Cove Point LNG Plant STILL Waiting for Final DOE Approval?!
Something a tad strange caught our eye. Yesterday America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) released a white paper (copy below) and held a conference call to step up pressure on the Obama Dept. of Energy–with pleas to do the right thing and grant final approval for a list of LNG export projects currently on the list. Some of those projects have been waiting years for a final approval. We knew all of that–but one of the projects named by ANGA on the call and in the white paper is Cove Point. Which made us scratch our head. We thought Cove Point was already was already fully approved by the plethora of government agencies, including DOE, that need to approve it. We reported that Dominion began construction of the facility last October (see Dominion Breaks Ground on Cove Point, MD LNG Export Facility). Just last month Dominion threw a big party to celebrate the project’s approval and future prospects with no less than the Japanese ambassador attending (see Dominion Needles Anti-Drillers by Throwing Party for Cove Point LNG). But now here’s ANGA saying the DOE needs to provide a “final” approval for Cove Point. What gives?…
Read More “Cove Point LNG Plant STILL Waiting for Final DOE Approval?!”
Earlier this week we had some fun telling you about Hilcorp’s request to drill under a quarter of an acre of a cemetery in Columbiana County, OH (see 
Kudos to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection. On April 1 they published the very first monthly production numbers for oil and gas production in the state–for the month of January (see 
Very good news for the Ohio Utica Shale industry: RINO Gov. John Kasich’s plan to raise the severance tax is dead–at least for this year. Yesterday Ohio legislators stripped out a proposed tax hike from the state’s budget bill. We’re still not out of the woods yet as far as a tax increase down the road. Legislators decided to set up a “study committee” made up of both House and Senate members to consider a severance tax increase in the future. This is the third year in a row Kasich has tried and failed to raise the severance tax. Perhaps sensing yet another defeat on the tax issue, last month Kasich made a not-so-subtle threat that if the drilling industry doesn’t accept his 6.5% severance tax now, a ballot initiative may just pop up out of thin air to enact a higher severance tax–and that imitative would probably be for 10% or more (see 
This is a strange and complicated tale that boils down to this: Aubrey McClendon has a singular talent for finding and taking money from people who later turn around and stick a knife in his back. You may remember in February the story we brought you that Chesapeake Energy had sued its former co-founder, Aubrey McClendon, claiming he stole data on his way out the door (see