Branding Squabble Among Sunoco Siblings over Mariner East Project
For MDN, an interesting story in the Philadelphia Inquirer tackles the tricky issue of branding and the very visible brand of Sunoco. It seems Sunoco that sells you your gasoline at filling stations across the country is often confused with Sunoco Logistics, the company that builds pipelines, like the Mariner East pipeline. Mariner East would repurpose a pipeline that crosses the state of Pennsylvania from west to southeast and would deliver natural gas liquids, including propane, to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. Mariner East has faced still opposition (see More Pushback from PA Residents on Proposed Mariner East Pipeline). Anti-drillers are trying to tarnish the Sunoco name and that has Sunoco the filling station company concerned…
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Yesterday the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) released production numbers for 2013 and the numbers were truly impressive. ODNR says all oil and gas wells (conventional and unconventional/shale) in Ohio produced 8 million barrels of oil and 171 billion cubic feet of gas in 2013. Compared to 2012, Ohio’s total oil production increased by 62% and natural gas production increased by 97%. The increase in natural gas is due almost entirely to the Utica Shale…
We have to wonder, is PA State Rep. Rosita C. Youngblood (Democrat from Philadelphia) actually brain dead? At a minimum she’s an economic ignoramus, understanding 0% about economics and business and what it takes to make a successful business. Youngblood had the temerity (stupidity?) to write an editorial for the Philadelphia Weekly Press in which she says casinos in the state are taxed 55% of all money that passes through their hands, and therefore a measly 5% (or even 10%) severance tax on shale drilling is peanuts. Uh, Ms. Youngblood, have you ever heard of the concept of risk in business? Or profit?… 
A word of warning to all of you anti-drillers who are “back to the land” types–Obama’s EPA is coming for you next. Your own environmental extremism will soon turn around and bite you on the backside. The rogue federal Environmental Protection Agency, since 2009, has targeted fracking and the oil and industry any which way it can, attempting to usurp state regulation (see 
New condensate processing is on the way later this year from Ergon, Inc.–a company headquartered in Mississippi but with refineries and processing facilities in Ohio and West Virginia (and operations that include western Pennsylvania, Kentucky and New York). Ergon announced yesterday the company has spent over $75 million in the past two years to upgrade facilities, and continues to spend. Coming later this year is a 10,000 barrel per day condensate stabilization facility in Marietta, OH. Coming next year, the same kind of facility (also 10,000 bbl/d) in Newell, WV…