Big Ad Campaign Starts in Ohio to Repeal HB 6 Nuke Bailout Law
FirstEnergy Solutions (now called Energy Harbor) allegedly paid $60 million in bribes to (now former) Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his associates to gain their assistance in passing the hugely unpopular House Bill 6 (see FirstEnergy Involved in Bribery Scheme to Pass $1B Nuke Bailout Law). HB 6, which became law, gives Energy Harbor $150 million per year for seven years ($1.1 billion) in ratepayer funds to prop up the company’s uneconomic nuclear power plants (disadvantaging other energy sources, like gas-fired power plants). A new ad campaign intends to hold Ohio legislators’ feet to the fire in an effort to completely repeal HB 6.
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Sen. Yaw among state, national leaders pledging to keep country dominant natural gas producer; Health care providers request governor, DOH to ‘better protect Pennsylvanians from the health effects of shale gas development’; NATIONAL: Storm-related production decline boosts natural gas futures; Lower 48 E&P universe forecast to shrink, ‘starved for capital’ as liquidity dries up; Summit Midstream Partners appoints James Johnston EVP, General Counsel & Chief Compliance Officer; U.S. LNG as swing supply amid shifting global market balance; Adapt or die: oilfield services sector seeks ways to weather difficult market.
CNX was fracking their Shaw 1G Utica well in Washington Township (Westmoreland County) in early 2019 when they detected “a strong drop in pressure” and stopped fracking (see 
Last Thursday Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report–for April through June 2020 (full copy below). The report shows natgas production in PA rose 2.8% compared to the same period last year. However, overall production fell 2.8% compared to 1Q20–the second quarter in a row production has fallen quarter-over-quarter.
Last December both Rover Pipeline and NEXUS Pipeline, two large Utica-gas pipelines traversing Ohio, appealed their property tax valuations to the Ohio Dept. of Taxation, looking to trim their tax bills in Stark County by up to 50% (see 
Two weeks ago while drilling in Chester County in Marsh Creek State Park, Energy Transfer’s Mariner East (ME) 2X pipeline experienced an “inadvertent return”–nontoxic drilling mud coming up out of the ground where it’s not supposed to (see 
MDN is taking today off. For a couple of reasons. One is a vacation day. The other is that we recently (overnight) updated the site to the latest version of WordPress, the software we use to run the site. 
Pittsburgh-based IntegrServ, a trucking company partly owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis, filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against EQT claiming discrimination against the company as a minority-owned company after it canceled a contract worth some $66 million last year. This is an involved story and of course, there are always two sides to every story (and two sides to every lawsuit).
Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica. Peregrine announced yesterday the company has cut a deal to buy “producing royalties in Doddridge County, West Virginia from several private sellers.” The private sellers are landowners/rights owners with wells drilled by Antero Resources and Jay-Bee Oil & Gas. No details on how much the deal was for.
FirstEnergy Solutions (now called Energy Harbor) allegedly paid $60 million in bribes to (now former) Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his associates to gain their assistance in passing the hugely unpopular House Bill 6 (see 
Ohio’s oil and natural gas producers via OOGEEP (Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Program) have just launched a major statewide public awareness campaign dubbed Essential Ohio Energy. The campaign includes (so far) two TV commercials (we have both embedded below). OOGEEP is spending big money to blanket the state and remind folks of the key role played by fossil fuels in every single aspect of their lives. We need to see more of this kind of thing.
We spotted a great editorial in an Ohio newspaper that succinctly and accurately describes what will happen in Ohio if Joe Biden’s environmental socialism program (cost of $2 trillion) actually gets implemented. What would happen? Some 700,000 jobs in Ohio will disappear. So too will some $245 billion in Ohio GDP (gross domestic product). It is, literally, a nightmare.