Captain Planet Cartoon that Brainwashed Kids, Now a Foundation!
You know, for years we’ve poked fun at green leftists, saying they were raised watching Captain Planet cartoons–and that’s what warped their brains. Little did we know how right we were in our jocularity! Captain Planet was a cartoon created and produced by Ted Turner & Barbara Pyle, airing from 1990-1996. Did you know that there’s now a foundation, endowed with big bucks, called The Captain Planet Foundation? No lie! It was set up in 2001, funded by Turner and other lefty whack jobs. This is what we’re up against folks. The Captain Planet cartoon, brainchild of radical leftist Democrat Ted Turner (Turner Broadcasting), intentionally brainwashed a generation of our children, planting kindergartenish, simpleton ideas into our children’s heads. Unfortunately some of our kids never grew up. Not intellectually. Some of them still harbor childish, immature ideas that corporations are out to “loot and plunder”–there’s a character in CP cartoons called Looten Plunder, no lie. Do you know how silly it looks to support a foundation based on a kid’s cartoon?…
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The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Dominion Energy/SCANA merger achieves another key milestone; Alamance County, NC commissioners oppose Mountain Valley Pipeline; Schlumberger CEO warns transport constraints to slow shale gains; Venture Global’s two Louisiana projects would double U.S. LNG exports; Investing in the Energy Sector 101; Stanford researchers discuss how to reduce major cause of oil and gas production emissions; Natural gas is already a bridge fuel; Melting Arctic creates new opportunities for LNG; Big Oil’s LNG obsession; and more!
In an act still befuddling for us, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice fired Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher in June (see 
The Marcellus and Utica Shale layers in Southwestern Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia and eastern Ohio produce a boatload of NGLs–natural gas liquids. One company had the foresight to plan a strategy to separate, transport and sell those NGLs. That company was MarkWest Energy, now known as MPLX following a purchase by/merger into Marathon Petroleum. MarkWest’s plan is firing on all cylinders. The experts at RBN Energy have analyzed MarkWest’s initial strategy, now largely complete, and their long-term strategy, still in the works, to give us a great snapshot of how NGLs are moving from our region to Midwestern and Canadian markets…
This another one of those high finance thangs we don’t fully understand. Dominion Energy spent $4 billion to build their Cove Point LNG export facility in Lusby, Maryland. Somehow and somewhere they got money to build it–investors perhaps, or maybe Dominion had some cash tucked away under the corporate mattress. Dominion wants to get some of that debt off its books, so it has just structured a three-year loan with 20 lenders for $3 billion, reducing the company’s “parent level debt”–as opposed to child or subsidiary level debt. What it all means, if we’re understanding it correctly, is that Dominion is moving debt from the parent company’s balance sheet to the Cove Point subsidiary company’s balance sheet. Prior to this, Cove Point “owed” the money to Dominion itself (all in the family), and now, instead, the Cove Point subsidiary will owe that money to lenders directly. That’s our take. Hopefully it won’t take long for Cove Point to pay off the debt…
Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay) is the world’s largest oilfield services company. They’re the company a majority of exploration and production companies (drillers) call when they want a new well drilled. The #2 company on speed dial for drilling new wells is Halliburton, and they’re not even close in size to #1 Schlumberger. Here in the U.S., the #3 company on speed dial for drilling is Baker Hughes, still (for now) owned by GE. We mention all that because most folks recognize the names Halliburton and Baker Hughes, yet are often not familiar with the hard-to-pronounce Schlumberger. Even so, Schlumberger has a big presence in the Marcellus/Utica region. In a gesture of “giving back,” the company has just made a VERY generous grant of $14 million of its own proprietary software used for modeling and assessing risk associated with drilling new wells, to Youngstown State University. Most major E&Ps use Schlumberger’s software, even if they don’t use Schlumberger itself to do the actual drilling. While at first glance the gift of software may seem self-serving, it’s not. This gift means that students will be trained on the latest and greatest software that they will need to know, coming right out of college. It helps the kids gain a valuable skill, making them more employable once they hit the workforce…
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events. To have your event included (or if you are aware of a worthy event you believe should be on this page), please send the details and/or a link to have it included to the calendar@marcellusdrilling.com email address.
As we reported yesterday, EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) got some excellent news–that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had lifted a stop-work order on the project (see 
Sometimes counties (and local towns) try to seize power that’s not theirs constitutionally. Particularly when they’re led by liberal Democrats who like to arbitrarily make up their own oil and gas regulations. Such is the case in Fayette County, WV. Most oil and gas regulation is done at the state level–it is a state function. Unless it’s a pipeline that crosses several states. Those projects are regulated at the federal level, to protect citizens in neighboring states from arbitrary and capricious actions (like those New York is engaged in). Counties don’t get to decide whether or not to allow an injection well, or a pipeline. Yet the lib Dems in Fayette believe they can make those decisions. And now, for the second time in two years, a federal court has slapped them down. Two time losers. In August 2017, Fayette County lost a federal court case to block injection wells in the county (see 
Earlier this week CrowdOut Capital announced they have arranged a private, non-bank loan for frack sand company Shale Support to fund “the acquisition of two sand mines, spanning over 1,000 acres that contain more than 100 million tons of recoverable high-grade frac sand, which are located near the prolific shale plays in the southeastern U.S.” No details on the amount of the loan nor the names/location of the sand mines were released. However, as we reported in early July, Shale Support announced a deal to buy two sand mines in Louisiana (see 
The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) continues to offer its popular 100% free training program (worth $3,500) for those interested in a career building pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica region. Starting salaries often exceed $40,000 per year, and a six-figure income is attainable for employees with time and experience. Companies supporting the GTI program have told GTI they anticipate hiring 1,100+ workers over the next two years. There’s no excuse! If you want a high-paying job, get the 4-week training and get yourself to work. Because of ongoing construction programs within the utility and pipeline industry, and because of aging workforce retirements, the M-U pipeline industry has an acute need for reliable gas pipeline workers. The next round of free training, limited to 20 students per section, begins on Sept. 24 at Belmont College in St. Clairsville, OH…
As we reported in March, Empire Pipeline, the midstream (pipeline) subsidiary of National Fuel Gas Company, filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build two new compressor stations along the Empire Pipeline–one in Tioga County, PA, the other in Ontario County, NY (see