MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Overwhelming crowd size at solar farm meeting postpones hearing; NATIONAL: TC Energy loses $15B damages claim for pipeline project junked by Biden; Energy truths will set us free.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Thu, Jul 18, 2024”
Pennsylvania mineral rights owners (i.e., landowners) are about to get a well-deserved tax break. Thanks to a bill recently passed by the PA legislature, Senate Bill (SB) 654, individual landowners will receive the same tax benefits afforded to investors. If a company buys mineral rights and the right to receive royalty payments from oil and gas well production, the company, under IRS rules, gets to claim a simple percentage depletion allowance. Essentially, the company only pays income tax on 85% of the royalties it receives. Under SB 654, that same allowance will now apply to landowners in PA.
Read More “New PA Bill Gives Shale Landowners Same Tax Breaks as Investors”
Last fall, MDN shared the sad news that Pennsylvania State Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa (Republican In Name Only from Fayette County) had turned against the Marcellus industry (see Anti-Marcellus RINO Intros Bill to Block All PA Injection Wells). Krupa introduced legislation that would ban the drilling of new wastewater injection wells in the state, making it much harder to drill new shale wells. Companies end up drilling fewer wells without a place to dispose of the naturally occurring water that comes from shale (and conventional) wells for years after an oil or gas well comes online. RINO Krupa, who increasingly sounds like a NIMBY (“not in my back yard”), has now set her sights on blocking carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects in the state, which blocks new hydrogen projects that would use huge quantities of Marcellus gas.
Read More “PA House RINO in Fayette Co. Continues NIMBYism re Carbon Capture”
David McCormick made his case for election to the U.S. Senate at the Republican National Convention Tuesday night, telling the audience gathered in Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum that the election this year is “the most important election of our lifetimes.” He also said, “My friends, the choice this November is clear. It’s a choice between strength and weakness, a choice between America’s greatness or its sad, disgraceful decline.” Never a truer word spoken. McCormick is running against Bob Casey, a trust funder who has held the seat for 18 years. Casey has voted with Biden 98.5% of the time (verifiable statistic). The choice for PA voters who support the Marcellus is crystal clear.
Read More “PA Senate Candidate David McCormick Addresses GOP Convention”
The left sees its hegemony over political power slipping away along with the fading memory of Joe Biden. Biden was their guy as long as he could deliver a win and keep them in power. If he can’t win, the left will turn on him and eat him alive. While it’s too soon to declare the November election over, it’s clear that the Democrat Party is in disarray and believes it will likely lose. There is a fracture running through the Dems, with half wanting to ride the nearly-dead horse of Biden to “victory” (or defeat) in November and the other half advocating to chuck Biden over the side now. The divide is clearly seen in the radicalized environmental movement, where Biden has suddenly lost the support of some big names in the Big Green movement.
Read More “Biden Losing Support from His Radicalized Green Base”
The Republican platform is a breath of fresh air with respect to where our country needs to go with its energy policies. You may or may not agree with some of the non-energy planks in the platform, but if you support oil and gas, you will LOVE what this document says about energy. In fact, of the 5,000 or so words in the Republican platform, 400 of them (8%) deal in some way with energy. Below, we have a copy of the full platform and a review of those sections that deal with energy. You’re gonna love it!
Read More “GOP Platform: “Make America Dominant Energy Producer in the World””
In the end, it didn’t matter who Donald Trump picked as a running mate. That person would be vilified, pilloried, slandered, lied about, and made out to be Satan himself. And so it is with U.S. Senator J.D. Vance from Ohio, the guy Trump chose to run with him. It’s really quite humorous how “mainstream” media is reacting. Just go to Google News, type in “JD Vance,” and look at the headlines. They will tell you that Vance is a closet Trump-hater, that his New York Times bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy, is a “con job,” that Vance is a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s “extreme agenda,” that he suspiciously converted to Catholicism, he’s not hawkish enough on foreign policy, etcetera etcetera. Vance is everything the elitist left hates: A Horatio Alger-type person who came from nothing to make something of himself. The elites didn’t give Vance permission to succeed, so, How dare he?
Read More “Green Lefties Target Trump VP Pick Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance”
As it happens, today’s lineup of stories is largely focused on politics. This note is to let you know this is not a new direction for MDN, but rather a one-off. We have always responded to the news of the day to bring you the latest items that impact the Marcellus/Utica shale industry. As it so happens, today’s news largely revolves around politics. We try to keep the political talk to a minimum, other than where politics intersects with energy and (in particular) shale drilling.
What we are saying is that you don’t have to worry that you will “suffer” through endless political stories from now until November (or even after November). We will cover election-related stories on occasion, as the situation warrants. Politics DO have a direct impact on the oil and gas industry. Our interest, from a political perspective, is in promoting the politicians and legislation that is favorable to the shale industry. We won’t bore you to death (or, in some cases, anger you) with political stories! We promise.
NATIONAL: Employees sue American Airlines, don’t want 401(k)s in ESG; AI, robotics leading transformative changes in oil and gas; Offshore wind energy scandal is even worse than you think; Trump’s proposed tariffs spark concerns for oil industry; INTERNATIONAL: Russia plans compensation cuts after pumping above OPEC quota; Houthis attack oil tanker in Red Sea.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Wed, Jul 17, 2024”
A MAJOR victory for Pennsylvania Republicans that is not getting the attention it should. For years, PA State Sen. Gene Yaw and others have lobbied for review by qualified third parties to speed up the turnaround time to approve relatively simple permits issued by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), including earth disturbance/erosion permits, known as Chapter 102 permits, and water obstruction and encroachment permits, known as Chapter 105 permits (see PA Sen. Yaw Intros Bill to Allow 3rd Party Review of Erosion Permits). The DEP fought it tooth and nail, perceiving such a change as a threat to its bureaucratic power (see PA DEP Using ePermits for Erosion & Sedimentation to Avoid New Law). No more. The DEP is now silent in its opposition as a third-party review of permits was adopted and signed into law as part of the recently passed state budget.
Read More “New PA State Budget Includes Third-Party Review of DEP Permits”
According to Public News Service (PNS), a Big Green propaganda outfit funded (in part) by the Fresh Water Accountability Project, the CEO of Austin Master Services (AMS), a frack waste storage facility in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio, was supposed to attend a Belmont County court hearing by phone. He faces contempt-of-court charges for failing to clean up 10,000 tons of waste. However, it wasn’t the hearing that caught our attention; it was a comment made by the Mayor of Martins Ferry.
Read More “Martins Ferry, OH Mayor Wants AMS Site Shut Down Permanently”
The 1,100-mile-long Algonquin Gas Transmission Pipeline delivers natural gas, including Marcellus/Utica gas, to New England. Algonquin is connected to the Texas Eastern Pipeline and the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline. Algonquin crosses through (delivers gas to) Connecticut and several other states. Three compressor stations are located along the portion of Algonquin that traverses Connecticut. One of the three compressor stations, located in Cromwell, was dinged by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) for releasing “excessive amounts” of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 2014 and 2016. The company signed a consent order requiring new emission controls at the plant, along with paying a $190,000 fine. According to State Sen. Matt Lesser and Cromwell Mayor James Demetriades (both Democrats), that’s not good enough.
Read More “Officials Seek Public Alerts from Connecticut Compressor Station”
Freeport LNG closed its export plant on Sunday, July 7, in anticipation of Hurricane Beryl hitting the Texas Gulf Coast (see Surprise! Freeport LNG Exports Shut Down Due to Hurricane Beryl). The storm passed through the Freeport region and left a lot of damage, including some damage to the Freeport facility. As Freeport works to fix the damage, it will slowly begin to restart. Later this week, Train 1 (of three) will be brought back online.
Read More “Freeport LNG Still Not Back Online – Slow Restart Begins This Week”
Anti-fossil fuel zealots from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and from an Indian tribe as far away as Nova Scotia (Canada) are opposing a $12 billion plan by Washington Gas to fix leaky (very old) natural gas pipelines that cross under the streets of our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. An article from the Big Green propaganda outfit Public News Service (PNS) opens with this line: “Washington D.C. residents are pushing back on a plan to build out existing fossil fuel infrastructure.” There’s no mention of how many D.C. residents object. And as if there aren’t enough residents who object, the article quotes an anti from Nova Scotia! What do antis from N.S. have to do with this?
Read More “Radicals Oppose Plan to Fix Leaking NatGas Pipes in Washington, DC”
Natural gas traders are predicting (more like warning) that Europe’s natural gas storage tanks will be filled to the tippy top during the third quarter (which ends in September), ahead of the normal schedule. At the start of the second quarter, Europe’s tanks were 59% full. As of July 12, they were 80% full. If European storage closes early, that will put downward pressure on prices here in the U.S. Less demand with the same supply equals lower prices.
Read More “Europe NatGas Storage Full in Third Quarter – Prices Trend Down”
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: DOE pressed to advance major LNG project after pause reversal; Government officials raise concerns after new governor rolls back decades of legislation; NATIONAL: Sierra Club statement on Donald Trump’s selection of JD Vance; Democratic platform bullish on climate action, down on Big Oil; INTERNATIONAL: Russian pipeline gas exports to EU up 24% y/y in Jan-June.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 16, 2024”