Manchin Wants to Appoint His Staffer as Next FERC Commissioner
The swamp gets swampier. U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, Chairman of the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is rumored to be pushing a staff member to fill the open Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner slot. There is an open seat for a Democrat after Manchin blocked Richard “Dick” Glick from continuing beyond the end of his second term (see Looks Like FERC’s Glick is History – Manchin Won’t Hold Hearing). The staffer Manchin wants for FERC currently works for Manchin at the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He is “detailed” there from FERC, which means his considerable government salary is paid by FERC, yet he works for Manchin. The staffer previously worked at FERC before coming to Manchin’s committee.
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Not only are fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) loathsome and evil and racist, not to mention toasting Mom Earth into a cinder, but if the Bidenistas move forward with pushing hydrogen energy as a replacement, hydrogen will be just as loathsome, just as evil, and just as racist–according to 180 so-called environment groups (Communist groups masquerading as environmental groups). The problem is, Biden may be dumb enough to believe them! He’s not the brightest bulb in the pack.
New shale permits issued for Aug 28 – Sep 3 in the Marcellus/Utica continued to decline. There were 13 new permits issued last week, down from 16 issued two weeks ago, and way down from the 27 issued three weeks ago. Last week’s permit tally included 8 new permits in Pennsylvania, 5 new permits in Ohio, and no new permits in West Virginia (WV has issued no permits in five of the last six weeks). Three drillers tied for the top recipient with a piddly 3 permits each: Chesapeake Energy, Snyder Brothers, and Southwestern Energy.
NATIONAL: U.S. utility customers more satisfied with natgas than electric; Biden admin pulls Alaska oil, natgas leases in blow to energy industry; Biden pulls Energy Dept. nominee after gas stove spat with Manchin; INTERNATIONAL: Oil falls after warning flags of pullback arise; Saudi-Russia move can only result in one thing; $100 oil within striking distance if momentum continues, analysts say; Gas prices jump as LNG workers begin long-awaited strikes.
Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale (by the number of wells drilled), emerged from bankruptcy in May 2021 with a new board and top management. In January of this year, the company appointed a new CEO, John Reinhart, the former President and CEO of M-U driller Montage Resources Corporation before that company was gobbled up by Southwestern Energy (see 
The transient workers in the Ohio Utica Shale field must stay somewhere. That somewhere is typically a hotel or motel. Belmont County, one of the hotbeds of Utica drilling, has many such transient workers. Their overnight stays at area hotels and motels create a big pile of lodging tax revenue, which is used to help fund the Belmont County Tourism Council. And the Council is thankful for it!
Williams CEO Alan Armstrong spoke at the Barclays CEO Energy-Power Conference in New York City yesterday. Certain members of the press were invited to attend (but sadly, not MDN). Armstrong had some interesting things to say at the Barclays soiree. Armstrong engaged in a little smack talk about the recently announced Enbridge deal to buy Dominion Energy’s remaining gas utility businesses for $14 billion (see 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Willie L. Phillips (Democrat) is one of many high-profile speakers appearing on the stage at the Gastech 2023 conference currently underway in Singapore. He delivered some blunt language to leftist kooks who believe we must end the use of fossil energy. Phillips said, “There will be no transition of our energy system?without natural gas.” BOOM. So much for all those Democrat cities and states trying to phase out the use of natural gas. According to one of their own, that’s not happening.
Driftwood LNG, a 27.6 million tonnes of LNG per year facility that will cost on the order of $14.5 billion to build, has not made an official final investment decision (FID) to proceed with the FERC-approved project. However, construction began on the project in March 2022 (see 
What’s the government’s answer to everything? Money! Have a problem, throw money at it, and declare it solved. Need more votes in the next election? Money helps with that, too. Here’s the latest “money solves all problems” proposal from the Dept. of Energy (DOE)… The DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) announced up to $30 million in free money (i.e., grants) for developing advanced technologies to reduce or eliminate the need for natural gas flaring at oil production sites. Cause you know, fugitive methane is toasting Mom Earth into a cinder.
Yesterday, Dominion Energy and Enbridge co-announced that Dominion has agreed to sell what we think (not 100% sure) are the remaining natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) that Dominion owns to Enbridge for $14.0 billion, which includes $9.4 billion in cash plus the assumption of debt. The deal includes three LDCs–The East Ohio Gas Company, Public Service Company of North Carolina, and Questar Gas Company (along with Wexpro Company). The three LDCs serve about 3 million homes and businesses in Ohio, North Carolina, Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho and include 78,000 miles of natural gas distribution, transmission, gathering, and storage pipelines and more than 62 Bcf of working underground and LNG storage capacity. Dominion wants to shed its natgas businesses and focus solely on electrifying everything.
In August, MDN told you about a new $2 billion hydrogen project coming to West Virginia (see 
On Saturday, August 26, a radicalized out-of-state “protester” (i.e., criminal) chained herself to a piece of excavating equipment being used in Montgomery County, Va., to drill and install the final pieces of Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
Yesterday, the Pennsylvania State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) provided updates for various issues to the Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board (TAB) at a meeting held in Harrisburg and online. TAB’s mission is to increase transparency and communication about regulating the shale drilling industry in PA. TAB is authorized under the 2012 Oil and Gas Act to advise DEP in the formulation, drafting, and presentation stages of all regulations relating to unconventional oil and gas extraction. Kurt Klapkowski, DEP Deputy for Oil and Gas Management, spoke to the board on several issues. He was asked to comment on the recent fake studies released by University of Pittsburgh that purport to show a link between fracking and certain health conditions (see