PA DEP to Hold 14 “Listening Sessions” on Obama CPP
“This is Dr. Frazier Crane, I’m listening.” Remember the old sitcom Frazier? Funny stuff. Something equally as funny is coming to Pennsylvania. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection is holding 14 “listening sessions” from this month through November to accept comments on Barack H. Obama’s so-called Clean Power Plan that will force states like PA to cut carbon emissions to the point of bankrupting businesses and forcing sky-high utility rates. The PennFuture Secretary of the DEP, John Quigley, an Obama acolyte and global warming Kool Aid drinker, can’t wait to “listen” to what PA residents have to say. We encourage you to show up and give him a piece of your mind…
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Since March MDN has been watching the active number of rigs operated by Patterson-UTI Energy as a proxy for whether or not we’ve “turned the corner” on falling rig counts in the Marcellus/Utica. Patterson is a major drilling contractor with operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. We won’t recount all of the numbers here, for that you can read our story from July (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has buckled to pressure from politicians to schedule yet another scoping hearing in New Hampshire (the third such hearing in tiny NH, the 14th overall), and extend the period for public comments, for the Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project that would bring much-needed supplies of abundant, cheap and clean-burning Marcellus/Utica Shale gas to New England (see 
So four anti-drillers are sitting at a bar…no wait–that’s another story. Four anti-drilling activists who teach at three different colleges–University of Florida, Florida State University, and North Carolina State University (none of them nowhere near the Marcellus/Utica Shale)–got together and concocted a sham study that used an ONLINE survey of 225 people (i.e. unscientific) in the Marcellus/Utica region who visit public parks. Based on the GIGO survey results, the researchers say one-third of Appalachian folks ain’t a goin’ to no park with frackin’ nearby, nosiree. Of course, it’s likely they wouldn’t even know whether or not there is fracking nearby since you typically can’t tell from more than a few hundred feet away where a well is being drilled. We wonder if the researchers also asked the same 225 if they would fly in to or out of an airport with fracking nearby? If that’s your criteria for whether or not to do something, whether there’s fracking nearby, you won’t be using Pittsburgh International Airport where some 47 wells are being drilled as we write this…
PennEast Pipeline, the $1 billion, 118-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania (in Luzerne County) to southeastern PA and New Jersey (terminating in Mercer County, NJ), has just announced another $50,000 of community grants, bringing the grand total of such grants up to $240,000–so far. The organizations receiving the grants are eminently worthy–mostly fire departments and EMS departments located in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey…
Earlier this week a $2.85 million compressed natural gas (CNG) filling station was opened with a large crowd of people eager to begin using it. Nexus Natural Gas, a consortium of seven different companies, unveiled their first collaborative CNG fueling station aimed at cars, trucks, tractor-trailers and buses. The state got involved with a $570,000 grant–recognizing the benefits of using natural gas as a transportation fuel (burns cleaner, natural gas is a home-grown fuel). Local utility/pipeline companies are involved too–to deliver cheap, abundant and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas to the new fueling station. What’s that? Where’s this new CNG fueling station located–where crowds of natgas lovers congregated to celebrate? Would you believe, in New York State!…
Two sister companies based in Ohio–Valley Electrical Consolidated Inc. and Evets Oil & Gas Construction Services–will be merged together under parent company VEC, Inc. starting January 1, 2016. VEC/Evets has done construction and steel fabrication work for many Utica/Marcellus companies in Ohio and neighboring states. According to VEC’s president and owner, Rex Ferry, the realignment and merging of the two into one will allow them to better serve customers. Along with the merger of the two companies comes a few promotions, including a promotion for an MDN subscriber…
We have an update on the story we broke yesterday–that Chief Oil & Gas is closing its Wexford (Pittsburgh) office (see 
Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is having trouble getting anyone to notice he’s running for president (predictably, nobody cares when an establishment RINO runs), will swoop in at a press conference today at 3 pm in Belmont County, OH to announce that foreigners from Thailand-based PTT Global and Marubeni Corp. of Tokyo will drop $100 million on Ohio to conduct engineering and design work for a previously announced potential ethane cracker plant in the county (see 
Pennsylvania anti-drillers from a local chapter of the Izaak Walton League, a so-called conservation organization, attempted a smear job on the Marcellus Shale industry–and it’s come back to bite them. The Izaak Walton gang has been testing water from Ten Mile Creek that runs through Washington and Greene counties in western PA for the past four years. Last year the League raised an alarm that there are high levels of radiation and other nasty things in the creek. The League immediately started pointing a finger at the Marcellus industry, accusing drillers of illegally dumping untreated wastewater in the creek (see 
We shouldn’t be, but we’re stunned. We’ve discovered that anti-drillers are funding studies to discover how best to fool you. What words, phrases, stories and lies will resonate the best, and move low information types, to oppose fossil fuels. They study it and actually publish their findings (crow about it) for all the world to see! We’ve known for a long time that so-called peer reviewed research is nothing more than bought-and-paid-for propaganda (read this recent story in the New York Times: 
Although anti-fossil fuel nutters in New York State have worked to oppose converting electric generating plants from burning coal to clean-burning natural gas (see 
National Fuel Gas (NFG), the Buffalo-based utility giant with both a drilling subsidiary (Seneca Resources) and a midstream/pipeline subsidiary (Empire Pipeline) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March for a pipeline project they call Northern Access 2016. The $451 million project includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton. We have a full description below for all of the new construction, modifications and add-ons that are part of the Access Northeast 2016 project. The pipeline, when complete, will flow Marcellus Shale natural gas from Pennsylvania northward to New York and on into Canada. Although NFG has bent backwards, forwards and has contorted itself into just about every yoga position there is to accommodate residents around Pendleton, nearby residents are still opposed to NFG building a new compressor station anywhere near them…
Ivan and Kathy Dubrasky are anti-drillers located in Pulaski Township (Lawrence County), PA, just across the border from Ohio and close to Youngstown. They recently hosted a tiny anti-drilling rally at their property (see