ME2 Landowner/Protester Admits to Some of Her Crimes, $25K Bail
Yesterday we told you that a Pennsylvania landowner from Huntingdon County, PA, Ellen Gerhart, was arrested on Friday for violating a court order to not interfere with Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline work being done on her property (see Central PA Landowner Arrested, Jailed for Violating ME2 Court Order). Although Gerhart is due for a hearing before a judge on Friday, there was a preliminary hearing yesterday. Gerhart “attended” by video conference because she’s being held in a neighboring county jail (Huntingdon doesn’t have facilities to house female prisoners). Under questioning, Gerhart admitted her actions were intended “to annoy and harass” ME2 workers by her actions. What were those actions? She admitted placing meat close to the construction site in order to attract bears. She also admitted setting small fires in bottles/cans, hinting to workers that they might explode (like a Molotov cocktail). She remains in jail, for now. Yesterday the judge set bail at $25,000…
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The Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline project is an expansion of the existing Algonquin pipeline system designed to carry 342 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to New England states that badly need the gas. On March 3, 2015 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued their final approval for the project, allowing it to go forward. Construction began in 2015 and, following extreme opposition from New York State over a small portion of the project, it finally went online in late 2016. New York’s radical, anti-drilling governor, Andrew Cuomo, tried to stop the Algonquin using the flimsy excuse that some of the drilling for the pipeline would happen a half mile from a nuclear power plant–a plant that’s shutting down anyway. A few weeks after Cuomo requested FERC shut it down, FERC told him “no”–which was the cue for Big Green groups to file an appeal with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to force FERC to rehear/reconsider their approval (see 
The usual suspects from Johns Hopkins University, working with researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have completely soiled themselves this time. It’s really kind of embarrassing. In a “study” just published in Nature, researchers claim they have found a link between living near fracking sites in Pennsylvania and an increased incidence of being *mildly* depressed. We get mildly depressed just reading this drivel. Maybe there’s a link between junk science and mild depression? Launch a study! The research team this time around includes a fellow from the Post Carbon Institute, a rabidly anti-fossil fuel organization that has called fracking a “virus.” You can tell just how biased and false this study truly is just based on the wackos who published it. The “study” is titled, “Associations of unconventional natural gas development with depression symptoms and disordered sleep in Pennsylvania” (full copy below). It’s not even real research. They used a bunch of medical records from a local hospital network (Geisinger) and didn’t actually interview anyone themselves. Totally made up. Total fiction. That’s what you need to know about the latest attack on Marcellus drilling…
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: UGI CNG filling station will lower customer natgas bills; Pittsburgh energy attorney nominated by Trump for U.S. District judge seat in PA; judge dismisses San Fran’s climate lawsuit because global warming is a global issue; U.S. energy costs are going down, thx to shale; U.S. crude oil production/exports hit record highs; U.S. GDP through the roof thx to shale; Supreme Court refuses to toss children’s climate lawsuit; Congress wants to give FERC workers a raise; Saudi-Russia mega cartel just a pipe dream; Europe pledges to take more U.S. gas; and more!
An interesting development on Friday, when the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued a press release to announced that three radical environmental groups have dropped their objections to permits the DEP previously granted for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. Clean Air Council, Mountain Watershed Association, and THE Delaware Riverkeeper “settled” their appeal of 20 permits issued to Sunoco for the ME2 project. What does it mean that they “settled?” According to the announcement, “The settlement does not alter any of the 20 permits in the appeal.” In other words, this is face-saving by the radical groups. They backed down. Gave up. Threw in the towel–recognizing that ME2 is about to be completed. In other words, they’ve lost. And we won! We love saying that. No matter how hard the radicals tried to spin the news (via their affiliated mouthpieces, like StateImpact Pennsylvania), you simply can’t gloss over the fact that they’ve backed down…
The Sierra Club and two other far-out, radical “environmental” groups have scored a minor victory in convincing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to overturn permits issued by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that allows EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline to cross 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest in West Virginia and Virginia. The court says USFS and BLM didn’t come to the right conclusion about sedimentation and erosion impacts of MVP. The judges (who don’t know a thing about these issues) say USFS and BLM’s contention that impacts can be adequately mitigated is in error. Ever notice how some judges love to tell other people how to do their jobs? In practical terms, the decision is merely an irritation–affecting maybe 1% of the overall project. But the broader implications are troubling. The Clubbers and their friends have a similar case against MVP at the same court (Fourth Circuit) that asks the court to block construction of MVP throughout Virginia on the theory that a stream crossing permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is faulty (see 
One of our favorite Marcellus drillers, Cabot Oil & Gas, issued their second quarter 2018 update on Friday. Some of the highlights include: net income doubling, from $21.5 million to $42.4 million year over year; drilled 24 and completed 23 wells (down just a tad y/y, from 27 drilled and 26 completed in 2Q17); and Marcellus production was 1.89 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), a new all-time high, up 4% from first quarter 2018. Cabot’s CEO Dan Dinges talked about the company ending its dalliance with the Permian Basin, shutting down “exploratory area #1” in 2Q18, but continuing work on “exploratory area #2”–which is in central Ohio. He said more details on Ohio exploration will be forthcoming in the Q3 update. As we looked through the official update, the PowerPoint slide deck and a transcript of the conference call (all below), we found a few more items that caught our interest. (1) Cabot says they have another 35 years worth of drilling to do in the Marcellus, with the current leases they have in place. (2) The “break even” price at which they begin to make money has now gone all the way down to just under one dollar per Mcf. (3) The company’s plans still count on the Constitution Pipeline getting built. (4) Train 1 of the Lackawanna Energy Center (gas-fired electric plant near Scranton) is up and running and burning 70 Mmcf/d of Cabot’s Marcellus gas, train 2 will be online by October 1st, and train 3 by December 1st. Here’s the good news from Cabot…
Bureaucrats deeply embedded in the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are engaged in denying private property owners with property in the Ohio Wayne National Forest (WNF) their property rights. That’s the very serious (and true) charge being levied by members of the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO). After “seven years of inaction,” property owners in WNF have taken their case to Washington, D.C.–to elected representatives from Ohio, along with federal agencies–in hopes of getting Utica drilling under way in WNF. After 10 long years, the BLM finally auctioned 719 acres in WNF in December 2016 (see 
Every Friday afternoon from 4 to 5:30 pm, a single protesters (typically just one person) stand on a corner in Annville (Lebanon County), PA holding a sign to protest pipelines and fossil fuel energy. The selected protester, from a group calling itself Lebanon Pipeline Awareness, stands on a corner wearing clothes and sneakers made from plastics–i.e. fossil fuels. Sporting a sign made from materials that include fossil fuels. The protester was transported to that location using vehicles made from fossil fuels (loaded with plastic) and powered by fossil fuels (gasoline). The protester comes from a home or apartment heated and cooled with fossil fuels. The anti group alerted the media to come take a look at the “protest” by using computers made from and powered by fossil fuels. The protester drinks water from a plastic bottle–made from fossil fuels–as he/she stands there holding a fossil-fuel-made sign. And yet, these people are there to protest fossil fuels! Does anyone else see how utterly pathetic this is? How dishonest? How truly nutty?…
Below is an audio recording (“podcast”) featuring the Top 5 stories most read over the past week on MDN. Just click on the green button to listen. Below the recording is a list of the Top 5 with links to click to read the full stories (available only for subscribers). This list is meant as a way for folks to quickly catch up on the most essential news of the week–“essential” as determined by MDN’s audience of readers. Enjoy!
In what is perhaps the second biggest thing to hit Ohio since maybe the plow (the first being the Utica Shale, borrowing a phrase from Aubrey McClendon), Chesapeake Energy announced yesterday it is selling ALL of its 933,000 Ohio acres (including 320,000 net Utica acres) and 920 operated and non-operated Ohio Utica wells to Encino Acquisition Partners for $2 billion. This is truly big news! Encino Energy is a young company, founded in 2011, headquartered in Houston, TX. Last year Encino formed a partnership with Canada Pension Plan Investment Board to form Encino Acquisition Partners. It is the Encino subsidiary that is buying Chessy’s Ohio Utica assets. The burning question is, Will Encino drill more wells? Or just sit on its new acquisition? Based on how they describe themselves, we think Encino is going to pursue an active drilling program in the Ohio Utica. According to their own boilerplate, the company’s mission is to, “focus on driving long-term investor returns by acquiring and developing high-quality assets with an established base of production and a large, low-cost development inventory across the lower 48 states of the United States.” They’ve certainly acquired a high-quality asset with an established base of production and it has a large, low-cost development inventory. All the boxes are checked in buying Chesapeake’s Utica assets. So we’ll hold Encino to their word that they will “develop” it–meaning drill new wells. Chesapeake plans to use the $2 billion to pay down some of their ginormous debt…
The main economic development agency in Otsego County, NY, known as Otsego Now, is working on a plan to build a “decompressor” in the Oneonta area to help with natural gas supplies. The proposed facility is described as “a decompression station for compressed natural gas deliveries by truck to supplement resources.” Here’s the problem. On really cold and really hot days, there’s not enough natural gas in the region, and some large users of gas (they get gas from local utility NYSEG), actually have to stop using gas and switch to oil as a backup. It’s nuts. Apparently NYSEG (New York State Electric & Gas, owned by Spainish-based Iberdrola) isn’t in the mood to upgrade a local pipeline that brings gas to the area. So to overcome lack of gas, the local econ development people are trying to chase down grants to build a decompression station, to accept CNG from a virtual pipeline (trucked in CNG), converting the compressed gas back to normal pressure so it can flow through NYSEG’s less-than-adequate pipelines in the area to large gas users that need it…