Utica Shale Academy Gets $200K Grant from State Dept. of Ed.
In August 2014 the Utica Shale Academy (USA), a new high school dedicated to training workers for the Utica Shale industry, opened its doors in Columbiana County with 24 students (see Utica Shale Academy Gets Enough Students to Open, Help from TX Co). USA is a public school, funded by the state–so it costs students and their parents nothing. Last year USA had 44 students, and this year enrollment is already at 62. The big news is that USA (and the local high school where USA shares facilities) has just received a $200,000 grant.
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It seems we are just now beginning to come out of the COVID-19 stupor. Folks are shopping a little bit more. Drive-in theaters are popping up on every corner. Camping has certainly made a big comeback. But there are still a few areas where normalcy has not returned–like in-person conferences and events. Until now, that is. Two important M-U events–
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: DEP accepting comments on Texas Eastern Pipeline Conemaugh River crossing, compressor station replacement; Chamber salute to feature U.S. Assistant Energy Secretary; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Equinor to support Bitcoin mining in US with repurposed natural gas; Laura batters Lake Charles, spares Gulf Coast refiners; Hurricane-related shut-ins curb 82% of oil, 59% of natural gas output in U.S. Gulf of Mexico, regulator says; NATIONAL: Changing demand for petroleum products has led to operational changes at U.S. refineries; America needs energy policies that won’t harm families, businesses with high costs, less reliability; Three reasons that natural gas trucks are worth considering right now; Natural gas: near-term pullback expected, but longer-term outlook turning more bullish.
And that’s that! The first of 10 LNG (liquefied natural gas) mini-trains at Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island, Georgia export facility went online in December of last year (see 
Pipeline builder Otis Eastern, headquartered in Wellsville, NY (western part of Upstate) has built a lot of pipelines throughout the northeast since its founding in 1936. In recent years the company has worked on a number of Marcellus/Utica projects, including Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2 project and National Fuel Gas Company’s Marcellus Gas to Market project. Otis is selling itself for an undisclosed amount to a much larger company, Artera Services, LLC, based in Atlanta, Georgia.
We’ll ask the question no one else dares to ask publicly: How many more Ohio legislators are in the back pocket of FirstEnergy (i.e. Energy Harbor), guilty of taking part in an alleged $60 million bribery scandal that paid politicians to ensure Energy Harbor would get $1.1 billion of ratepayers’ money to prop up their economically failing nuclear power plants? It sure seems like there may be other Ohio legislators who have been paid off too, given their unwillingness to support the effort to overturn House Bill (HB) 6 and end the gravy train for Energy Harbor.
Evolution Well Services, headquartered in Houston with a regional office in Pittsburgh, specializes in “electric” fracking–using natural gas from the well pad (instead of diesel fuel) to power turbines to create electricity that drives fracking pumps. Evolution fracks for at least one Marcellus/Utica E&P (see 
It’s been two weeks since we’ve updated the Enverus onshore rig count numbers. The good news is that the Marcellus/Utica region is staying steady with the Marcellus at 25 active rigs and the Utica at 6 active rigs (paltry numbers compared to months and years past). The bad news is that the count for the entire country is down from 280 a few weeks ago to 275 as of yesterday. That’s still higher than the record low of 264 in July.
It’s been an uphill battle to complete Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile Marcellus/Utica gas pipeline from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA. The project has been vigorously opposed by radical environmentalists from the beginning. Frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit has been filed by Big Green groups bankrolled by billionaires. Finally in June Equitrans, the builder, said they should be able to complete the 92% done pipeline by next spring (see 
Oil and gas drilling giant Equinor (formerly called Statoil) is owned by the Norwegian government. Equinor/Statoil has drilled in the Marcellus/Utica for years. As recently as June 2019 the company reported drilling 9-14 Utica wells per year (see 
We have chronicled the break between trade unions and Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf over Wolf’s stubborn insistence on forcing the state to join a carbon tax scheme called RGGI–the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (
Yesterday MDN told you that Range Resources is planning to operate at net-zero carbon within the next five years, by 2025 (see