Mom Earth is Farting Methane Faster than Warmers Thought
It seems old Mom Earth has a major case of flatulence (i.e. farting). Researchers who have been mapping the ocean floor have discovered “an active strip of seafloor called the Cascadia Subduction Zone is bubbling methane like mad” off the coast of Washington, Oregon and California. [Quick, somebody call Cornell prof Bob Howarth! There’s fugitive methane escaping!!] Big Green advocates get their knickers in a twist over fugitive methane because, ‘ya know, it causes global warming. But this time mankind is nowhere to be found as the cause. This massive methane leak off the West Coast is Mom Earth, all by herself, farting away and killing herself without even knowing it. How tragic. And how funny!…
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Each year MDN partners with the Oil & Gas Awards to promote their Northeast Awards–a way for companies in the industry that operate with distinction to get recognized by their peers. In March 2017 the Northeast Oil & Gas Awards will celebrate their 5th year. Over the past five years there have been thousands of entries and hundreds of finalists and winners. While the O&G Awards boys keep their ears to the ground to discover stellar performers, they want to know who YOU think are the best companies in the region. We are now 4 weeks out until the submission deadline for the 2017 Northeast Oil & Gas Awards (Dec. 14). Here’s how you can nominate your, or someone else’s, company for this year’s awards…
A quick reminder that MDN editor Jim Willis is hosting a webinar today at 2 pm Eastern. Jim’s special speaker is Alex Epstein, delivering a talk on his book: “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” Jim guarantees you will find what Alex has to say challenging and enlightening. He will help you understand why fossil fuels are BETTER than renewables. Controversial? You bet. What else would you expect from MDN?! Jim has lifted the limit of 100 for the number of attendees. We already have 197 people signed up.
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Rockefellers admit paying Columbia J-School to target Exxon; OH production up, but value of production down; US exporting shale gas…to Middle East!; US Silica takes advantage of downturn to buy more assets; green light for UK shale drilling; and more!
In true environmental Nazi fashion, a group of profoundly stupid people have pledged to “swarm” and shut down a SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) meeting where a vote will be taken to build a Marcellus gas-powered electric plant that would provide electricity to SEPTA’s northern Regional Rail lines–a win/win for all Pennsylvanians. The reason the enviro Nazis want to shut down the meeting is to stop the vote because the clean-burning plant would burn a “fossil fuel” and these poor, lost souls grew up watching Captain Planet cartoons and believe burning natgas will toast Mom Earth. That is, they were brainwashed children who grew up to be maladjusted adults…
As MDN reported in September, the Maryland Dept. of the Environment (MDE) beat the Oct. 1 deadline to release onerous new fracking regulations (see 
Last month MDN wrote a post outlining an initiative to begin regulating small, low-pressure gathering pipelines–something not now done (see 
Companies in the oil and gas sector often split the ownership of assets into different companies (on paper) for various reasons: tax purposes…to attract investment…to give us laypeople headaches. CONE Midstream, a joint venture between CONSOL Energy and Noble Energy (CO from CONSOL and NE from Noble Energy) was formed in summer 2014 (see 
Somehow or other MDN wound up on the distribution list for Deutsche Bank’s Equity Research (North America) updates. Which we like! Germany-based Deutsche Bank (DB) is the world’s 11th largest bank. They have some sharp analysts who keep tabs on multiple industries, one of those industries being oil and gas. Given the recent happenings with the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), and the happenings with the Ohio Rover pipeline–both pipelines projects of Energy Transfer Equity–DB decided to do a quick update on both projects, giving us the investor/trader view of what will happen over the next 2-3 months. We found the update interesting and think you will too…
One of the most important choices before President-elect Trump is who he will select to run the rogue, out-of-control Environmental Protection Agency. Who will Trump pick to, as he calls it, “drain the swamp”? It’s an important choice. We need someone who will dismantle the wild, lawbreaking regulations of an agency operating unchecked for the past eight years. If you believe Reuters (and we’re not sure we do), Trump is looking at two people to head the EPA. Both would, it seems to us, do a good job of draining the EPA swamp…
MDN’s favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, has just published a brief article denoting a milestone: the amount of natural gas in storage has reached a new, record high of 4.017 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). Our country does not use as much natural gas as we produce during the months of April through October–which is the time when we store the extra gas in (mostly) underground salt caverns. From November to March, when it’s cold, we withdraw gas from storage because we’re using more than we produce. Over the past few years we have produced, and stored, far more gas than we can use–leading to a crash in natgas prices. A buildup in storage is a signal to the market that once again we have too much supply and not enough demand. Which furthermore is a signal that the recent rise in prices for natgas (over $3/Mcf) isn’t likely to last. In fact, the price of gas over the past month has gone from $3.25/Mcf to (today) $2.75/Mcf–a $0.50 drop. Storage is a big part of the reason why. Here’s what the EIA had to say…
Yesterday MDN told you that a war of words has broken out between the Obama U.S. Army Corps of Politicized Engineers and Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) over the Dakota Access Pipeline (see 