Who Won in Tuesday’s Election in PA, OH, WV? Shale Energy Won!
You know how Democrats in Pennsylvania vilified and viciously attacked pro-energy Republicans over the past two years, especially with regard to a severance tax. PA Gov. Tom Wolf has been one of the worst. The media in PA has stood behind Wolf and his calls to enact a Marcellus-killing, so-called severance tax, on top of the existing impact fee + corporate income tax which amounts to a rate higher than a severance tax in states like Texas. We were told, repeatedly, that Republicans blocking Wolf’s desire for a new tax (to pay back teachers’ unions) would be political death for the Republicans. The Republicans, most of whom have held firm and resisted such severance tax lunacy, have been called every name in the book and told “at the next election, you’re gone.” Guess what? After Tuesday’s elections, Republicans in PA now hold the LARGEST MAJORITIES in both the House and Senate than they have held IN DECADES! The voters in PA have spoken, and anti-fossil fuel numskulls have been drummed out of power. And not just in PA…
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Back in April the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told PennEast they would extend the amount of time they are taking until December of this year, rather than this past August, to complete their Environmental Review (see 
On Oct. 8, after five years in the making, Pennsylvania adopted new shale drilling regulations (see 
MDN first told you about IMG Midstream in August 2014 (see 
While the worldwide Baker Hughes rig count slide back a bit in October, from 934 in September to 920 in October, the rig count in the U.S. once again, for the fourth month in a row, went up. The average U.S. rig count for October was 544, up 35 from the 509 counted in September. However, the rig count was down 247 from the 791 counted in October 2015–so we still have a long ways to go. The Marcellus/Utica rig count was up for the third month running. In October the M/U rig count went up by 4 with 3 additions in PA (now 25 rigs) and 1 in WV (now 10 rigs). OH stayed even running with an average of 14 rigs…
Don’t say we didn’t warn you. On Oct. 20 MDN reported on the link between so-called protesters (i.e. criminals) who have gathered in North Dakota to protest a federally-approved oil pipeline called the Dakota Access Pipeline (see 
In May MDN told you about a group of brave landowners in Wayne County, PA who have had their property rights stolen by the Delaware River Basin Commission (see 
The energy industry in our country is complicated and takes a while to wrap your brain around just how it works. Especially the utility industry. Companies that produce and then distribute electricity (and natural gas) are in some cases regulated by the government–meaning what they charge is strictly controlled–and in some cases not regulated. Some local utilities produce the electricity, via a nuclear plant, or coal-fired generating plant, or natural gas-fired plant, as well as distribute that electricity to customers. Other utilities just distribute the electricity. And still others just produce the electricity. Sometimes producing electricity is regulated by the government (i.e. price controlled) and other times it is not. Is your head spinning yet? FirstEnergy, based in Akron, OH, is one of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. FirstEnergy owns a variety of regulated and non-regulated power generation plants. Last Friday the company announced it will sell six power generating plants in PA, four of them natural gas-fired plants. The plants being sold are non-regulated. This is part of FirstEnergy’s strategy to become a 100% “regulated” utility in the next 18 months. Which plants are going on the auction block?…
This is an important story for both drillers and rig workers, potentially answering the question of who can and can’t be sued if something goes wrong when drilling a well. In 2006 Atlas Resources leased land in Greene County, PA to drill shale wells. In 2007 Atlas hired Gene D. Yost & Son, Inc. to drill wells for Atlas, including on the land leased in Greene County. Yost was the subcontractor, employing people to do the work using Yost’s equipment. As workers were removing drill pipe, preparing to shut in the well, there was an accident which appears to be operator error. One man, Rock A. Doman, was killed. The Doman family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Atlas Energy for negligence. After years of litigation and court findings, an appeals court ruled last week that Atlas is, in fact, a “statutory employer” under PA law, meaning they are immune from such lawsuits. That is, because Atlas hired another company for that company’s services, they (Atlas) cannot be held responsible for what the company they hired theoretically did or did not do. In this case, Yost’s “negligence” (if indeed there was any negligence) is not transferable to Atlas…
Last week saw a flurry of activity for the official ribbon-cutting at Panda Power’s very first built-from-scratch Marcellus gas-powered electric plant going online in Bradford County (see 
Lack of pipelines for natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) in the Northeast has very real economic and financial consequences. Yesterday the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce held a program titled “Fueling A Downstream Economy” in downtown Philly. One of the speakers was from petrochemical giant Braskem America Inc. If the name looks familiar, it should. Braskem and their Brazilian parent company Odebrecht are still considering building an ethane cracker plant in West Virginia (see 
The well-funded Big Green radical movement–the movement that wants to end the use of all fossil fuels–thinks it has found a new legal tactic to use in their attempts to stop the Mariner East 2 (and other) pipeline in Pennsylvania. You may recall that in September the Democrat-controlled PA Supreme Court further eviscerated the 2012 Act 13 Marcellus drilling law (see 
