PIOGA Sets Record Straight on Latest Wolf Attack re Severance Tax
The Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) has been at the forefront in opposing an industry-killing severance tax proposed by new governor Tom Wolf (see PIOGA Leads the Charge to Defeat Wolf’s Severance Tax). We are now close to three months past the deadline for a new state budget–and Wolf continues to be obstinate. He offers a few crumbs and when Republicans don’t immediately cave on a massive, industry and jobs-killing severance tax, he jumps up and down like a spoiled three year-old saying he “got nothing” in return. What a putz. Here’s how the obsequious Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports Wolf’s latest temper tantrum…
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Fresh back from Shale Insight in Philadelphia, MDN editor Jim Willis is always pumped after hearing about the technology and safeguards and careful treatment the shale energy industry uses in extracting shale gas. These people are true professionals who care about the work they do–and they want to do it right. They care about the environment. They want to protect the land and our natural resources. They live in the communities where fracking is done. On the other hand, the people who profess to care about such things, anti-drillers, repeatedly prove themselves to be a) mind-numbed robots who believe whatever their movement leaders tell them, b) stark raving mad. Example: A group of extremists who happen to be “religious” have penned a letter to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf asking him to stop all fracking in the state because they fervently believe (wrongly) that fracking contributes to the mythological existence of man-made global warming. Mainstream media picks this garbage up and repeat it, like it’s a real news story…
Let’s be honest, shall we? The Catholic Church has a Marxist as its leader in Pope Francis–which is a truly sad thing for a great and significant denomination. Pope Francis, nee Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is from Argentina and he supports Marxism, as many do in South America. Pope Francis hates capitalism and appears to be more interested in advancing socialist political policies here on earth than he does in serving Jesus Christ and saving souls. The current situation with Pope Francis distresses many Catholics we personally know. The Pope has thrown in his lot with climate change liars–those who say mankind is causing the earth to warm up–because the so-called climate change movement is the new home of anti-capitalists (i.e. Marxists, i.e. Communists). Scientific fact: global average temperatures haven’t risen now for 18 years. Yesterday, The Heartland Institute participated in a Constitution Day event in Philadelphia to call attention to the Pope’s coming visit to Philly (a visit made possible via fossil fuels) and the Pope’s error-filled teachings against fossil fuels and capitalism…
MDN is proud to be supporting this year’s Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) Eastern Oil & Gas Conference and Trade Show, which will take place Oct 27-28 at the Monroeville Convention Center just outside Pittsburgh. The event features a conference, trade show and networking events–a “must attend” event for those involved with oil and gas drilling in the PA (and associated industries). Below is the just-announced line-up for conference presentations. Oh! And be sure you don’t miss the Halloween-themed mixer Tuesday evening!…
Even though MDN editor Jim Willis couldn’t attend many of the sessions on the first day of Shale Insight (booth duty calls), we do have a good roundup of news from others who attended the sessions…
On Tuesday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection held it’s first “listening session” to consider which creative ways they will cut the economic throat of the state by attempting to comply with nonsensical carbon standards set by our Dear Leader, Barack H. Obama, via his so-called Clean Power Plan (see 
While two, possibly three, major ethane cracker plant projects are being considered for the Marcellus/Utica region, there are six ethane crackers currently being built in the Gulf Coast region. The kicker? Marcellus and Utica Shale ethane will feed some of, perhaps portions for all of, those six cracker plants. It’s a shame, really. We could be reaping the rewards of a massive influx of jobs and investment not only by building an ethane cracker, but with the satellite businesses that will locate around it. Instead, much of that investment and those jobs are slipping away to the Gulf via NGL pipelines…
An interesting article in the Philadelphia Inquirer provides some of the history, and an update, for the Marcus Hook refinery in the Philly area. You may recall that Sunoco Logistics Partners purchased the refinery and is in the process of turning it into an NGL export facility–to send ethane, propane and other NGLs to locations along the U.S. coastline and internationally to Europe. What you may not know (what we sure didn’t know) is that Sunoco LP hopes to one day build a propane cracker at the site–a facility that will convert propane into propylene, the raw material used to make plastics. Who knew?! This would be yet another cracker plant that would compete, in a small way, with the proposed Shell cracker plant planned for the Pittsburgh area…
A major defeat for Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling groups, including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, was just handed down by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in a Lycoming County zoning case. In Gorsline v. Board of Supervisors of Fairfield Township, anti-drilling neighbors, including Brian and Dawn Gorsline, Paul and Michele Batkowski and others (collectively “Gorsline”) sued to stop a conditional use permit granted by Fairfield Township to allow Inflection Energy to construct a well pad on the property of Donald and Eleanor Shaheen. The case was weak, but the lowest court in the PA court system–the Court of Common Pleas (i.e. county court)–said the ninny nanny neighbors had a right to strip away the Shaheen’s property rights to allow drilling on their own property. The PA Commonwealth Court obliterated the faulty reasoning of the lower court and has, significantly, redefined how courts should interpret the results of the Act 13 zoning lawsuit that allows local municipalities the right to restrict shale drilling. The Commonwealth Court decision (full copy below) has kicked the legal legs out from under those seeking to use an amicus brief filed by THE Delaware Riverkeeper in the Act 13 case…
Pennsylvania’s shale drilling industry is pushing back against the last minute changes made to PA’s oil and gas regulations commonly known as Article 78. In April the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) turned up the heat on newly-elected Gov. Tom Wolf and PennFuture Dept. of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley with a scorching hot letter (see 
Cabot Oil & Gas is one of the stellar success stories of the Marcellus Shale. They drill in a single northeastern Pennsylvania county–Susquehanna County (near where MDN is located). From that single county Cabot produces 1.7-1.8 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of natural gas. If you want to know how to “do it right” with shale drilling in the Marcellus–you watch Cabot. The company participated in the Barclays CEO Energy/Power Conference 2015 last week in New York City. We grabbed a copy of their PowerPoint presentation from that event and include it below, along with some of the insights we glean from reviewing the presentation…
Sunoco Logistics Partners, which owns the Mariner series of pipelines (East, West and South), has just launched a new binding open season–time when drillers and other shippers can sign up for capacity–for an expansion of the planned Mariner East 2 project. In April 2014 MDN brought you the news that Sunoco LP had completed an open season for Mariner East 2 and had enough customers to move forward with the project (see 
Pennsylvania Democrats are finally waking up and beginning to get nervous that state Republicans might actually not cave on a Marcellus-killing severance tax after all. How do we know? One of the Democrat public relations outlets–the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette–penned an “editorial” calling for a stopgap, short-term budget. PA’s Gov. Tom Wolf, who has been crowned the most liberal governor in America by the non-partisan website InsideGov (see