Ambulance Service Sues Rice Energy for $27K re Jan. Well Pad Fire
In January, MDN reported on a well pad fire at Rice Energy’s Papa Bear well pad in Somerset Township (Washington County), PA (see Explosion & Fire at Rice Energy Drill Pad in Washington County, PA). Although no one was hurt, the explosion and fire ended up ruining six of the 20 pumps, and damaging four pumper trucks. As might be expected, local first responders were called to the scene, including four ambulances from Bearcat EMS Inc. Following the initial incident, Bearcat sent a bill to Rice for $26,742 to cover their costs of responding. Rice responded that they didn’t call Bearcat, and that Bearcat didn’t actually do anything, so they don’t owe them a penny. Bearcat, in paperwork filed in a lawsuit against Rice, says even though they didn’t help Rice personnel/contractors, they did provide services to other EMS staff at the scene, over a four-hour period. Therefore, pay up. The matter now sits in court…
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Atlas Energy, a once-major driller in the Marcellus Shale, sold much of their Marcellus operations to Chevron in 2011 (see 
Earlier this month MDN reported that extreme partisan Sen. Chuck Schumer had recommended to the White House that Richard Glick, a current a Senate staffer (i.e. swamp dweller) and former lobbyist for the wind industry, should succeed Democrat Colette Honorable as the second Democrat commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
For years now, coal and natural gas have been uneasy allies (both being fossil fuels). As mainstream media has endlessly covered, natural gas increasingly displaces coal to generate electricity. That has led to some situations of open sniping between the two camps. Coal wants to protect what’s left of its shrinking market, natural gas pushes the fact that it’s far cleaner to burn than coal. Back and forth it goes. Both camps realize they are under assault by radical environmentalists who desire to end the use of all fossil fuels, no matter how “clean” they are. We spotted an article about a clash between coal and natural gas in Illinois. There are a lot of coal mines near Springfield, IL. EmberClear wants to build a $1 billion, 1,100 megawatt combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant about 15 miles from Springfield. Coal sees it as a direct assault and will lead to the closing of local mines and the loss of jobs. EmberClear isn’t backing down–they will build even without tax breaks. The whole matter appears to us to have progressed from impolite talk and sniping into a full-blown war…
Pennsylvania does not have a revenue problem–it has an overspending problem. Once again the Republican-majority legislature in PA is caving to the siren song/pressure of wild-spending, liberal Democrats and will pass a budget that is $2 billion over the revenue they can reasonably expect–sprinkled with giveaways like an extra $100 million for teachers unions–and beginning next week the Republicans will face a barrage of media stories and pressure to create a severance tax to help make up the difference. Already we’re seeing stories about the need for a “fair gas tax” and that a severance tax is “long overdue.” What about passing a “fair budget” that doesn’t overspend? What about “fiscal responsibility” that’s long overdue? Where are those stories? And, when will Republicans learn to quit playing the Dem’s game?…
This week has been “Energy Week” at the White House, and yesterday President Trump (we just love saying that, “President Trump”) announced six new initiatives not to just make America energy independent, but to make America energy dominant. We love that too! Energy DOMINANT. Throughout the world. Number one. One of the six initiatives in Trump’s plan was the announcement that Sempra Energy is in negotiations with South Korea to sell them our LNG (liquefied natural gas, see more on that below). That’s a good thing! No doubt some of the gas heading to the Korean peninsula will come from the Marcellus/Utica. Another of the six initiatives announced yesterday is approval for two applications to export LNG from Louisiana. And a yet another initiative involves more offshore drilling for oil and gas. So half of the initiatives announced somehow impact or relate to natural gas (two of which also impact Marcellus/Utica). Here’s the full list of six initiatives announced yesterday in a speech by President Trump…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Natgas jobs continue climbing in OH, WV; Shale Academy gears up for a new year; Virginia wants more natgas; will central banks derail shale?; National Geographic lies about methane; tourism goes up in shale areas; BHP sorry they invested $20B in shale; “unstoppable” renewables keep stopping; an “dominating” energy policy; with OPEC weak, it’s now Russia v US; and more!
In early June, MDN brought you the news that officials with Ascent Resources (formerly American Energy Partners) and Chesapeake Energy said their respective companies are putting a renewed focus on Jefferson County, OH in the coming months (see 
The New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) sent PennEast Pipeline a letter yesterday saying they have closed the application for water-crossing permits for the project–without granting those permits. In April the NJDEP temporarily rejected the permits, giving PennEast another 60 days to respond to requests for more detailed information about the project (see 
Some good news for Utica (and Marcellus) drillers: The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has just approved permits for two new frack wastewater injection wells in Trumbull County, OH. Which doesn’t make the local anti-fracking nutters with FrackFree America happy. One of them calls the approvals “immoral.” She’s calling on the company building the wells, Highland Field Resources, to “abandon its plans.” (chuckle) The wells will be built in the town of Brookfield. ODNR has attached a myriad of conditions and required testing before the wells can go live. Here’s the immoral details…
The Fresh Water Accountability Project, an anti-fracking group based in Michigan, has filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Patriot Water Treatment facility and the City of Warren, OH, claiming they are processing frack chemicals at their plants that don’t get processed enough–and consequently get released into the Mahoning River. This is not Patriot Water’s first time in court. Patriot has had a long-running feud with the Ohio EPA and Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR)–a feud that goes all the way back to 2011 (
Yesterday Energy Transfer Partners, the builder of the Rover Pipeline, once again asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) if they could pretty-please-with-a-cherry-on-top resume horizontal directional drilling (HDD) in a couple of key locations in Ohio, so they can finish phase one of the pipeline somewhere close to on-time. Rover is a $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada. It is a critical piece of sorely needed infrastructure for the Marcellus/Utica industry. As soon as ET received approval for the project in February, they began building it. But they hit a few snags along the way, including an “inadvertent return” (i.e. leak) of 2 million gallons of drilling mud in a swamp next to the Tuscarawas River (Stark County, OH). Following that leak and other leaks, FERC told Rover to stop any new underground drilling not already under way (see 
In October 2016, Dominion announced a new pipeline project called Eastern Market Access Project (see 
Pennsylvania does not have a taxing problem, as people like Gov. Tom Wolf pretend–it has a spending problem, as in they spend beyond their means. The last governor that tried to correct that problem–Tom Corbett–got handed one term in the big chair for his efforts at dealing honestly with it. Big Education and Big Labor knifed Corbett in the back, politically, after he cut the mammoth increase in their growth. (FEED ME FEED ME) If you want to know why PA is in budget trouble, look no further than it’s Secretary of the Dept. of Community and Economic Development, Dennis Davin. Every econ growth guy we’ve ever talked to knows that increasing taxes gets less of what you tax–it is an incontrovertible fact in economics. Yet Davin, who’s boss is utter failure Tom Wolf, is pushing hard for a huge tax increase on the Marcellus industry–the very industry that has singlehandedly kept PA out of an economic abyss. And yet the guy who should understand the issue the best, is pushing hardest for the tax. That tells you all you need to know about the Wolf Administration and it’s utter failure…