Congresswoman Floats Bill to Force NY, Other States to Allow Fracking
Two days ago, MDN mused over the issue of whether or not there will EVER be fracking in New York State (see Is There Still a Chance for Fracking in New York State?). We shared a novel idea for how fracking might restart–if the Democrats changed their position and reversed a permanent ban on fracking (hence our refrain that fracking will arrive in NY “when pigs fly”). Here’s another way it might happen: If the federal government passes a law that withholds Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) money from states that ban fracking. A bill to do just that will be introduced tomorrow by Rep. Claudia Tenney, Congresswoman from the Upstate NY district where MDN resides.
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According to Wikipedia, Elizabeth, PA is a borough in Allegheny County, on the east bank of the Monongahela River, where Pennsylvania Route 51 crosses, 15 miles upstream (south) of Pittsburgh and close to the county line. The population was 1,493 at the 2010 census. Very rural. Olympus Energy wants to drill a well in the township. The pad would sit about 1,700 feet (one-third of a mile) away from Elizabeth Forward High School. Some of the parents of students, and some of the administration, are pushing back against Olympus’ drilling plan, using the kiddies as an excuse.
What makes an oil and gas company (specifically a driller) a “bad actor”? Anti-fossil fuel zealots believe they’ve found a clever way of smearing Marcellus drillers and painting them as “bad actors” by citing how many notices of violation (NOVs) the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has issued to a driller. The problem is, those notices are highly inconsistent and many times are for relatively minor (quickly fixable) “infractions” against regulations. Citing a high number of NOVs sounds impressive and scares people, which is the important thing for antis.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PA state lawmakers, antis collude on anti-fracking action plan; NATIONAL: Oil falls on slowing us demand concerns; Fitch Solutions unveils latest oil price forecast; Can the carbon-capture industry grow as quickly as it needs to?; Manchin-Schumer energy deal proves the power of the swamp; INTERNATIONAL: LNG vessel transit through Panama drops.
As we previously stated and continue to state: West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s sellout of the entire country (and the entire fossil energy industry) in return for a vote on separate legislation that supposedly will ensure Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) gets completed (no guarantee a vote will be taken), is not worth the price. Unsurprisingly, Equitrans Midstream, the company building MVP, is delighted to learn of Manchin’s plan to sacrifice the country in return for completing its pipeline. Extremely short-sighted.
New Jersey Resources’ Adelphia Gateway project converts an old oil pipeline stretching from Northampton County, PA through Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties, terminating in Delaware County at Marcus Hook, into a natural gas pipeline. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued final approval for the project in December 2019 (see 
In addition to issuing its second quarter update yesterday, Williams made a second announcement of interest. The company has invested an unspecified amount of money in Aurora Hydrogen, a company developing technology that converts natural gas to hydrogen with zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Several other companies, including Chevron and Shell, invested too.
In June 2017, MDN reported that EmberClear, based in Houston, TX, wants to build a $1 billion, 1,100 megawatt combined-cycle natural gas-fired plant about 15 miles from Springfield, Illinois, in Pawnee (see 
One of the criticisms MDN has levied against the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, is that each state is attempting to “go it alone” with respect to attracting a $2 billion investment from the federal government for a hydrogen and CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) hub in our region (see 
It finally seems as if economic activity is picking up once again in the Marcellus/Utica. And we don’t mean just shale drillers and pipeline companies. The companies that supply those companies–the supply chain–is seeing an uptick in business, according to an article appearing in the Pittsburgh Business Times. Companies like U.S. Steel, MSA, and Steel Nation are reporting strong increases in sales in 2022.
Not all that long ago, the spot (physically traded) price of natural gas around the Marcellus/Utica region, and the regions it feeds, including the Southeastern U.S., had some of the lowest spot prices for natural gas in the U.S. We recall being excited to see the price per Mcf (or MMBtu) get above $1 in northeastern PA. That all changed over the past year or so. According to RBN Energy, “cash and forward prices in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast have rocketed, becoming the highest gas prices in the land, and in some cases are at never-before-seen levels for this time of year.” What happened? Why is the price so high now, in a region flooded with natural gas, where once we couldn’t get the price to go over a dollar?
One of the questions MDN editor Jim Willis (who lives in New York State) often gets at family gatherings and the occasional conference (when folks find out he writes about “fracking” and “shale energy”) is this: “Will New York ever get fracking?” Jim’s tongue-in-cheek answer is, “When pigs fly!” The slightly longer answer is that the ignominious politician Andrew Cuomo, while he was governor, slipped a permanent ban on fracking into law as part of the 2020 state budget bill (see