DOE Secretary Visits Shell PA Cracker Site, Talks Up Fossil Fuels
We love U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette. He’s smart, articulate, and a supporter of all forms of energy, including fossil fuels. He also doesn’t suffer climate change fools well. Brouillette visited the Shell ethane cracker plant under construction in southwestern PA yesterday. He had some great things to say about petrochemicals, fracking, and (yes) even about so-called climate change.
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The results of a new “push poll” aimed at brainwashing people (as opposed to an honest poll reflecting people’s actual opinions) have just been released claiming most Pennsylvania voters think a $2.36 billion tax they will pay over the next 10 years after joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) is just lovely.
Antis continue their public relations push to try and block a northeastern PA LNG liquefaction plant in Wyalusing, PA planned by New Fortress Energy (NFE), by claiming the LNG that will be shipped from the plant to the Philadelphia area, via trucks and rail, will be rolling “bombs on wheels.” However, an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer debunks those lies.
As we told you on Monday, the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (EQB), a powerful committee operating under the larger umbrella of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), held a hearing and cast a vote yesterday on whether or not PA should join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a tax on carbon for power generators (see 
For the third week in a row, both Pennsylvania and West Virginia issued permits to drill new shale wells last week, and Ohio did not. What’s up with Ohio? PA issued 13 new permits for wells on five well pads. WV issued 2 new permits on two different pads. PA’s new permits skewed toward the southwestern part of the state with 11 of the 13 permits issued (two in Bradford County in the northeast). The WV permits were both issued in Marshall County, located in the northern panhandle of the state.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just published its 2019 Oil and Gas Annual Report. This is the fourth year in a row the DEP has published the report in an interactive, electronic (i.e.online) format ONLY. What does the 2019 report show? While permits issued and number of new wells drilled have both gone down (again), gas production has gone up (again)–to a new record high.
Sounding downright nasty and mean, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell has ordered Sunoco Logistics Partners (Energy Transfer) to reroute part of the Mariner East 2X pipeline around Marsh Creek Lake State Park, following a spill of nontoxic drilling mud that ended up in Marsh Creek Lake in Chester County. McDonnell uses combative and incendiary words like Sunoco “blatantly disregarded the citizens” of Chester County, has been “careless” and is guilty of “unlawful actions.” In a rather uppity tone, McDonnell says he will “not stand for more of the same” and he is “demanding a proper cleanup” of the site. Sunoco has been working diligently to clean up the spill since it happened.
Pin Oak Midstream, a subsidiary of Pin Oak Energy Partners, a relatively young Marcellus/Utica driller based in Akron, OH, has purchased most of the pipeline assets of Laurel Mountain Midstream for an undisclosed amount. The assets include 1,050 miles of natural gas-gathering pipelines and five compressor stations located in three Pennsylvania counties.
Most political analysts believe this year’s presidential election may come down to one or two states–namely Pennsylvania and Ohio. If Biden can win in those two states, he stands a good chance of winning the election (an absolute nightmare!). But here’s what you don’t hear from mainstream media: the election may well turn on the issue of shale fracking. Counties in PA and OH, like Washington County in southwestern PA, are likely where the race will be won or lost. It’s not looking good for old ban-fracking Joe.
S&P Global Market Intelligence has done some forensic analysis of permits issued to drill new shale wells in Pennsylvania during August 2020. They compared last month’s permit numbers with the numbers from a year ago and found that PA issued 77 new permits last month, down 24% from August 2019.