Bill Sponsor Says It’s Now or Never for WV Forced Pooling Law
At 11 pm on the last day of the 2015 legislative session in West Virginia, a session that lasts only 60 days at the beginning of each year, the WV legislature voted down what everyone thought was a sure thing to pass–House Bill (HB) 2688, otherwise known as the forced pooling bill (see The Real Story of Why Forced Pooling Bill Failed in WV). As we reported at the time, it was defeated by Democrats who had their knickers in a twist over another bill they wanted passed that Republicans defeated. So the Dems decided to give as good as they got and voted down HB2688 in retribution. Last March, following the negative vote, we said this: “Forced pooling is a dead issue in WV this year. Will it be back next year? You can bank on it.” And back it is. The Republican chairman of the House Energy Committee, Lynwood “Woody” Ireland believes a new version of the forced pooling bill is as fair as it gets for both landowners and drillers. Ireland also believes if the bill doesn’t pass this year, it is likely a dead issue–period. It’s “now or never” for a forced pooling bill in WV…
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In a somewhat complicated scam, a former landman for XTO Energy, Steven E. Fisackerly (33 years old) defrauded XTO out of more than $1 million with fake lease deals in the West Virginia Marcellus Shale region. He cooked up bogus documents and passed them off as real, pocketing commissions. He even worked with a supposed/fake mineral rights owner to pocket kickbacks from lease payments sent to the fake rights owner. It was elaborate and convoluted–and ultimately stupid. Fisackerly plead guilty in May and will enter prison on January 4. His sentence? Pay back more than $1 million he defrauded from XTO, and serve 63 months (over 5 years) in federal prison…
Stone Energy, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (E&P) headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana drills mainly in the Gulf of Mexico but also has a presence in the Marcellus/Utica Shale. Earlier this year the company released the one active Marcellus rig they were running and said they would not resume drilling in the northeast until receiving a hybrid rig in late 2015/early 2016 that can drill both Marcellus and Utica wells (see 
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With President Obama’s war on coal in full swing, so-called renewable energy sources like wind and solar can’t possibly pick up the slack from coal-powered electric generating plants shutting down. Coal-fired electric plants are shutting down at an alarming rate–we’ve lost 11 million megawatts of coal-fired electric capacity in the past year alone. That situation spells opportunity for natural gas. One reason that natgas is making inroads in the electric generating space is because it’s a whole lot cheaper today than it was just a few short years ago to use clean-burning natural gas to power electric plants. In 2008 the price of natural gas sold for an average of $13 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). Today? The price of gas has been bumping along at around $2.75/Mcf. In places like southwest Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio Marcellus and Utica gas sells for around $1.50-$1.75/Mcf. So it’s no wonder electric plants powered by natural gas are springing up all over the place. Below is a quick look at six such plants in eastern Ohio and West Virginia…