Québec Goes Full Communist – Bans Heating with NatGas by 2040
If you live in Québec, Canada, and you’re reading these words, you may want to move soon or risk freezing your derrière off in the winter because you will become a criminal if you try to heat your home or business with natural gas. The Commie province will allow folks to continue heating with so-called renewable natural gas (gas from cow and pig poop) after 2040. However, there’s not enough renewable gas to meet demand. Given the provincial government’s psychological crack with reality, we suspect that even the renewable gas loophole will be gone by the time 2040 rolls around. The government has banned the sale and installation of gas heaters in new residential constructions as of 2026. Québec is the perfect example of how free countries die and give birth to dictatorships. Read More “Québec Goes Full Communist – Bans Heating with NatGas by 2040”
Fart vaccines, seaweed diets, burp-catching masks, ray guns, and baby kangaroo poop are just some of the crazy and nutty ways leftist global warming zealots are trying to save the earth from an overabundance of methane from cow farts and burps. And no, we’re not making any of this up or exaggerating! These people are really, truly, legitimately out of their minds. Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, is funding some of this asininity. Give a guy billions of dollars, and his brain turns to mush. 
NATIONAL: U.S. ethane exports set to surge with new Gulf Coast capacity; Republican lawmakers question FTC over reviews of energy deals; Trump energy allies anticipate boom times for oil, gas, mining; Cheniere Energy wants US to remain in Paris climate agreement; INTERNATIONAL: Oil surges on geopolitical tensions and weaker dollar; Will geopolitics affect oil and gas in 2025?; COP29 climate hucksters urged to extract big money from U.S., Europe; Vomiting protesters storm EU summit in ‘colonialism’ row. 
One month ago, Pennsylvania’s rig count dropped to just 12 rigs, the lowest that state has operated in the last 17 years (see 
Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) and Kentucky Utilities Company (KU), subsidiaries of PPL Corporation, celebrated a significant milestone last week with the groundbreaking of Mill Creek 5, a state-of-the-art 640-megawatt (MW) natural gas combined-cycle generating unit in Jefferson County, Kentucky. This new facility is set to begin powering homes and businesses in 2027. While no mention was made in the official announcement, we suspect the plant, when operational, will use Marcellus/Utica molecules, making this a major new customer for our gas. 
Environmental wackos have made building a new natural gas pipeline anywhere in the northeast (or southeast) such a heinously nasty experience with multiple and repeated regulatory challenges and a blizzard of lawsuits that nobody has ventured to propose a new “greenfield” (brand new from scratch) pipeline since Mountain Valley Pipeline, which took a decade to complete at double the original budget. We’re hopeful the situation will change under the new Trump administration. The Marcellus/Utica industry recognizes we need another new pipeline to move more of our molecules to other regions. What would be the “driving force” to prompt a company to be willing to try once again? 
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) released its annual Winter Reliability Assessment (WRA) last Thursday (full copy below). The report expresses concern about the potential for freezing temperatures to impact the delivery of natural gas to power plants this winter. Texas has worked hard to winterize its natgas infrastructure following previous disasters. Outside of Texas, there is “little to no information to indicate that upstream gas producers, gatherers, and processors have improved winterization of their operations,” said the report. Should we be concerned? 
In 2022, after the shocking news that U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (from West Virginia) had sold out his state and the entire country by agreeing to support the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill, the details began to come out about just how bad this bill really is for the oil and gas industry. First and foremost, it slaps a new tax on oil and gas activities (see 
For the week of Nov 4 – 10, permits issued in the Marcellus/Utica came roaring back with a total of 34 permits issued (up from 13 issued the prior week). There were some VERY interesting things to note about some of the permits issued. The Keystone State (PA) issued 16 new permits, with five going to Range Resources in Washington County. And that’s the first of three interesting things to note. All five Range permits were issued for Cecil Township, which recently passed a ban on new fracking via a 2,500-foot setback regulation (see 
MDN first reported on a lawsuit by a group of Wyoming County, PA, landowners back in January 2019 (see 
We’re a sucker for a railroad story. There’s something magical about railroads, dontcha think? We spotted a railroad story that ties in with the Marcellus/Utica. Yesterday morning, the Ohio Rail Development Commission (ORDC) voted to approve a project (and back it with a grant) in Youngstown, Ohio. It is a significant, large-scale project by the Youngstown & Southeastern Railroad to create what will be called the Lansingville Yard. The new yard will serve customers related to the M-U, including the Shell ethane cracker in nearby Beaver County. 
In September 2022, the New York Public Service Commission (PSC), which oversees and regulates public utilities in the state, approved the takeover of the Fortistar gas-fired power plant in North Tonawanda, NY, a town close to Niagara Falls, by Canadian crypto mining company Digihost. In December 2022, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) offered its blessing too. All of which prompted the radicals of Earthjustice, representing two other disgusting radical groups—the Sierra Club and Clean Air Coalition of Western New York—to sue (see