gas Journal’s Forecast and Review–2017. Presented by Oil & Gas Journal Editor, Bob Tippee, the presentation (on Jan. 17) is sure to benefit industry operators and suppliers interested in learning more about what’s in store for the year ahead. MDN readers get a special discount to attend…
The Baker Hughes rig count continued to rocket skyward in December–on all levels. The international rig count (worldwide) was 929, up 4 from the 925 counted in November. However, in the U.S., the December rig count was 634, up a whopping 54 rigs from the 580 counted in November. And the Marcellus/Utica had equally good news. The combined rig counts for PA-OH-WV was 58, up by 5 rigs from November’s 53. Cool! The biggest gainer was PA, with a count of 31 (up 4 from 27 in November). OH gained 2 and now stands at 18 active rigs. WV, on the other hand, lost a single rig and the count stood at an average of 9 rigs. Something else to note, December’s M-U rig count of 58 is the highest average monthly rig count in 2016. On the chart below you will see we hit our low point in June/July when the count was 36. Since that time we have gained rigs every single month…
As MDN reported last week, on the last business day of 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a favorable final environmental impact statement (EIS) for one of the major pipeline projects in the Marcellus/Utica: the $3 billion Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project (see