Clearfield County, PA NatGas Bitcoin Miner Pauses Operations
Bitcoin mining is becoming an important customer for Marcellus/Utica natural gas. Gigantic computer server farms run complex mathematical computations and the result of those computations is a blockchain. When a blockchain is formed, the server farm doing the computations gets compensated with bitcoins, a form of digital money. Bitcoin (the generic term is cryptocurrency) mining uses huge amounts of electricity to run all of those computers. That’s where natural gas comes in. Natgas is used to generate the electricity used to power the computers. A bitcoin “miner” in Clearfield County, PA, recently paused operations at the facility. Why?
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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s foolish plan to force PA’s coal- and natural gas-fired power plants to begin paying an obscenely high tax on carbon dioxide emissions as part of the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) got blocked on July 1 by PA Commonwealth Court (see 
A portion of Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) running through Clermont, PA (in McKean County) exploded and caused a fire in a remote part of the town (wooded area) last Tuesday evening (see 
NATIONAL: Studies show EVs Dems insist you buy are worse for environment and lower quality; The many reasons ESG is a loser; Soaring U.S. production can’t keep LNG prices in check; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC will struggle to balance supply and demand in 2023; Europe becomes top market for USA crude; Saudi crown prince says unrealistic energy policies lead to higher inflation.
According to Bloomberg, natural gas is “the hottest commodity in the world” right now. Since the start of last year, the price natural gas fetches in Europe has risen a staggering 700 percent! In a separate article from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the EIA points out the Henry Hub NYMEX price of natgas has doubled over the past 12 months. Natural gas, says Bloomberg, now rivals oil as the fuel that shapes geopolitics. And there isn’t enough of it to go around. This is a golden opportunity for the U.S. to produce and export more of it.
As he promised to do, Allegheny County, PA County Executive Rich Fitzgerald vetoed a horrible bill passed by County Council that would prohibit drilling and fracking *under* county-owned parks (see 
Sometimes it’s hard not to despair when you see big investment firms aggressively trying to defund oil and gas companies (see 
Last November, Congressional Democrats (and a few RINO Republicans) passed the $1.2 trillion boondoggle referred to as the Biden infrastructure bill (see 
You know we’re not big fans of the American Petroleum Institute (API), an organization run by Big Oil companies (like Exxon and Chevron) that actively works against the best interests of smaller independent shale energy producers. API supports an oil and gas-killing carbon tax, as just one example of its fossil fuel heresy. Yet the API has suddenly grown a spine and is attacking President Biden’s pathetic begging trip to Saudi Arabia to ask OPEC to increase oil production. API even released a new video inviting Biden to visit American energy sites following his failed Middle East visit to learn how American energy companies can solve the problem of high gasoline prices.
For the week of July 4-10, the three Marcellus/Utica states issued 37 permits to drill new shale wells. Pennsylvania led the way, as it typically does, by issuing 25 new permits. Three PA drillers tied with six permits each, all six (in each case) on the same pad: Olympus Energy in Allegheny County, Repsol in Bradford County, and Clean Energy Exploration in Tioga County. Ohio issued five new permits, with four going to Encino Energy for a single pad in Carroll County. West Virginia issued seven new permits, all of them to Antero Resources in Doddridge County but spread across three pads.
Wow! What a difference two years can make. At the dawn of the pandemic, the share price for publicly traded oil and gas stocks (in particular Marcellus/Utica drillers) was in the basement. With the pandemic now in the rearview mirror (we hope), and demand increasing for both oil and natural gas, the price of oil and gas has skyrocketed, and along with it, O&G companies are raking in the cash. How are M-U drillers using their newfound piles of cash to compensate investors?
We’ve been keeping an eye on articles that appear with increasing regularity from the D.C. swamp hinting that West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is talking with New York Senator Chuck “the schmuck” Schumer about Biden’s harebrained New Green Deal bill that would shut down even more fossil energy and soar inflation above the currently unbelievable level of 9.1%. The Washington Post, in particular, is pressuring Manchin to go along and pass a bill hoping it will help the Democrats win in November. Since appealing to Manchin’s loyalty to the Democrat Party is going nowhere, the Dems have decided to bribe Manchin by promising him the moon–including a fast track to finish the 94% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Will Joe Manchin cave and trade away the country’s future in return for completing an important M-U pipeline? Will Washington Dems torpedo MVP if Manchin doesn’t play along? He’s on the horns of a dilemma.