Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Susquehanna County
Cabot O&G Asks Judge to Make Dimock Anti Pay for Extortion, Slander
Cabot Oil & Gas is tired of being sued, and slandered, by people like Dimock resident Ray Kemble and his ambulance-chasing lawyers. So in August Cabot sued back–for $5 million (see Cabot O&G Countersues Dimock Anti, Lawyers). Kemble lives in Dimock Township, in Susquehanna County, PA. Kemble and other families claimed Cabot’s drilling in the area (10 years ago) caused problems with their water wells–a claim strongly refuted by Cabot.
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EQT, now the largest natural gas producer in the United States since adding Rice Energy to the fold, has major assets in West Virginia–wells and leased acreage. The company also has a lot of influence in the state–in the judiciary (see 
In October, local officials in Plum, PA (Allegheny County) approved a plan by Huntley & Huntley (H&H) to drill a series of Marcellus wells on a single well pad in their municipality (see 
We found this story illustrative of the rank hypocrisy so prevalent in our beloved home state of New York. Even the most cursory follower of shale energy knows that our corrupt governor, Andrew Cuomo, decided to ban shale fracking in the Empire State in 2015 (see 
Yesterday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California (sometimes referred to as the Ninth Circus) heard arguments from the Trump Administration, representing the federal government, and from lawyers representing children they are mentally abusing and who have filed a lawsuit that aims to force the end of the use of all fossil fuels in the United States–in the name of so-called man-made global warming (see yesterday’s post for background: 
Yes, we must revisit the topic of “fracking causes earthquakes” yet again (sigh). But maybe this time something good will come of our discussion. Researchers at Stanford University (crazy California) have discovered a way to detect thousands of faint, “previously missed earthquakes” triggered by fracking and by injection wells. “The technique can be used to monitor seismic activities at fracking operations to help reduce the likelihood of bigger, potentially damaging earthquakes from occurring,” according to a published research study. By now you know our standard explanation, the facts about fracking and earthquakes: (1) Injection wells can and do cause detectable earthquakes–when they are located over faults. (2) Fracking shale wells rarely causes detectable earthquakes. We know of perhaps a half dozen times when fracking a well, which again happened to be over a fault, caused an earthquake. Out of the millions of fracked wells that have been drilled. Statistically speaking–fracking doesn’t cause earthquakes–detectable earthquakes, that is. You have to understand something about earthquakes and fracking. From the Standord researchers: “Earthquakes generated by fracking are typically no larger than magnitude 0. That’s equivalent to the amount of energy released when a milk carton hits the floor after falling off a counter.” However, every now and again an earthquake will hit a 1 or even 2 magnitude. Above 2 is barely noticeable by humans. What the Stanford researchers have done is to figure out how to monitor seismicity when fracking (or injecting wastewater into wells), and use that information to predict when the activity may lead to triggering a larger quake. Now that is useful information…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: New report finds Marcellus Shale dev unrelated to PA mortality rates; OH nukes face competition from gas-fired plants; enviro groups sue to block Mountain Valley Pipe; lies, bad lies, and natgas statistics; natgas price roller coaster has become a falling knife; will natgas prices explode; new shale era is age of the engineer; 2 new LNG export bills introduced in Congress; Rick Perry grants FERC 30 day extension on grid reliability plan; o&g industry pays black STEM pros more than others; Indian government looks to spur more shale drilling; cracker oil pipeline in UK causes spike in oil prices worldwide; and more!
An MDN reader recently asked us, “Hey, what’s up with the Belmont County, OH ethane cracker? We haven’t read anything in a while.” You haven’t read anything on MDN, nor anywhere else, because there’s been nothing to read. PTT Global Chemical, based in Thailand, announced in April 2015 they are interested in building a $5 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH (see 
Last Thursday the the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) request to block of construction of Millennium Pipeline’s Valley Lateral Project (see 
In May MDN brought you the news that Noble Energy dropped a bombshell, selling its 100% interest in 385,000 Marcellus/Utica acres and wells producing 415 million cubic feet equivalent of natural gas in West Virginia and Pennsylvania for $1.225 billion to HG Energy (see 
We have a couple of important signs that Dominion and Duke Energy, the main sponsors of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, are getting ready to begin building the pipeline. Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a $5 billion, 594-mile natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. Years after the project filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), it was finally approved by FERC in October (see 
The legal beagles at the Vorys energy law firm have been keeping a close eye on court cases in Ohio that affect the oil and gas industry. Two of those cases caught our attention as being worthy of mention because they have the potential to affect Utica Shale rights owners, and conversely drillers, in the Buckeye State. In one case, a landowner thought she could terminate a lease by not picking up her mail and depositing royalty checks in the mail. Just ignore the mail and claim the driller wasn’t paying up. Oops. Nice try, but that didn’t fly in court. In another case, a landowner with an old oil & gas lease (dating back to the 1970s) tried to break the lease because the driller is happy as a clam to simply get gas out of conventional/vertical/shallow wells, and not go after (or allow someone else to go after) the deeper shale layers. The landowner tried to get the court to at least agree to free up the deeper layers so he could lease those–but no dice. The court found the existing lease is producing in “paying quantities” and under the terms of the lease, the landowner does not have the right to sever the lower layers from the upper layers. Here’s the details, with copies of the respective court decisions…
Last week MDN’s favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, posted an article about the increase in LNG exports from the United States. The article highlighted the one existing and five forthcoming LNG export facilities that are changing the world energy picture by exporting (literally) boatloads American natural gas. The existing, going-full-bore LNG export plant is Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass plant, located on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Two of the five forthcoming plants (Cove Point and Elba Island) are located on the East Coast–Maryland and Georgia respectively. Cove Point is due to begin exports this month (see 
The lefty propagandists, who refer to themselves as “editors” of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, are at it again. Last Friday they ran an editorial calling out State Rep. Eli Evankovich, a Republican from Murrysville, saying he should be “ashamed of himself.” Why? Did he secretly use false personas of his own constituents to attack the oil and gas industry? No, that was State Rep. Jesse White, whom the Post-Gazette “editors” were strangely silent about (see 
This is sick. Grab your barf bag before you read it. A group of radical adults have brainwashed (we’d call it mentally abused) a group of children to the point the children are allowing their abusers to use them in a lawsuit against the United States government–to force the government to turn over its sovereignty to other nations in the name of man-made global warming. In August 2015, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by a group of left coast radicalized children who want to force the federal government to become communist and “force action” on mythical climate change (see 
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events.