NY AG Attempts to Cover Up His Collusion with Big Green Groups

It’s A.O.K. for the out-of-control Attorney General from New York, Eric Schneiderman, to go fishing and request all sorts of internal documents and communications from Exxon Mobil in his witch hunt to persecute (not prosecute) the oil giant because they don’t believe strongly enough as he does in the fairy tale of man-made global warming. Schneiderman and his cronies in other states are trying to shake down Exxon in a massive scheme, claiming the company “knew” mankind is causing global warming by burning fossil fuels that Exxon extracts from the ground (see Climate Change Hucksters, Incl. NY AG & Al Gore, Threaten O&G and Rise of the New (Environmental) Nazis – Free Speech Under Attack). But when the U.S. Congress tells Scheiderman it wants HIS internal communication documents to see how he is colluding with Big Green groups who are prodding him along in his witch hunt efforts, Scheiderman clams up and claims Congress has no right to go fishing in HIS communications pond. Hmmm. A tad bit hypocritical, no?…
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As we do every month, MDN tracks how many rigs oilfield services company Patterson-UTI Energy reports operating–as a proxy for when/if the drop in rig counts for the Marcellus/Utica will turn around. Patterson operates a number of rigs in the northeast, as well as other areas of the continental United States (and Canada). Month by month Paterson’s rig count has declined over the past year plus. May was no different–although the good news is that the rate of decline slowed. Patterson reports operating an average of 53 rigs in May, versus 56 in April–a 5% drop…
It’s always fun to point out just how hypocritical Big Green groups, like the Sierra Clubbers, actually are. The Sierra Club in New Jersey is all up in arms that utility company UGI has hired a former member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Pamela Witmer, as vice president of government affairs. MDN was the first source to tell you the importance of her hiring, i.e. to help get the PennEast Pipeline approved (see
In May 2015 MDN reported that after more than two years of acrimony and lawsuits between Range Resources and Mt. Pleasant (Washington County), PA., Range agreed to close four freshwater ponds (called “impoundments,” not to be confused with wastewater impoundments) the company was using to drill wells in nearby non-Mt. Pleasant locations (see
We are close to the endgame with respect to Pennsylvania adopting onerous new drilling regulations rammed through by the former Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley. MDN reported in April that the state’s Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) voted to approve the new regulations (see
Last July MDN told you that Talen Energy, an electric generation company based in Allentown, PA, had cut a deal to acquire MACH Gen, LLC, the owner of three natural gas-fired electric generating plants (see 
Events related to drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling.
The bad news just keeps coming for Halcon Resources, a driller that “guessed wrong” by leasing 140,000 Utica Shale acres in the northern part of the play (in Ohio) and currently doesn’t drill on any of its Utica acreage. Earlier this month we reported that Halcon has cut a deal to file for bankruptcy (see
It’s been a while since we’ve checked in on the proposed 549 megawatt, $615 million electrical generating plant to be built near Moundsville (Marshall County), WV. At last check almost a year ago, Moundsville Power was on schedule for an opening in 2018 (see 
Since announcing the project in 2012, the Constitution Pipeline has handed out more than $2 million in community grants to fire departments, police departments and a variety of nonprofit organizations that benefit the community. Recently New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo decided to block the Constitution Pipeline to placate his radical left supporters (see
We often debate whether or not a bit of news is actually interesting for the MDN audience. Will this bit of news help either a landowner, driller, midstreamer, supply chain company or investor if they knew about it? The following story comes down right on the line for us. We could go either way, but we elected to include it. We don’t know when, exactly, but at least two years ago SemGroup Corporation, a publicly traded (shares of stock) midstream company that moves mostly oil from the wellhead to market, started up a master limited partnership (MLP) subsidiary called Rose Rock Midstream. An MLP issues “units” instead of shares of stock. MLPs have certain tax advantages for investors. We ran a story in June 2014 about Rose Rock buying some of Chesapeake Energy’s assets, including a trucking operation that services the Utica Shale in Ohio (see