Jeb Bush Visits Rice Energy Today to Unveil New Energy Plan
Low energy Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush (as Donald Trump calls him) has decided to inject some high energy (as in the energy industry) into his campaign. Jeb is today visiting the Pittsburgh headquarters of one of the Marcellus/Utica’s most successful drillers–Rice Energy–to unveil his energy plan that calls for the lifting of the crude oil export ban (something our Dear Leader, President Obama, opposes) and for the approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline (Obama also opposes). However, the thing that makes Jeb’s visit to Rice Energy salient and meaningful for the Marcellus/Utica is that he will call for (a) lifting restrictions on exporting natural gas–making it easier to export natgas to Japan, China and European countries, and (b) fight Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP). There is no doubt Bush will say all of the right words and espouse policies the oil and gas industry can strongly support. The question is, will he actually do any of it if he gets elected?…
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On January 9, 2014, a Freedom Industries facility next to the Elk River leaked ~10,000 gallons of crude 4-methylcyclohexanemethanol (MCHM) used in coal mining into the river, which is a tributary to the Kanawha River that runs through Charleston, WV. The results of that leak were dramatic. Some 300,000 residents from nine counties in the Charleston metropolitan area were without access to potable water for five days. Several Freedom Industries officials are now in jail and the company went bankrupt because of that single accident. Contrast coverage of that accident with another accident–caused by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at the Gold King Mine in Colorado. EPA personnel were fiddling around “testing” at a gold mine wastewater storage impoundment and accidentally unplugged it, dumping 3 million gallons of some of the nastiest wastewater you can imagine–with lead, arsenic and other heavy metals–into the Animas River north of Silverton, CO (see 
It takes guts to walk boldly into the liberal lion’s den and tweak the nose of the beast. That’s what Marty Durbin, chief executive of America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), has done with an editorial appearing in yesterday’s Boston Globe newspaper. Durbin has the audacity to tell readers that their high energy bills and constrained natural gas supplies is “self-imposed.” He also tells them they can believe whatever they want, but they can’t defy the laws of supply and demand and there is no arguing the fact that New Englanders pay high energy prices because they lack necessary natural gas supplies. Just a few hundred miles away natgas prices in the Marcellus are a fraction of what gas sells for in New England. Marty pours it on! He also says a recent study shows without new natgas supplies for New England, by 2020 the average consumer will pay almost $1,000 more per year in energy costs than they do today. Read Marty’s audacious editorial for yourself below, full of cold, hard truth. Let’s hope New Englanders will see the light–which happens to be a blue natural gas flame…
The Washington County (PA) Firemen’s Association recently opened a new $500,000 gas well training center at the fire academy located at 895 Western Ave in Houston, PA. The project, which took more than a year to plan and complete, was completely funded by some of the biggest and best drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, including Range Resources, Rice Energy, CONSOL Energy, EQT, American Well Service and others. It will be used to train first responders not only in Washington County, but also from other parts of Pennsylvania along with West Virginia and Ohio. According to Pennsylvania Fire Commissioner Tim Solobay, “There’s nothing like it outside of Texas”…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Upstate NY struggles–lost jobs/poor economy with no fracking; severance tax debated in Harrison County, OH; NFG asks FERC for permission to start up pipeline early; 4Q15 looks bleak for shale companies; 20 scientists ask government to prosecute those who don’t believe in “climate change”; and more!
In February MDN told you about a deal signed by a hospital in Potter County, PA to lease 742.9 acres of hospital-owned land to JKLM Energy to drill Utica Shale wells (see 
Very interesting development with Halliburton. As we previously reported, Halliburton is forcing Baker Hughes to the alter in a shotgun wedding/takeover (see 
In February 2013 MDN brought you news about plans from Appalachian Resins (AR) to build a polyethelene (PE) manufacturing plant complete with a “baby” ethane cracker. The original plan was to build it in the Wheeling, WV area. However, a year later the location shifted across the border to Monroe County, OH. As late as April of this year AR was still committed to the project (see 
An update on a royalty lawsuit we first reported in July. Two Butler County, PA landowners with a combined 245.7 acres of land leased to (and drilled by) XTO Energy have sued XTO claiming the company is breaking the lease agreement by paying royalties below 1/8 of what XTO receives in revenue for the gas (see 
Analysts with global investment firm Jeffries are out with a forecast for natural gas production next year, in 2016. Jeffries says while natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica will slow next year, they are the only two plays in the entire country that Jeffries says will still grow in production year over year. However, overall the U.S. will produce slightly less gas in 2016 than we will have in 2015–with production estimated to decline by 0.8% (less than a single percentage point)…
CoBank, a national cooperative bank serving vital industries across rural America, has just published a study titled “U.S. Natural Gas Outlook through 2020: Demand Is the New Captain of the Ship” in which they predict the United States will become a net exporter of natural gas in 2017. While we don’t have a copy of the full report, we do have a summary below listing the key points in the report, along with a video…
One New England town shows how to “do it right” when it comes to dealing with a big pipeline company like Kinder Morgan. As we’ve covered (endlessly), Kinder’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) project will expand the mighty Tennessee Gas Pipeline to run across parts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire before terminating near Boston. Anti-fossil fuel nutters demand the project be canceled–sentencing New Englanders to obscenely high gas and electric rates forever. One town–Amherst, NH–had concerns about the route and worked with Kinder Morgan to get the pipeline shifted to a route that works for them. This is how adults behave…
The Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be in Pittsburgh tomorrow to conduct a hearing into how they can illegally regulate oil and gas drilling through the back door of so-called “fugitive” methane emissions, which they claim are insanely high in shale plays like the Marcellus/Utica (
The Christ-less editorial board of the Scranton Times-Tribune has all of a sudden gotten the Catholic religion. The anti-drilling Dems who run the Times-Tribune are normally religion-free–but since Pope Francis visited Philly and mouthed words that he believes in the myth of man-made global warming, Pope Francis (regardless of his stance on issues like abortion) is the new patron saint of the Times-Tribune. They go so far in their latest editorial as to link Pope Francis and another Democrat saint–John Quigley, the PennFuture Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection…