PA Senate Race – Proxy for Big Green vs Big Oil
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…
Read More “PA Senate Race – Proxy for Big Green vs Big Oil”
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 
Yesterday MDN ran a story reporting that a landowner rebellion against post-production cost deductions from royalties is spreading beyond just Bradford County in northeastern Pennsylvania–to counties in southwestern PA (see 
MDN previously reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) planned to publish the final regulations in the Oct. 8 Pennsylvania Bulletin (see 
Let’s be honest: Pennsylvania already has a severance tax. It’s called an impact fee + corporate income tax. The combination of the two taxes in PA levies a collective “tax” on drillers as high OR HIGHER than other oil and gas states, like Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. To enact a new/extra severance tax on PA drillers, as Democrats like Sen. John Yudichak (Wilkes-Barre area) propose to do, would kill off what little drilling is happening in PA. It would make drilling in PA unprofitable. Yet Yudichak and others in his party see the recent PA Supreme Court decision as an excuse to push, one more time, for a severance tax. What is it about Democrats and their insatiable lust for your money?…
The Baker Hughes rig count, watched closely by those in the industry (the benchmark used across the world) has been trending up in the U.S. since July. BH released their venerable count for September on Friday and once again the counts have gone up–very good news indeed. BH is reporting an average of 509 active rigs in the U.S., up 28 from August. MDN performs its own rig count for the Marcellus/Utica, using BH’s numbers for Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The Marcellus/Utica rig count was up for the second month running. In September the M/U rig count jumped up by 7. The biggest gainer was Pennsylvania, up by 5. West Virginia was up by 2, and Ohio stayed even…
The Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), charged with protecting and managing the water resources in the Susquehanna River Basin, continues to perform its duty with distinction–unlike the completely dysfunctional Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC). A fair share of Marcellus drilling happens within the SRBC’s jurisdiction in Pennsylvania. The SRBC has worked with the Marcellus industry, instead of against it (as the DRBC has done), to ensure drilling does not harm the Susquehanna River Basin water supply–a supply that eventually empties into the Chesapeake Bay. We credit the SRBC’s excellent performance to leadership (see