Antis Give Up Trying to Pass Setbacks in This Yr’s WV Legislature
Thank God anti fossil fuelers are throwing in the towel in West Virginia–at least for this year–in their never-ending campaign to stop shale drilling in the state. A recent article appearing in the biased ProPublica and Charleston Gazette-Mail highlights antis’ frustration in not getting their bills to advance in this year’s legislative session–a session that is rapidly coming to a close.
Read More “Antis Give Up Trying to Pass Setbacks in This Yr’s WV Legislature”
Yesterday we told you that the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization (SORO) is pushing a couple of bills to address the issue of abandoned and orphan wells (see 
In January the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave permission to TransCanada’s Columbia Pipeline group to start up a portion of the Mountaineer XPress Pipeline in West Virginia (see 
Here’s something we didn’t know: In West Virginia there’s a regulation on the books, put there decades ago (pre-shale), that stipulates wells targeting “deep” formations including the Utica Shale must be at least 3,000 feet apart.
In 2013 some 10,000 West Virginia landowners/rights owners filed a class action lawsuit against EQT over their practice of post-production deductions from royalty checks. The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial last November, but at the last minute, it didn’t. Word leaked that EQT had settled out of court (see 
A partisan left-wing group calling itself the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy along with another partisan left-wing group called the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) released a report last week that claims WV’s shale industry has “fallen short” in delivering on economic promises, and the way to fix it is to boost the severance tax from 5% to 10%! Yeah, they’re out of their collectivist minds.
We didn’t think it would take long for the oil and gas industry to push back against efforts to raise the state’s severance tax from 5% to 6% and use the “extra” money to fix secondary roads in the state (see 
Why do politicians never seem to grasp the obvious? Distressingly, we’re now reading that a West Virginia State Senator, Randy Smith (Republican, Tucker County), wants to add another 1% to the already-high 5% natural gas and oil severance tax, in order to use the money to fix back roads across the Mountain State.
Westmoreland Gas, headquartered in Bridgeport, WV, was founded in August 2018 by two industry veterans, one with close ties to Mountain V Oil & Gas. According to a press release issued two days ago, Westmoreland closed on oil and gas assets in WV on Dec. 31, essentially launching the company.
The Independent Oil & Gas Association of West Virginia (IOGAWV) held its annual winter meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday. There was a LOT of talk of WV nabbing the much-talked-about multi-billion dollar NGL storage hub project.
