War of Words Continues in PA Royalty Civil War
Bradford County, PA landowners and their titular leader, county commissioner Doug McLinko, are keeping up the pressure on PA’s legislators to pass House Bill (HB) 1391 to guarantee landowners receive 12.5% royalties. Earlier this week we noted the county had released a powerful new video to support their cause (see Bradford Landowners Release Powerful Video: PA Royalty Ripoff). The video was followed up by an impassioned letter to the editor from McLinko, appearing in the Harrisburg Patriot-News’ website, under the title, “Tell lawmakers to stop the mugging in The Endless Mountains.” Not to be outdone, the Marcellus Shale Coalition responded a few days later with a “we feel your pain, but this bill isn’t the answer” letter to the editor of its own…
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Some more disappointing news for Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project, a $3 billion, 198-mile project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. One week ago MDN brought you the news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced it is actively reviewing two alternative routes for the Central Penn Line (an important part of the Sunrise project), accepting public comments on the two alternative routes until Nov. 14 (see 
A new group called Protect Our Pennsylvania launched on Tuesday at a rally in Harrisburg–at the State Capitol. The purpose of the group is to oppose and reign in the currently legal right of pipeline companies to use eminent domain to force landowners to accept a pipeline across their land. This is a tough issue for us. We have often stated this philosophy: I won’t tell you that you must allow drilling, or a pipeline, and you don’t tell me I can’t allow it. We think that’s a consistent and fair philosophy. But what do you do with a pipeline when only one or two people are blocking its route? We’ve always said, make it worth their while to allow (pay them). We’ve also said there may be times when eminent domain must (very reluctantly) be used. It is an ongoing “wisdom of Solomon” kind of issue for us, with no clear answer. So is this new group, Protect Our Pennsylvania, a group of landowners honestly concerned about their property rights? Alas, we don’t think so. Their leader, Eric Friedman, has ties to the radical Sierra Club, which means this is just one more organization pretending to be something it is not. It is, we are convinced, populated with anti-fossil fuelers and not just mom and pop landowners…
When drilling comes to town, it brings a lot of people with it. Some of them are roughnecks that do the dirty work on the rigs. Others are in associated jobs–like landmen, surveyors, welders, truckers. The list goes on. If those people are not from the local area and if they are staying for a while, they need a place to sleep. It tends to fill up hotels and B&Bs quickly. When they know they will be in an area for a while (months, even years) some of them rent apartments or houses. All of that renting activity tends to drive up the price of local apartment and house rentals, making renting hard for locals. It’s happened in a number of drilling areas in Pennsylvania. That’s why when the Act 13 law was passed, it contained funding from severance tax revenue to help. The Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency recently announced they have approved another $6.2 million for 40 housing projects in Marcellus areas…
In February MDN brought you exclusive news that Shell had begun approaching landowners in Beaver County to get them to sign easements for two ethane pipelines to feed the mighty cracker plant they plan to build in the county (see 
Last week we reported on a half joking (half not joking) comment by Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw made at a PA midstream conference, in which he said maybe PA should stop sending its fracked gas to New York State (see 
Question: How can your business take advantage of the development of a petrochemical industry in your backyard? That was the question and premise behind a new white paper/report from the Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation and Commercialization Center. The white paper, titled “Shell Petrochemical Complex (“Cracker”) Project Overview – The First Step in Establishing a Regional Petrochemical Sector” (full copy below) provides an excellent overview of the coming ethane cracker in Beaver County, PA–with details for how and who can benefit from it. The paper is mainly aimed at manufacturers that will be able to leverage the output from the plant–but there’s plenty of other great information in this paper to inspire and get your creative business juices flowing. Take time to download and read it. The future of your business may depend on it!…
When it comes to voting for a U.S. Senator in this year’s Pennsylvania race, there really is only one choice if you value the Marcellus industry: Hold your nose and vote for Pat Toomey. Toomey is a consummate Washington sleazebag insider. He represents everything we hate about Washington and the establishment politicians that infest it. However, his opponent, Katie McGinty, is a radical anti-drilling environmentalist. She is someone committed to eliminating the use of fossil fuels, and a disciple of blithering idiot Al Gore. Big Green groups have spent a collective $3.6 million, so far, to elect McGinty. That tells you everything you need to know. On the other hand, the Koch Brothers (i.e. “Big Oil”) have spent $7.2 million to re-elect Toomey. The Koch’s have earned their way onto our permanent feces list with their active opposition to The Donald. So we have no love for the Kochs, or for “bought” politicians like Toomey. However, these are the cards we’re dealt and the hand we must play. What is interesting to us is that the media is framing the race between McGinty and Toomey as Big Green vs Big Oil. Fine. We’ll bite. Here’s how the match shaping up…
In just about every state in the country, before you start digging a hole in the ground for some reason (water well, septic system, laying an underground electric line, etc.)–the first thing you do is call 811 or some similar phone number. The “one call” or “first call” reaches a state-authorized (not necessarily state-run) office where they have, on file, maps detailing any kind of underground cables, pipelines and other infrastructure. If such underground structures exist, a representative of the owner for the underground line will, if necessary, stop by and mark the areas so when you do begin digging, you don’t hit it. Makes sense. A bill under active consideration in the Pennsylvania legislature, Senate Bill (SB) 1235, “enhances” the existing 811 law in PA. One of the “enhancements” is that it removes an exclusion for low-pressure natural gas gathering pipelines from being required to be part of the 811 system. Many owners of excluded lines voluntarily participate in the programs. The bill also would transfer regulatory enforcement power over the lines from the Department of Labor to the Public Utility Commission. The Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) is pushing back against the removal of the exclusion for conventional production lines and the most rural (“Class 1” under federal law) gathering lines…
On Oct. 8, after five years in the making, Pennsylvania adopted new shale drilling regulations (see 
We spotted a press release issued yesterday by Cabot Oil & Gas, providing an update for the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. Which kind of surprised us. Why would Cabot issue an update on someone else’s pipeline? Is Cabot an investor in the project? We asked–the answer is “no.” However, Cabot is the major shipper that will use the Central Penn Line portion of the Atlantic Sunrise project. And that’s what the announcement was about. Cabot said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has announced it is actively reviewing two alternative routes for the Central Penn Line, accepting public comment until Nov. 14. OK, so that sometimes happens. Is it worth a press release? Then we read that this development means yet another delay for the Atlantic Sunrise project–and investors immediately punished the stock for both Williams and Cabot. Ah, now we understand! The press release is to reassure investors that Cabot believes FERC, while slowing things down a little, won’t delay things too long. THAT’S what the press release is really all about…
The 2017 Northeast Oil & Gas Awards has received a boatload of nominations for the upcoming awards ceremony in Pittsburgh next March. LOTS of nominations. The folks at the Oil & Gas Awards will be contacting each nominee to see if they want to participate this year. Below is the entire list of nominees. Note: there is still time to nominate your company! The deadline is Dec. 14th. Below we have a list of everyone nominated so far, and the list of categories for which your company can be nominated…
On Monday we brought you the incredulous news that Democrats Sen. John Yudichak (Wilkes-Barre area) is once again pushing a Marcellus-killing severance tax, using a recent PA Supreme Court decision as the excuse (see 
At last year’s Utica Summit III event held in Stark, OH, Tom Gellrich of consulting firm TopLine Analytics, a company that “closely follows ethane markets,” said he thinks the first ethane cracker to get built will be the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. He was right. Shell announced their official decision to move forward earlier this year. At that same event Gellrich said he thinks the Marcellus/Utica region will see three, possibly four, ethane crackers built (see