Pennsylvania

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    Warren Resources Releases Details on 2 “Upper” Marcellus Wells

    Warren Resources is an independent exploration and production company (E&P, or what we call a driller) with an active drilling program for oil in California, undrilled acreage in the state of Wyoming, and a small but growing operation in the Marcellus Shale. Warren owns 6,982 gross (5,289 net) contiguous acres in Wyoming County, PA, the northeastern part of the state. As of July 2014 Warren had drilled 30 Marcellus Shale wells (some of those drilled by a joint venture partner) in what they call the Lower Marcellus layer. Earlier this year the company drilled two new Marcellus wells in the Upper Marcellus layer. On Tuesday, Warren released initial production results for their first two Upper Marcellus Shale wells…
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    PA Budget: Where Will Republicans “Find” $400M for Big Education?

    We are holding our collective breath. Yesterday there seemed to be movement toward finalizing a deal for the Pennsylvania State budget. The floundering Tom Wolf administration made a promise to Big Education they can’t keep–raping, er, a, raiding the Marcellus Shale industry and giving the proceeds to teachers’ unions as political payoff for helping to elect him. Republicans, which control both the PA Senate and House, have held firm: You don’t tax a single industry to transfer its wealth to another group that didn’t earn it, no matter how “worthy” and “noble” the cause. It’s called theft. Yesterday word leaked that Republicans and Wolf met and the Republicans offered Wolf $400 million for education. We’re assuming that’s $400 million on top of the increase they already offered (an increase that doesn’t get reported by mainstream media). Wolf fancifully thought by raping, er, a, raiding the Marcellus industry he’d get $1 billion. So there’s a $600 million delta there. But word is that Wolf is seriously considering the offer. What we don’t know is: Where will Republicans get the $400 million? The state is flat busted as it is, thanks to pensions that are bankrupting the state. Our question/warning is this: We sure hope Republicans aren’t getting ready to cave on a Marcellus Shale severance tax. It doesn’t matter if the tax is little or big. Little taxes today get converted into bigger taxes next year with the stroke of a legislative pen…
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    Tiny Protest (in PA) Claims to be Part of “Hands Across Our Land”

    Yesterday we told you about the “nationwide” protest that was a bust–held in three locations in Virginia and one in West Virginia by less than a cumulative 100 people (see Anti-Pipeline “Hands Across Our Land” Protest in VA & WV a Bust). The protest was supposedly against two natural gas pipelines planned to run from West Virginia through Virginia and for one of the pipelines, into North Carolina. We spotted one more protest that claims to have been part of the Hands Across Our Land “movement”–a protest at a well pad site in Pennsylvania. Of course the PA gathering had nothing to do with being against pipelines, the supposed reason for the protest in the first place. This particular group of protesters slipped across the border from Ohio (an anti-drilling group called Frackfree Mahoning Valley) to show their “solidarity” with a family who didn’t want a drill pad operating near their property. Once again it illustrates that whether they claim to be “against” fracking/drilling, or “against” a pipeline–it’s really neither. These protesters are “against” fossil fuels, period. That’s what motivates them–an irrational hatred of fossil fuels…
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    PA DEP: We’re Not Close to Being Done with New Drilling Regs

    you ain't seen nothing yetYou know what happens when you elect Big Government liberals to important positions, like governor? You get high taxes and onerous regulations across all industries–but particularly on the drilling industry. Welcome to Pennsylvania and the floundering administration of Gov. Tom Wolf and his PennFuture sidekicks who pretty much run the whole show for Wolf–including the PennFuture Sec. of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley. PennFuture is an anti-drilling environmental group that Quigley used to work for prior to being appointed by Wolf to run the DEP, the agency in charge of drilling (how’s that for ironic?). On a conference call yesterday Quigley said, of the current round of new drilling rules and regulations, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. He plans to attack the Marcellus industry with even more onerous rules and regulations in the coming months and years of a (hopefully) one-term Wolf administration. Quigley is making his onerous list and checking it twice; gonna find out who’s naughty and naughtier (there is no nice in fossil fuels, ya know)…
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    PA Releases Study on Bakken Crude Shipments Passing Through

    God protect us from politicians whose “top priority” is to protect us. MDN previously told you that America’s most liberal governor, PA Gov. Tom Wolf, hired a high-priced consultant from the University of Delaware in April to do a top to bottom review on railway safety with a focus on how PA might better “protect” (i.e. prevent) Bakken shale oil shipments traveling through the state on the way to refineries (see PA Gov Wolf Takes Aim at Bakken Oil Trains Traveling Thru PA). The high-priced consultant, Dr. Allan Zarembski, has turned in his assignment with 27 recommendations (full copy of his report below). In eyeballing the list some of the recommendations certainly look reasonable: slow down to 35 mph if you’re passing through a city with a population of 100,000 or more; test the tracks three times a year; hire inspectors who know what they’re doing; etc. We suspect when the experts at Norfolk Southern and CSX have had a chance to review the report we’ll hear how these recommendations are intended to slow or stop crude by rail (CBR) shipments through PA. We’d like to be wrong about that, but given Wolf’s behavior an uppity attitude toward the railroads so far, we’re pretty sure we aren’t wrong…
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    Well Completion/Operational Safety Co. Comes to PA Marcellus

    Gulf Coast Western, an oil and gas driller that focuses on the Gulf Coast region in the U.S., announced yesterday they have formed an oilfield services subsidiary after acquiring Midland, Texas-based Frac Restraints LLC in late 2014 and Weatherford, Texas -based CND Energy Services in early 2015. The new subsidiary–Gulf Coast Western Energy Services–will provide well completion and operational safety services to the oil and gas industry. The new company’s target markets? Shale plays in South and West Texas, and the Marcellus and Utica Shale fields in Pennsylvania…
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    MarkWest Sued for “Wrongful Death” in Washington, PA Car Crash

    On Saturday, Jan. 3, 2015, a MarkWest Energy truck driven by a MarkWest worker, according to court documents, failed to stop at a stop sign at the intersection of Route 136 and Brownlee Road in Washington County, PA. That failure had tragic consequences. The Chevy Silerado truck hit a tiny Ford Fiesta car and a passenger in the car, Donna Simboli, 58, was killed. A lawsuit has just been filed in Washington County on behalf of Simboli’s two children (no ages given) against MarkWest for “wrongful death”…
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    It Speaks! An “Ecosystem” has Filed to Join a Lawsuit in PA

    Better be careful, the water table running under your property may decide to sue you for sinking a water well into it and withdrawing water for drinking, showers, etc. What…Absurd? Funny? Foolish? We’re not kidding. It seems that water tables and rock and dirt are now considered “ecosystems” and, if a lawsuit is allowed to stand in a Pennsylvania court, such an “ecosystem” has the right, under law, to sue. A motion has been filed by the radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) on behalf of an ecosystem to intervene in a federal lawsuit to defend its own “right” to exist and flourish. Background: In 2013 the CELDF convinced enough ignoramuses in Highland Township in Elk County, PA to pass a so-called Community Bill of Rights. Essentially it’s a way to prevent wastewater injection wells from being drilled in the township. Seneca Resources filed a lawsuit to overturn the illegal law. Highland Twp taxpayers are now defending their illegal action with $upport from the deep pockets of Big Green groups (i.e. the CELDF). In an attempt to bully Seneca into backing down from the lawsuit, the CELDF claims to speak for the ecosystem and has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the ecosystem. It’s utter bull crap of the highest order–but a dangerous precedent if allowed. We can see your dog suing you, the trees that ring your property suing you, wrongful death lawsuits for killing a snake…you get the idea. An ecosystem filing a lawsuit would be funny, if it weren’t such a tragically vicious attack against the fabric of this country and the HUMANS that live in it (the only living things with “rights” under our Constitutional form of law)…
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    Differing Versions of How PA Budget/Severance Tax Talks are Going

    baseball bat kneecapsWhere does the Pennsylvania budget negotiation/standoff stand? Depends on who you ask. There have been some intense negotiations over the past few days (a room with a bunch of men hollering at each other). When he emerges from the meetings, PA Gov. Tom Wolf, the most liberal governor in the United States, paints a smile on his face and mouths unspecific platitudes about making progress. When Wolf’s top surrogate emerges, State Sen. Vincent Hughes (Democrat from Philadelphia), Hughes says they aren’t any closer to getting Republicans to cave on a Marcellus Shale-killing severance tax. And that irks him. And Hughes blusters that there will be NO budget without a severance tax as part of it. Good luck with that Sen. Hughes. We applaud Republicans for preserving the Marcellus industry–what’s left of it in this low price environment. Let’s hope Republicans don’t cave to the bluster and deceit being pedaled by the Democrats in Harrisburg. We certainly understand the Dems are in a real bind. They PROMISED the teachers unions big money in return for their support. This is a payoff–shaking down the Marcellus industry to give the money to overpaid teachers and union bosses. And if Wolf doesn’t pull it off–he can kiss a second term good-bye as far as the unions are concerned. They play for keeps and Wolf knows it. Here’s the latest in the ongoing budget battle…
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    PA DEP Finalizes Onerous New Drilling Regs, Industry Opposes

    fireworksMajor changes are on the way for Pennsylvania’s conventional (vertical) and unconventional (shale/horizontal) drillers. In 2011 PA began a process that’s gone on way too long, to update certain regulations that apply to oil and gas drillers known as Chapter 78 of the 1984 Oil and Gas Act. Along the way the PA legislature decided there should be separate rules governing conventional and unconventional drilling–so Chapter 78 has become Chapter 78 (conventional) and 78a (unconventional). PA was close to adopting the new rules at the end of the Tom Corbett administration but then he lost his bid for re-election, throwing the process into turmoil once again with newly elected Tom Wolf and his PennFuture buddies wanting to put their own stamp on drilling regulations in the Keystone State (see PA DEP Sec Quigley Pulls a Fast One, Changes Drilling Rules). Yesterday the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) released the final draft version for both Chapter 78 and 78a (copy below). Last week the group that will consider this new draft for conventional drilling, the Conventional Oil and Gas Advisory Committee (COGAC), preemptively said they would vote against adopting the draft (see PA DEP Sec Quigley’s Own Committee Appointees Turn Against Him). PennFuture DEP Sec. Quigley said, “COGAC’s opposition will not hinder the progress of the final rule, and I hope when they meet in August that they are prepared to engage with us as we finalize the rule.” In other words: “Screw you, I’ll do what I want to do anyway.” We predict fireworks at the COGAC meeting on August 27 in Harrisburg…
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    AG Kathleen Kane’s Defense: Dirty Old Men are Out to Get Me!

    On Monday MDN told you that Kathleen Kane, Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Attorney General, had been arrested and fingerprinted on a felony charge of perjury, plus various misdemeanor charges (see PA’s Anti-Drilling AG Kathleen Kane Arrested, Fingerprinted). We told you the charges against Kane have nothing to do with the Marcellus industry that she so zealously persecutes, but we’ll be darned if the Marcellus, in a roundabout way, hasn’t crept into this ongoing saga. Yesterday Kane held a press conference where she a) avoided responding to or commenting on the very serious charges against her, and b) instead claimed people are out to get her because of a case her office prosecuted last year in which she found, in going over old emails from before she took office, that some state employees swapped pornographic emails using government computers. That case that led to the resignation of a state Supreme Court judge and also the resignation of then-Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection Chris Abruzzo (see PA DEP Sec. Chris Abruzzo Resigns Following Porn Email Scandal). Abruzzo was liked by the Marcellus industry. Kane’s performance yesterday was, frankly, sad and somewhat bizarre. It appears the pressure is causing her to self-destruct right before our eyes. Her “defense” was not a denial that she leaked privileged information to a reporter in an act of revenge against a subordinate (something a grand jury indicted her for)–but that dirty old men are mad that she snooped through their emails, and now they’re out to get her. Kane’s solution? Release the “filthy” emails to distract everyone from her own crimes…
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    Hilcorp Enclosing PA Compressor Station to Please the Neighbors

    Hilcorp Energy is doing the right thing in Lawrence County, PA. Back in June, MDN told you the story of residents living near a compressor station owned by Hilcorp in Mahoning Township, Lawrence County (see Tackling a Tough Issue: Compressor Stations Near Populated Areas). Residents living near the compressor station said the noise level is intolerable. It took a few months, but Hilcorp has agreed to build a new structure around the compressor station lined with special noise-deadening blankets that should take care of the problem. Kudos to Hilcorp for doing the right thing for the neighbors on Baird Road…
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    William Penn/Delaware Riverkeeper $320K “Study” Slams Fracking

    oldest professionIf you’re a Big Green group, like THE Delaware Riverkeeper, you have millions of dollars to a) launch lawsuits against the natural gas industry, and b) buy yourself research studies that support your twisted viewpoints. It is the latter that happened yesterday. CNA, a not-for-profit organization once called the Center for Naval Analyses, sells itself to the highest bidder (the oldest profession in the world). Most recently they sold themselves to THE Delaware Riverkeeper (we certainly hope they used protection). CNA and THE Delaware Riverkeeper held a press briefing yesterday to release a “study” by CNA titled “The Potential Environmental Impacts of Fracking in the Delaware River Basin” (full copy below). What did the “researchers” at CNA, which is based in Arlington, VA just outside the DC orbit, find? If the moratorium is lifted and shale drilling is allowed in the Delaware River Basin–essentially Wayne and Pike counties in Pennsylvania–CNA says it will lead to “land cover disturbance” in “core forest areas”, extreme water withdrawals from poor little creeks and streams, nasty wastewater polluting everything, erosion everywhere, multiple compressor stations and untold ill health impacts for 75,000 people who live close to all of this mess. See what $320,444 (the actual cost of this study) can buy you? We hope it felt good for Riverkeeper…
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    PennEast Pipeline Launches Public Relations Counteroffensive

    PennEast Pipeline, the $1 billion, 114-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania (in Luzerne County) to southeastern PA and New Jersey (terminating in Mercer County, NJ), continues to fight for its life. Lies are constantly spread in mainstream media about PennEast by Big Green groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper and nutty Sierra Clubbers, and their smaller siblings including Stop the PennEast Pipeline and Berks Gas Truth. As we previously reported, one or more antis have crossed the line into criminal behavior (see FBI Investigates Death Threats Against PennEast Pipeline Workers). So PennEast continues to fight the lies and smears with its own public relations efforts, including a meeting with the editorial board of the reliably anti-drilling Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice and the following article/letter issued yesterday by PennEast Chairman Peter Terranova…
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    Lancaster Coal Burning Electric Plant Adding Marcellus NatGas

    We often hear about, and report on, new electric generating plants being built that will use Marcellus (or Utica) Shale gas. Panda Power, Invenergy and others are building plants around Pennsylvania to take advantage of cheap, abundant and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas. What you don’t hear often, but is equally as important, are existing coal plants converting to burn natural gas. The “much-maligned” Brunner Island coal-fired power plant on the edge of Lancaster County, PA is one such plant. Brunner Island will keep its coal burning operation at the plant–for now. They are, however, spending $100 million to add natural gas burners to help drive the plant’s three electric generators. This is an accelerating trend with electric generating plants across the country, particularly in the northeast…
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    Sunoco Files Eminent Domain Cases in PA Courts for Mariner East 2

    Two days ago MDN told you that Sunoco Logistics Partners had settled, out of court, cases in Harrison and Jefferson counties (Ohio) that will allow the company to build a pair of new pipelines called Mariner East 2 through the area (see Sunoco Settles Case with OH Landowners to Allow Mariner East 2). As we said at the time, Sunoco still faces stiff opposition in other places–particularly in Pennsylvania where the bulk of the pipeline will be built. And sure enough, a new article has popped up about Sunoco LP taking landowners in Washington and Huntingdon counties (PA) to court using eminent domain to gain access to their properties. The problem is, the issue of whether or not Mariner East is a public utility with the right to invoke eminent domain is still an unsettled issue and likely headed to the PA Supreme Court…
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