NY Republican Candidate for Governor Wants to Reverse Frack Ban
Candidate for governor of New York State running on the Republican line, Lee Zeldin, is pushing to reverse the now-permanent ban on fracking in the state. The frack ban was enacted into law as part of a sneaky budget bill Andrew Cuomo signed in 2020 while everyone was distracted with COVID (see Cuomo PERMANENTLY Bans NY Fracking in Now-Adopted Budget). One of Zeldin’s key campaign planks is to allow fracking for natural gas (and oil) in the state. Is this possible? Or is it false hope?
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NATIONAL: Oil rallies as strong US demand eases recession fears; EIA expects production of global liquid fuels to outpace consumption in 2022; U.S. LNG upside seen limited by pipeline capacity constraints; Amid lackluster production, $13 natural gas said possible; Oil giants must face climate-liability suits in states, appeals court rules; Europeans risk death by cold for green folly, and we could be next; Private-equity firms with oil-and-gas focus defend sector; INTERNATIONAL: NFE, Apollo complete $2B LNG maritime joint venture.
Coterra Energy was formed by the merger of Cabot Oil & Gas (Marcellus gas driller) with Cimarex Energy (Permian gas driller) last October (see 
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (Traitor Joe) from West Virginia made a huge gamble in agreeing to vote for the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Manchin got an agreement from Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to allow a vote on a separate bill sometime in the fall that will help the stalled 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (94% done) to get completed. The gamble is that Pelosi will actually allow a vote and, if so, that she will use her iron fist to ensure it passes. Legal experts have reviewed the “deal” Manchin made with the devil and conclude it’s far from certain MVP will finish.
The dirty deed is done. Dementia Joe signed the so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law yesterday, and the country is harmed because of it. Tens of thousands of jobs will be lost. Businesses will close shop. It’s a pretty dystopian future we face thanks to a bill passed with absolutely no Republican votes. But face it we must. One of the first orders of business is to figure out how the new methane tax will work and to who it applies. Will LNG export facilities be subject to this incredibly harmful tax? Nobody knows. In fact, nobody knows how the tax will work, given certain loopholes baked into the bill at the last minute. The IRA is yet another exercise in total confusion by the Democrat left.
Volatility is defined as “liability to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse.” Price volatility is the price of something (like natural gas) making big swings, both up and down, quickly and without warning. For years the price of natural gas was pretty much constant–it moved up or down here or there, but in very small increments. In fact, on MDN, we called the price of natgas, which was stuck under $3/MMBtu, “lower for longer.” But those days are now behind us. The price of natgas is high, and the swings up and down in the price for natgas are extreme. According to a new analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), natural gas price volatility hit an all-time high during the first quarter of 2022.
Last week the Bidenistas expanded the federal bureaucracy once again by adding two new offices, complete with top-level apparatchiks to mismanage them. The new offices are part of the Department of Energy, which is managed by the dullest tool in Biden’s cabinet toolshed–Jennifer Granholm. The new bureaucracies are (1) the Grid Deployment Office, and (2) the Office of State and Community Energy Programs. Together the two operations will funnel $23 billion of taxpayer money to favored Democrat donors and sycophants under the guise of modernizing and expanding the capacity of our nation’s power grid, and deploying cheaper, cleaner energy across the fruited plain.
We spotted the following headline from EIA’s latest “Today in Energy” post: “EIA expects renewables to account for 22% of U.S. electricity generation in 2022.” Wow! Look at that renewable energy growing! Except when you dig into the numbers, you find the headline is VERY misleading. Renewables, which include not only wind and solar but hydropower and burning wood (causes CO2 emissions) together contributed 20% of all our electricity in 2021. EIA predicts that will rise 2% to 22% in 2022. Big whup. It’s a nothingburger.
Gas Field Specialists, headquartered in Potter County, PA, is an oilfield services (OFS) company that works in the Marcellus Shale in northern Pennsylvania. The company also does OFS work in western New York State. According to a settlement reached with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Gas Field Specialists will pay a former employee (rig worker/mechanic) $184,000 after firing him because he had cancer.
In February 2021, Northern Oil and Gas, Inc., a company that invests in non-operated oil and gas assets (they let others do the drilling), announced it had purchased 64,000 net acres producing ~120 MMcfe/d (million cubic feet equivalent per day) in the Marcellus/Utica from Reliance Industries Limited (see 
Are Pioneer Natural Resources, Devon Energy, and ConocoPhillips out of their cotton-pickin’ minds?! Those three U.S.-based oil and gas majors have voluntarily given up control of the future of their companies to the United Nations by agreeing to participate in a U.N. program that tracks methane emissions. This is how it works: The U.N. sets the standard and then gets suckers to join it voluntarily. Later, when the standard has been accepted and most companies use it, the U.N. will then bring the hammer down, expanding the standard, making it so restrictive that oil and gas companies can’t follow it. At that point, those who are enrolled in the standard can’t do anything about it. If a company leaves the program, it will be ostracized and no one will buy its oil and gas. The smart thing to do is to tell the U.N., a non-U.S. entity, to get lost.
In July, MDN told you about the newest chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO), the Ohio chapter (see 
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A company called Strive, an Ohio-based asset management firm formed with the backing of two billionaires–Bill Ackman and Peter Thiel–is on a mission to educate and influence companies away from ESG obsession. In July, we told you about Strive and that the company, a counterweight to woke lefty funds like BlackRock, had already raised $20 million (see