PA Royalty Bill Dead for Another Year – Supporters Vow to Fight On
MDN reported on Monday of this week that we are down to the wire with passing Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 1391, a bill that would guarantee a 12.5% minimum royalty payment for PA landowners (see This Week Last Chance to Pass PA Royalty Bill – Slim to No Chance). Yesterday the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Garth Everett from Lycoming County, PA, announced that the bill never came up for a vote and has officially died. Everett said he would re-introduce the bill next year when the PA legislature convenes for a new session. To say that landowners in Bradford County (and other locations) are disappointed is an understatement…
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The 16,000-member Pennsylvania Medical Society is controlled by a small and dedicated group of radical leftists. They’re also shockingly stupid, for doctors and medical people (you might want to seek medical care in another state). The PA Medical Society’s 300-member House of Delegates voted unanimously to pass a resolution calling for a total ban on fracking in the Keystone State. Stop it–all of it–right now. That’s what they said. Even though there is no evidence that fracking harms human health. That is, independent studies done all say the same thing: fracking is safe. However, biased bought-and-paid-for studies say fracking will kill ‘ya. We find it astonishing that there was not one single delegate who didn’t vote for the resolution–which proves our point that radical, lock-step lefties control the society…
Two weeks ago the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) filed a court challenge to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) onerous new Marcellus drilling regulations (see 
“What is all the fuss over Pennsylvania’s Chapter 78a drilling rules going into effect anyway? We mean, come on, those rules were hashed out over the past five years! Can’t the drilling industry just bend over and take it like a man? It can’t be all that bad, can it?” With pleasure, we bring you a response to that line of thinking–a line of thinking YOU may have thought! The writer, Colin McNickle, is a former editorial page chief for the superb Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. McNickle tackles Chapter 78a head-on in this excellent rebuttal. It is nothing short of a declared war on shale gas and oil…
We spotted what is, to us, a fascinating story about propane use across the country. There are those, like LP Gas magazine, that closely watch usage trends for propane. As you may know, propane is an NGL, or natural gas liquid. It is one of the hydrocarbons that comes out of a borehole drilled to extract either oil or natural gas. Along with oil and gas other hydrocarbons come out of the hole–NGLs like propane, ethane, butane, etc. One of the places propane is increasingly produced, and consumed, is in the northeast–because of Marcellus/Utica drilling. The sharp editors at LP Gas noticed an historically unusual trend–a spike way up in propane usage in one of the main regions tracked, in the northeast. The explanation for the spike up in usage? Propane is getting exported from the Marcus Hook refinery. Therefore much larger volumes of propane are being “consumed” by those exports. Which we find fascinating. We are producing AND consuming propane within the Marcellus/Utica region. That is, we’re generating wealth by exporting propane. We knew about ethane exports already happening at Marcus Hook (see 
We’ve written a number of stories about Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 1391 that would guarantee landowners receive a 12.5% minimum royalty on the gas extracted from their land, regardless of post-production costs. The issue has led to what MDN calls a civil war between landowners (particularly in Bradford County, PA) and the drilling industry. The clock is ticking and this week is it for this legislative session in PA. If supporters of HB 1391 don’t get the bill passed this week, it will have to be reintroduced and go through the entire process again next year. Supporters like Doug McLinko, a Bradford County commissioner, have warned of serious consequences for the industry if the bill doesn’t get passed. The industry appears to have convinced enough lawmakers to keep the bill bottled up so it doesn’t come to the floor for a vote, which riles landowners. HB 1391’s supporters in the legislature are sounding like it’s already over for this year, and that they will have to fight again next year. We’re concerned what this ongoing situation will do for what has, in the past, been good relations between landowners and drillers. That relationship appears to be souring, at least for some landowners…
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…