WV Gov. Justice Does 180 – Says He’ll Sign Co-Tenancy Bill
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has done a complete 180 degree turn around with respect to signing a co-tenancy bill. As we previously reported, the co-tenancy bill was passed first by the House, and then the Senate (see WV Co-Tenancy Bill Passes in Senate – Now Waits for Gov to Sign). However, on the way to final passage, Justice wanted to link co-tenancy with joint development, which would allow drillers who own existing (old) leases on adjoining properties to pool them into a unit without signing new shale leases with the owners. He threatened to veto a co-tenancy bill if there is no joint development bill too (see WV Gov. Justice Kills Co-Tenancy Bill by Linking it to Joint Dev). Justice got a lot of blowback, from everyone, and soon after his shoot-from-lip comments, he backed off his threat to veto. Yesterday Justice said he will sign the co-tenancy bill, that there are a lot of “positive benefits” to the legislation. What a turnaround!…
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Sometimes radicals who have “jumped the shark” and descended into complete lunacy go up a tree–literally. We’ve spotted this mental condition before (see 
On Saturday, the full West Virginia Senate voted on House Bill (HB) 4268–the “co-tenancy” bill–passing the measure by a vote of 23-11. This is tremendously good news–for both landowners and drillers. Although WV Gov. Jim Justice had previously threatened to veto the bill because he wanted it tied (like a millstone) to the neck of another bill (joint development), Justice backed off that position after getting a lot of blowback, from virtually everyone (see 
The Japanese recently found out more about the Marcellus/Utica and the region in the Mid-Ohio Valley called the “Shale Crescent.” In June 2016, MDN told you about an economic development group of business and government leaders from Ohio and West Virginia (the Mid-Ohio Valley) called Shale Crescent (see 
Well looky at this. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has pulled his head out of his…political fugue…and has reversed course on his opposition to the existing co-tenancy bill that’s near final passage. Justice previously threatened to veto the bill if it should hit his desk…
It seems that all new Marcellus/Utica pipelines run through West Virginia, at one point or another. That means there are (and will be) a lot of jobs available for those trained to work on them. The question is, how do you get trained? According to a recent article, there’s two potential pathways to training, and getting a job, in the midstream industry, in WV. One way is to get an associates (two-year) degree in petroleum or welding technology–like the degrees offered by West Virginia Northern Community College (WVNCC). The other way is to get training from a labor union, like the International Union of Operating Engineers…
Earlier this week MDN told you that West Virginia royalty owners are pushing Senate Bill (SB) 360 to fix the issue of post-production deductions drillers take from royalty checks (see 
Last September none other than West Virginia’s Secretary of Commerce, Woody Thrasher, admitted publicly that his beloved state is decidedly unfriendly to new natgas-fired electric plant projects (see 
West Virginia royalty owners (which sometimes means landowners, sometimes not) are pushing Senate Bill (SB) 360 to fix the issue of post-production deductions drillers take from royalty checks. A brief history: In December 2016, MDN reported on the huge WV Supreme Court decision against EQT that disallows EQT from deducting post-production expenses from royalty checks, even with signed contracts in place (see 
The Northern Panhandle of West Virginia is doubly blessed. The Panhandle is four counties: Hancock, Brooke, Ohio and Marshall. Some add a fifth–Wetzel County. The first four counties in the list sit in a slice of real estate located between Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Panhandle currently produces 38% of WV’s natural gas production, and nearly 70% of its oil production. That’s the first blessing–good rock sits under those counties. The second blessing is the panhandle’s location between PA and OH. On one side, sitting just a few minutes away, is the mighty Shell ethane cracker plant, currently under construction in Monaca (Beaver County, PA). On the other side, also just a few minutes away, sits the proposed PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker site in Dilles Bottom (Belmont County, OH). The second blessing is this: many petrochemical and manufacturing companies will build, even relocate, their operations to take advantage of the raw materials that will come from both cracker plants. And guess where many of them will choose to locate? Yep–right smack in the middle, which is where the Northern Panhandle happens to be–sitting in the catbird seat…
MDN has written a number of posts about an effort in West Virginia to correct an ongoing issue called co-tenancy (