Plugging Orphan O&G Wells Begins on Federal Land in WV
In the fall of 2021, President Biden signed into law the so-called Infrastructure bill, some $1.2 trillion in pork barrel spending, passed with the help of turncoat Republicans (see Biden So-Called $1.2T Infrastructure Bill Passes Thanks to RINOs). Only about 9% of the $1.2 trillion will go to actual infrastructure projects like roads and bridges. One of the line items in the bill (so small it’s a rounding error) is money to plug orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells. A small amount of money was distributed last fall, a year after the bill became law (see PA DEP Solicits Bids to Plug First 50 Orphaned Wells Using Fed $$). Finally, after two years of waiting, the Bidenistas issued the next round of money in July — some $660 million in total, of which $163 million (or 25%) went to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia (see Bidenistas Dispense $163 Million to Plug Old O&G Wells in OH-PA-WV). Some of the money is being put to good use cleaning up old well sites in on federal land in West Virginia.
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New York State has become the North Korea of the United States. It is narrow and parochial and devoid of freedom. If you operate a business in New York and you are not in a protected or favored class, or if your business does not bribe someone in the Democrat Party, you are in danger of losing that business. New York is aggressively hostile to any business remotely connected to fossil fuels. A “bitcoin miner” operating in beautiful Upstate NY, near the shore of Seneca Lake, uses a small natural gas power plant to provide power for its 15,300 computer servers. The radical Democrats running the state, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, want it shut down and gone. They are close to achieving their objective. How did we fall this far?
For years, we’ve seen the lie repeated by mainstream media, Big Green shills, and environmental lackeys that fossil energy gets big government subsidies. Let’s put that lie to bed right now. The Bidenistas, who operate the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), very quietly issued a major new report in early August that shows green energy receives FAR MORE in the way government subsidies than does fossil energy. FAR MORE.
TRC Capital Investment Corporation has sent an unsolicited “mini-tender” offer to Dominion Energy stockholders looking to purchase up to 2 million shares of Dominion’s common stock at an offer price that is 4.47% lower than the current share price. TRC Capital is looking to pick up Dominion shares on the cheap and turn around and flip them at a higher price. Dominion is warning stockholders they should not agree to the deal.
NATIONAL: Biden’s ‘war against oil’ is pushing prices up, US shale execs say; The dangerous delusion of a global transition to “just electricity”; INTERNATIONAL: Big Oil CEOs defend themselves against climate criticism.
Newly-elected Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro appointed a working group in April to help guide him on what he should do concerning the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax and the broader issue of global warming (see
In March, Chesapeake Energy announced a 15-year deal to provide natural gas for LNG exports to Gunvor Singapore Pte (see
Two weeks ago, the U.S. rig count erased a couple of weeks of anemic gains by dropping 11 rigs from the total, sinking to 630 active rigs, the lowest count since February of 2022 (see
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (and other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. For years, we have highlighted Diversified’s “contrarian” business model (
Not content to kill off your natural gas stove, the Bidenistas at the U.S. Dept. of Energy are now coming for your gas furnace. On Friday, the Biden Dept. of Energy (DOE) published a new rule that cracks down on gas furnaces in homes, essentially phasing out many existing models and requiring new ones to meet onerous new standards. The DOE now requires a 95% annual fuel efficiency standard, up from the 80% that was on the books before the new rule was published Friday. New models will be mandatory by 2028–and you’ll pay an average $4,700 for your new gas furnace. But that’s not the only cost…
According to a recent analysis by Enverus Intelligence Research, the cost of supply for North American shale producers is expected to continue rising. The remaining top-tier shale drilling inventory across North America *could be* in shorter supply than previously estimated, says Enverus. Rampant cost inflation from the Bidenistas and declining well productivity across the U.S. shale patch are making drilling wells much more expensive. What about the situation here in the Marcellus/Utica?
In an administration full of destructive regulatory actions and legislation targeting fossil energy for extinction, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) stands out as one of the worst. The IRA was made possible by a traitorous vote by West Virginia Democrat U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (see