Rockefellers Use New Front Group to Advance Climate Liability Campaign

A new website is wading into the global warming blame game, attempting to link severe weather to climate change. But an EID review shows that the researchers are not scientists, but rather PR professionals funded by the wealthy Rockefellers.

The website, called Climate Signals, released a report this week that “presents the results of a comprehensive literature review and meta-analysis of studies that positively identify the fingerprint of human-caused climate change on observed trends and events.” But the “comprehensive” review actually excludes studies that don’t blame severe weather on climate change. As the authors admit: “The report does not include detection and attribution studies unable to find evidence of climate change.”

Continue reading at EID Climate.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/rockefellers-use-new-front-group-to-advance-climate-liability-campaign/

Big Green Carpetbagging: The Out-of-State Spending of Elite Foundations

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IER uses its research on Big Green funders to show how out-of-state foundations are frustrating rural economic revitalization to promote elitist schemes.

The fact that the shale revolution has saved Americans $74 billion per year and has made the U.S. the top oil producer in the world is, to put it mildly, a big deal. Even more important, however, is the fact that hydraulic fracturing has transformed and continues to transformed the lives of millions of underserved Americans.

While people and opportunities are moving from rural America and towards the largest cities, it is primarily in the places left behind that the oil and gas industry will be creating 3.5 million jobs and contributing more than a trillion dollars in state and local taxes over the next twenty years.

We have already seen miraculous revitalizations of towns in the Permian Basin of West Texas and eastern New Mexico as well as the Marcellus Formation in northern Appalachia—sparking further benefits, such as China’s $84 billion investment in West Virginia.

For these areas, increased oil and gas development is a godsend. Yet, distant from the outsize benefits that fracking has brought to Americans in the nation’s heartland, Californians are more likely to know only the alarmist claims about fracking featured in the debunked Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland.

While New York City is geographically close to the New York’s shale-rich Southern Tier, the cultural distance makes for a wide expanse: whereas crowds were split for 2011 public hearings on fracking held in upstate New York, they were roughly 99% in opposition to fracking in hearings held in Manhattan. The Manhattan crowd, which included actor Mark Ruffalo and frequently erupted into shouts, finally claimed success in 2014 when the state of New York superseded local decisions and banned fracking statewide.

Here Comes the Big Green Hulk

Not content with dictating the policies in their cities and states, coastal elites are deeply interested in influencing the policies of other areas of the country (and world). Billionaires such as William Hewlett, Eric Schmidt, and Tom Steyer have created foundations in their home cities, but the money does not stay there. With the exception of the William Penn Foundation, which is located in Philadelphia, the ten foundations covered by Big Green, Inc. are located in California, New York, and D.C., yet these foundations have granted over $600 Million to organizations in other states.

This number does not include the countless millions of dollars given to local organizations that then fund operations in other states, such the San Francisco-based Earthjustice which has brought lawsuits in Utah, Arkansas, North Dakota, Louisiana, and more. Nor does it include the money that environmental activist donors have paid to place prosecutors in state attorney general offices.

Foundation grants do not merely supplement the budgets of out-of-state environmental organizations: in many cases they are the organizations’ budgets. This monetary reliance reinforces the foundations’ influence, if not control, of what otherwise appear to be local groups. For instance, a Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Minority Staff Report described the environmental group Bold Nebraska as “a shield for wealthy and distant non-Nebraskan interests who seek to advance a political agenda without drawing attention to the fact that they, too, are outsiders with little connection to the state.” It also explained how the people and resources behind New York’s fracking ban have been working to replicate their success in Colorado:

“The same billionaire foundations behind the New York anti-fracking efforts have also moved into Colorado through two coalitions – Local Control Colorado and Frack Free Colorado, which are directly affiliated with the NY-based groups already discussed. Local Control Colorado claims to be, ‘a coalition of community, consumer and public interest groups from across Colorado’ promoting an anti-fracking ballot measure. However, they list DC-based Food & Water Watch, which is funded by CA-based Schmidt and Tides, and NY-based Park, as part of the coalition. Food & Water Watch is also listed as a partner to another member of the Local Control Colorado coalition, Frack Free Colorado (FFC). Self- described as a ‘collaborative, grassroots movement that works to raise awareness about the dangers of fracking,’ FFC’s website states the group is ‘a people’s movement that consists of concerned citizens, companies … and organizations.’ However, at least two of the organizations listed as a member of FFC – Artists Against Fracking and Food & Water Watch – are based in New York and Washington, DC. Interestingly, FFC has reportedly tried to hide its partnership with another NY-based organization, Water Defense.”

Source: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Minority Staff Report

The Tail that Wags the Dog

It is doubtful that the foundations’ targeting of Colorado was arbitrary. As a swing state, Colorado is among the first on environmental groups’ list of states to capture. Over half of the out-of-state grants made by foundations tracked in Big Green, Inc. were given to organizations in swing states; from 2008 to 2016, the foundations granted $359 Million to groups in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. These grants fit with environmental groups’ larger strategy of weakening support for Trump and Republicans in swing states.

Environmental groups are more likely to find receptive audiences with Democrats in state and federal offices, but environmental issues may not be the sole motivation. Though most environmental groups are nominally nonpartisan and single-issue, the foundations and billionaires that bankroll them have other interests as well. For instance, the Hewlett Foundation is a major financial supporter of Planned Parenthood, and Tom Steyer, the founder of the TomKat Charitable Trust, is the largest individual donor in Democratic politics. Steyer’s partisan convictions may have factored into the decision by his environmental advocacy group, NextGen Climate, to spend $25 million in 2016 for get-out-the-vote efforts targeted at young people in swing states.

Conclusion

Environmental groups’ larger political ambitions are neither unique nor surprising. But as we hear reports in the media about anti-fracking initiatives spurred by Local Control Colorado or mass demonstrations against pipelines in North Dakota, it is worth reflecting on the foundations and Billionaire’s Club that finance them. For those whose only experience with the oil and gas industry is from watching villainous executives in movies, “energy development” is a dirty word. When their out-of-state activism receives local pushback, they dismiss it as the workings of proudly ignorant racists. These people should not be dictating policy for the millions of Americans for whom energy production is part of their world and whose livelihoods, purchasing power, and communities (such as Craig, Colorado) are on the line. To follow the money behind the environmental left for yourself, visit the Institute for Energy Research’s latest project, Big Green, Inc.

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Hummel Station Tells the Story of the Shale Revolution

Jim Willis
Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)

 

Panda Power’s Hummel Station story is the story of the shale revolution; more power with less water use and radically reduced emissions. It’s a beautiful thing.

MDN told you, back in July, that Panda Power’s Marcellus gas-fired Hummel Station Power Plant, located at the Shamokin Dam along the Susquehanna River, is now “complete” and online . Hummel Station is a whopping 1,124-megawatt gas-fired electric plant built on the site of a retired coal-fired plant. This is the sequel.

The old coal plant is still there, sitting next door to the new gas-fired plant, closed down in 2014. The coal plant is set to be demolished–a process that will take up to two years due to asbestos throughout the plant. In a story about the old coal plant’s demolition, we were struck by the comparison between the coal plant and the gas plant.

The old coal plant produced 400 megawatts of electricity, the new gas plant 1,124 MW. The new gas plant produces more than twice the power, but uses 97% less water than the coal plant. The new gas plant produces 90% less sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions than the old coal plant. On and on. The differences are striking! No wonder gas is replacing coal…

In fairness, we do need to point out the old coal plant was originally built and went into service in 1949. Coal technology has changed–gotten better. So perhaps the comparison is not exactly apples to apples. Still, you can’t deny that gas plants are replacing coal plants at a rapid pace. And, for good reason.

What will occupy the space of the old coal plant? A second natgas-fired plant, of course! Here’s the story from PennLive:

A landmark former 400-megawatt coal-fired power generation plant visible from Routes 11/15 in Snyder County is to be demolished…

The plant was built by PP&L, now PPL, and went into operation in 1949. The utility sold it to Wisconsin Public Service in 1999 and Sunbury Generation bought it in 2006. The plant ceased operations in 2014.

Adjacent to the old facility is Panda Hummel Station, a 1,124 megawatt natural gas-fired generation plant that went into operation in June…

It is producing enough electricity to serve well over a million homes, general manager Mike Stahr said. Its three stacks are only 230 feet high, he noted.

Compared with the retired coal-burning facility, it is producing 180 percent more power while using approximately 97 percent less cooling water, he said.

Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions have been reduced by more than 90 percent, he added.

Its fuel is Marcellus Shale natural gas transported to the plant via a 34.4-mile pipeline from the commonwealth’s northern tier.

The same pipeline would serve a second, slightly larger natural gas power plant on the property that is in the design stage, Griegel said…

Editor’s Note: Just look at those numbers. They’re nothing less than stunning; tremendously increased power with even more tremendously reduced air pollution. This is the real story of the shale revolution and what it’s meant for Americans both economically and environmentally.

For more great articles on natural gas development every single business day, subscribe to Marcellus Drilling News using this convenient link.

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Facts & Rumors # 306 September 29, 2018

Expo/Industry events for the next few months

 WV Energy Expo 2018 October 3, 2018 Hazel and J.W. Ruby Community Center Morgantown, West Virginia http://wvenergyexpo.com/  Utica Summit October 10, 2018 Walsh University North Canton, OH http://www.uticasummit.com/ Shale Insight October 23-25, 2018 David Lawrence Conference Center Pittsburgh, PA http://shaleinsight.com/ For other events visit http://www.shaledirectories.com/site/oil-and-gas-expo-information.html

Latest facts and a rumor from the Marcellus, Utica, Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken and Niobrara Shale Plays

Williams Seeks Final Approval for Atlantic Sunrise.  Williams Companies, Inc. recently reported the completion of construction of its major Atlantic Sunrise project. The production and pipeline operator has requested for the final approval of the project by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Importantly, the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline, worth $3 billion, is an expansion of the company's Transco pipeline, which is the largest-volume natural gas transmission system in the United States. Atlantic Sunrise will have a transportation capacity of around 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas per day (Bcf/d). It will transport Marcellus shale gas from Pennsylvania to the rest of the country. The project design includes 200 miles of new greenfield pipe, two compressor facilities in Pennsylvania along with other compressor station modifications in five states. Shell Cracker On Schedule, On Budget.  Royal Dutch Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden said Tuesday development of the company’s Pennsylvania petrochemicals complex is “ahead of schedule and within budget." The ethane cracker under construction in Beaver County, 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, will produce 1.6 million tons per annum of polyethylene. The plant will process low-cost ethane from shale gas producers in the Marcellus and Utica basins. While development is progressing as planned, van Beurden said during an industry event in New York that U.S. President Donald Trump’s steel trade policies could have major consequences on the project. “It’s not fatal but it is something that can really disrupt the flow of construction and the continuity of employment and it can bring significant costs in the project itself if it is not managed properly,” he said. Shell was amongst the first oil and gas industry players to have received waivers from Trump’s 25% tariff on steel imports, after the administration agreed the specialty steel it was importing isn’t manufactured in the U.S., Kallanish Energy notes. Yes, No FID from PPTGC.  Our rumor about PTTGC making its FID in September is obviously wrong.  We are hearing another rumor that Daelim and PTTGC are finalizing their contracts which is another critical step forward to the FID.  (RUMOR) LyondellBasell Purchase of Braskem.  We have reported that LyondellBasell was in process of purchasing Braskem.  It appears the purchase is eminent.  We are hearing that purchase could happen in October.  (RUMOR) Antero Could Be Getting Busy.  Antero could be getting busier.  It now has 4 rigs in the Appalachian Basin and we are hearing that 2 more rigs could go into use. (RUMOR) Mountain Valley Costs Way Up.  The projected cost of building the Mountain Valley Pipeline has increased by nearly $1 billion. In a revised estimate announced this week, the developers of the natural gas pipeline said they now expect to spend $4.6 billion on the project, a jump of about 25 percent over their previous calculation of $3.7 billion. About half of the cost increase was attributed to a lull in construction for most of August, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered that work be stopped after two key permits were invalidated by a federal appeals court. The order led to “significant schedule changes that forced activities to be conducted out-of-sequence — these changes, in turn, required both crews and inspectors to make adjustments in order to return to areas that had to be bypassed,” Mountain Valley spokeswoman Natalie Cox wrote in an email. FERC has since allowed work to resume on most of the pipeline’s 303-mile route through West Virginia and Southwest Virginia. Mountain Valley’s statement attributed the rest of the additional expenses to “extraordinary rainfall events that continued through the summer, recent hurricane preparedness actions that interrupted full construction activities, and certain unanticipated construction costs overruns.” It’s Road not Pipelines Threating the Permian.  For an oilman who’s worked on the Gulf Coast, near the Russian Arctic and in Royal Dutch Shell’s headquarters in The Hague, being stuck in traffic on a dusty West Texas highway is not the stuff of dreams. The GMC Yukon rented by Amir Gerges, general manager of Shell’s operations in the Permian Basin, has crawled just four miles in the past hour. The delay helps Gerges prove a point: Roads, he said, not pipelines, geology or labor shortages, are the biggest long-term threat to sustainable growth in the Permian, the world’s busiest shale oil field. “Almost everything you need at the wellhead is transported by road,” Gerges said. “That’s the one biggest challenge, not just Shell, everyone faces.” DOE Funding Research in WV to Improve Well Productivity.  The Marcellus Shale Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (Mseel ) is expanding its research to a second shale well in northern West Virginia, Kallanish Energy reports. The new work will take place at a Marcellus well near Blacksville in western Monongalia County, West Virginia. Mseel has conducted research over the last three years at a well site near Morgantown, West Virginia. The research has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory that involves West Virginia University (WVU)and Northeast Natural Energy (NNE), a West Virginia-based E&P company. The new work will be geared to improving natural gas recovery from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) at regional sites. Netl’s Robert Vagnetti said the work advances hydraulic fracture stimulation techniques that were pioneered by Netl researchers. A key objective of the upcoming field test is to develop advanced completion capabilities that can be applied to other areas of the Marcellus Shale play to improve resource recovery efficiency. WVU and NNE were able to design stimulation zones or stages that optimized performance around natural fractures in the shale at the Morgantown well. Monitoring using seismic and fiber optic distributed temperatures and acoustic sensing (Das/Dts) during stimulation and subsequent production logging confirm these engineered stages outperformed conventional geometrically designed stages, Vagnetti said. He said that Das/Dts is too costly to be used on all wells and that the research team will “compare the use and results of new completion/stimulation techniques at the Blacksville site to the large array of relatively cost-prohibitive techniques used in the Morgantown Industrial Park wells.” NatGas & Oil Pumping up WV Economy.  Oil and gas production is one of West Virginia’s fastest-growing and most successful industries, easily outpacing other sectors of the economy. “Oil and natural gas production in the Mountain State has increased exponentially over the past decade, and we are just scratching the surface,” said Anne Blankenship, West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association executive director. “What an exciting time to be involved in this thriving industry, with so much more to come,” she said. “With the advancements in technology that have allowed us to access the enormous oil and natural gas reserves in the Marcellus and Utica shales, production is going up and new ideas for end uses of natural gas are emerging. Dominion Evaluating Blue Racer Sale.  Dominion Energy also said it is evaluating its 50% interest in Blue Racer Midstream, an Appalachian Basin-based midstream company with operations in Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. The other 50% of Blue Racer is owned by Caiman Energy II. Dominion Energy said it has gotten strong interest in Blue Racer Midstream from other unnamed parties. PA State Senators Support Case Against DRBC.  State Sen. Lisa Baker and two fellow legislators are seeking to join a federal lawsuit that challenges the Delaware River Basin Commission’s authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing within the watershed. In a motion to intervene, the senators contend the DRBC exceeded its authority when it issued a 2010 moratorium that banned natural gas drilling in the basin. They want to join a 2016 lawsuit filed by Wayne Land and Mineral Group, a natural gas driller that challenges the DRBC’s position. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process that uses high pressure to inject a large volume of water, chemicals and sand into Marcellus Shale, causing it to crack and release natural gas. It’s a controversial issue opposed by environmental groups and others concerned about the potential risks it poses to the environment and water supplies. The resolution of Wayne Land’s case will have significant ramifications for Pennsylvania. The basin covers roughly 13,539 square miles, of which 6,422 square miles is located in Pennsylvania, according to the motion to intervene. It’s estimated the land in Pennsylvania holds more than $40 billion in natural gas reserves, the motion says. Coal Consumption Lowest Since 1983.  Coal consumption at US power producers drops to lowest since 1983.   U.S. electricity producers consumed the lowest amount of coal in the first half of 2018 since 1983, as natural gas is increasingly replacing coal-fired generation, according to calculations by Reuter’s market analyst John Kemp based on EIA data. TX Production Up in August.  Production in Texas for July 2018 is 90,026,586 barrels of crude oil and 612,512,811 thousand cubic feet of natural gas from oil and natural gas wells, according to the Railroad Commission of Texas. Those are preliminary figures based on production volumes reported by operators and will be updated as late and corrected production reports are filed. Production reported to the state agency in July 2017 was 75.31 million barrels (Mmbbl) of crude oil, updated to the current figure of 93.23 Bbls; and 534.78 million ,777.62 Bcf of total gas, updated to the current figure of 692.43 Bcf, Kallanish Energy reports. Total Texas production from August 2017 to July 2018 was 1,16 billion barrels of crude oil and 08.1 trillion cubic feet of total gas. July 2018 production averaged 2.90 Mmbpd, compared to 2.43 Mmbbl in July 2017. Natural gas production in July 2018 averaged 19.76 Bcf a pay, compared to the 17.25 Bcf daily average in July 2017. That 2018 production came from 180,434 oil wells and 91,025 natural gas wells. The top five counties for oil production were Midland, Karnes, Reeves, Martin and Loving. The top five counties for natural gas were Webb, Reeves, Tarrant, Karnes and Midland. The top counties for condensate were Reeves, Culberson, Karnes, DeWitt and Loving. Bakken Making Come Back.  After months of being the red-headed stepchild to the Permian, the Bakken shale play is getting a resurgence. Crude oil production in North Dakota reached an all-new high for the second time this year in July, averaging 1.27 million barrels per day, according to the most recent figures available. Monthly oil production in July was 39.35 million barrels. Wood Mackenzie broke down some key factors that are attracting investments to the Bakken and nearby Three Forks formation (located just below the Bakken). “Operators are planning to spend $5 billion in planned CAPEX this year in these areas,” Pablo Prudencio, research analyst for WoodMac’s Lower 48 region, told Rigzone. “Operators are expected to spend more than $40 billion in the play over the next five years.” In August, shale producer Continental Resources said it was allocating $200 million this year to increased drilling and completion activity, with a third of that focused on the Bakken, Reuters reported. Prudencio said the investments will be significantly less than the Permian due in part to activity levels and rig count. WoodMac’s analysis further included the following:

• Rise in Gas Production: Operators are focusing on the core of the play, which tends to be gassier. Gas production is also continuing to rise, and gas processing plants are being built to meet North Dakota’s flaring limits.
• Oil Production: Bakken and Three Forks production contributes an average of 13 percent to the U.S. Lower 48 production outlook.
• Crude Takeaway: Long-term oil production growth is slowed by pipeline takeaway capacity. Oil production is expected to peak at about 1.5 million barrels per day and plateau after.
• Sluggish M&A: Recent years have shown lackluster M&A activity relative to the size of the play. Key themes include Private equity-backed operators entering the play and public E&Ps selling Bakken assets to focus on other plays such as the Permian.

Prudencio added that WoodMac has been following the production comeback for a while now and technology has definitely played a part. “Three main factors have contributed to this,” he said. “They are higher oil prices, improved transportation due to new pipelines and more productive wells. The productivity of the wells is mainly due to technology and improved completions. Drilling rates have improved because the wells are being drilled faster.” Plastics Company Moves in Stark County, OH.  A plastic container maker is setting up temporary shop in Ohio to be closer to a customer as it plans for a permanent facility in the area. Officials in Stark County, Ohio, said IML Containers is leasing about 35,000 square feet to make containers for Land O'Lakes Inc.'s nearby facility in Cleveland. IML currently has sites in Saint-Placide, Quebec; Le Mars, Iowa; Lyons, Ill.; and Flagstaff, Ariz., according to the company's website. "What they did was they were looking for a location that was near. We're getting a lot of inquiries from the plastics industry, which is one of our targets for the community," said Ray Hexamer, president of the Stark County Economic Development Board. Stark County, which counts Canton, Ohio, as its county seat, is in eastern Ohio, not far from where Royal Dutch Shell is building an ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, Pa. Shell is taking advantage of the region's resurgent natural gas production brought on by fracking in both the Utica and Marcellus shale regions, located at different depths below the earth's surface. And Hexamer said his county's proximity to the increased production will help drive economic development. The area also is a hub for food production, so creating an expanded plastics economic locally makes sense to better serve those markets. "The industry is very important for our future. IML is our great first tenant for us and a great company. They were extremely easy to work with," Hexamer said. "We were able to find a facility that they will lease for two years, and they will be building a new manufacturing facility in the area for future growth." IML, which is short for in-mold labeling, is in the process of setting up equipment in its 35,000-square-foot temporary home and expects production to begin soon. Hexamer admitted he sounded like an economic development salesman when he touted Stark County's advantages. "When we look at the plastics industry, we are within a six-hour drive of a majority of the business that's done in that industry," he said. "We're centrally located. We have rail. We have air. We have great interstates," Hexamer said, describing the situation as "stars lining up for our community." Hiring already has begun at IML in Ohio, which eventually expects to employ about 85 workers, the economic development official said.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/facts-rumors-306-september-29-2018/

Australian Carbon Tax Shows How Little Enviros Care About the Poor

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This post by IER economist Robert Murphy is about an Australian carbon tax proposal but illustrates how little enviros and fractivists care about the poor.

An article last month in the New York Times showcases the futility of climate legislation, regardless of one’s views on the desirability of government measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, Somini Sengupta’s piece explained that the Australian government was toppled because of climate policy, and then drew parallels to the United States and Canada. Whether it was her intention, Sengupta demonstrated that if indeed climate change is a problem, activists should realize that the political process offers a very unreliable “solution.”

Sengupta summarizes what just happened in Australia:

This week, the failure to pass legislation that would have reined in greenhouse gas emissions precipitated Malcolm Turnbull’s ouster as prime minister. He was elbowed out by Scott Morrison, an ardent champion of the Australian coal industry who is known for having brought a lump of the stuff to Parliament.

Although the NYT article doesn’t directly discuss it, this episode is similar to the 2013 election of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who ran on a pledge to repeal Australia’s carbon tax. At the time, I discussed the findings of Alex Robson’s study of the Australian carbon tax. Robson found that every one of the standard talking points for a “conservative case” for a carbon tax did not hold true in Australia’s experience.

Yet the political difficulties of carbon legislation are not confined to Australia. The NYT piece draws parallels with Canada:

It could be a bellwether for next year’s Canadian elections, expected in October, in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces a powerful challenge from politicians aligned with the country’s oil industry. Conservatives have pledged to undo Mr. Trudeau’s plans to put a price on carbon nationwide if they take power. At the provincial level, conservatives won a majority in Ontario after campaigning against the province’s newly enacted cap-and-trade program.

And, of course, the connection with the election of Donald Trump—especially his pledge to revive the coal sector—is unmistakable.

The NYT piece tries to bolster hope for those who desire government action: Even though national policy is lacking (according to advocates), lower jurisdictions have adopted renewable energy targets.

Yet even here, this is little consolation. As the article explains:

Most Australian states have renewable energy targets, and Australians are powering their houses with solar energy at one of the highest rates in the world. But Australia’s emissions have continued to rise.

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Climate Action Tracker, an alliance of European think tanks that tracks countries’ climate pledges under the agreement, concluded recently that “if all other countries were to follow Australia’s current policy settings, warming could reach over 3°C and up to 4°C.” Those are levels that climate scientists consider “highly insufficient” to stop the worst effects of climate change.

In fact, that last paragraph is a bit misleading. Forget what happens if every country copied Australia. Even if we look at what the governments around the world are actually doing, that same Climate Action Tracker website informs us that under current policy, the world is headed for 3.4°C of warming by 2100. In other words, there’s nothing uniquely “antisocial” about Australia. This is truly “business as usual,” as they say in the climate policy literature.

To be sure, the case for a carbon tax is very weak. We have written on this extensively here at IER, and with climate scientists at Cato I’ve co-authored a formal study. Even if we could set aside the practical political problems of enforcement, it still would make humanity worse off to enforce a globally-implemented carbon tax, for the reasons we raise in the links above.

However, as the recent NYT piece illustrates, a carbon tax (or other top-down government limitations on greenhouse gas emissions) has built-in incentives to fail in its stated objective. A carbon tax (and other measures) necessarily makes electricity and transportation more expensive than they otherwise would be. They impose immediate and tangible pain on citizens, hitting the poorest households in essential components of life. In exchange, the alleged benefit is a slightly cooler planet to be enjoyed by our great-grandchildren, who—under any reasonable scenario—will all be much richer than we are today.

This is not a stable political outcome—especially in the event of a broad economic downturn, when a new set of officials will rise to power, promising relief from the climate policies in order to spur economic growth in the present. Even if most governments around the world stuck to the script, just a few major defectors could undermine the program. And it is the biggest emitters who have the most to gain from such a “defection” from a worldwide framework.

It is fashionable to label skeptics of aggressive government climate action as “deniers” of science. Yet as the election outcomes in Australia, Canada, and the United States show, those favoring a carbon tax are themselves denying political science.

Editor’s Note: I don’t post this article to offer any support for coal but, rather, to point out the futility of addressing environmental issues with mandated governmental solutions that ignore the economic impacts on the poor and others of moderate income. So much of the environmental movement is based on snobbery and the elevation of the aesthetic values of the well-off to a position where they trump the real needs of human beings. But, those human needs always ultimately triumph, simply because they must. What’s happening in Australia, which seems to bounce from one position to another, is but the logical outcome of not balancing environmental and economic policy; a yo-yo effect where one is continually rejected by the other.

This lack of balance is similarly missing from fractivism. What we continually see are uber-wealthy foundations funding shill groups to go out and oppose natural gas development any way they can, ignoring the economic needs of real people. Look at the Southern Tier of New York, for example, which cries out for any economic development whatsoever, yet is denied that opportunity by Park Foundation and Rockefeller family funders who would just as soon make a wilderness of it as they live of luxury far removed from the mundane tasks of daily life facing Southern Tier families. Sadly, the situation in New York is one where the urban well-off out-number the Southern Tier poor and so they get away with treating them as slaves. Eventually, though, the slaves tend to revolt and that is the lesson of Australia and its carbon tax.

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SHALE INSIGHT – ShaleDirectories.com

September 25, 2018 At the heart of America’s new energy dominance, is the Appalachian Basin.  Natural gas production from the Marcellus and Utica shales accounts for a third of all U.S. production, which has helped the United States emerge as the world’s number one natural gas and oil producing nation, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia earlier this year. This achievement is a global game-changer that has rapidly transformed America’s energy outlook from a position of scarcity and rising costs to one of abundance and strength.  The Marcellus and Utica are the major shale plays in the U.S. Register today for  SHALE INSIGHT^TM 2018 and learn more about the emerging Marcellus and Utica topics that must be addressed to advance America’s global energy position including talks from our featured keynote speakers.

• Andrew Wheeler, Acting Administrator of the Department of Environmental Protection Agency will discuss how The New EPA is Fostering Responsible Environmental Protection with American Business, and;
• Admiral Michael Rogers who served as the second commander of the U.S. Cyber Command and 17^th Director of the National Security Agency under Presidents Obama and Trump will discussS. Energy Independence + National Security + Cyber Command = U.S. Global Leadership

As the nation’s leading industry forum, SHALE INSIGHT^TM 2018 will return to Pittsburgh's David L. Lawrence Convention Center on October 23-25 bringing together influential industry executives, decision makers, environmental experts and political officials. Become a sponsor, host an exhibit, or register for the conference today by visiting shaleinsight.com/and capitalize on this unique opportunity to gain unprecedented industry access. We look forward to seeing you in Pittsburgh!  

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/shale-insight-shaledirectories-com/

China's CNOOC May Divest Some US GoM Assets

China's CNOOC Ltd. (NYSE: CEO) is considering selling parts of its U.S. oil assets in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), a company spokeswoman said Sept. 27 but added that it does not intend to fully exit the U.S. market. Reuters reported on Sept. 26 that Nexen Petroleum, a unit of state-controlled CNOOC, was planning to exit the U.S., divesting its stake in giant oil and gas developments in the GoM amid the trade row between Washington and Beijing. People familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity because it was private, told Reuters on Sept. 26 that Nexen had not determined whether to sell the assets outright or swap offshore acreage with another company.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/china039s-cnooc-may-divest-some-us-gom-assets/

Is It A Winged Dragon, An EV or A PacMan Subsidy Gobbler?

Keep It Grounded In Fact
(American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers)

  

The electric vehicle; is it the future, a winged dragon fantasy or just another corporatist scheme to grab government subsidies? What’s the point exactly?

Ser Jaime Lannister—eldest son of Lord Tywin Lannister, twin brother of Cersei, and older brother of Tyrion—climbed on a winged dragon last week and flew eastward to kick off one of the most amazing fantasies since Game of Thrones.

Actually, it wasn’t Ser Jaime Lannister; it was Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, the actor who plays Lannister in Game of Thrones. And it wasn’t a winged dragon; it was a Chevy Bolt. But the part about kicking off one of the most amazing fantasies the world has ever seen is actually true.

Coster-Waldau was the lead driver for the launch of The New American Road Trip, a 12-day “electric-vehicle car tour across America” which started on September 14 at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco and will end in New York City on September 26 in the middle of Climate Week NYC and the One Planet Summit.

The goal of the Road Trip is to generate interest in electric vehicles and to herald in the era of “the low carbon economy,” which was unveiled at the Global Climate Action Summit with much fanfare and more false promises than a Joe Isuzu campaign speech. Unsurprisingly, just like the promise of wide-spread EV adoption, the success of the low carbon economy hinges on giving away other people’s money.

And EV advocates have become decidedly cavalier about this reality, with the Director of GM’s Advanced Vehicle Commercialization Policy saying earlier this month:

We certainly welcome vehicle incentives. They are the most powerful instruments for getting these vehicles into people’s hands … General Motors is really working hard to see if we can’t preserve that EV tax credit for all consumers and make sure that it expands to continue on into the future here as we really struggle with EV awareness and making sure the price point’s right for consumers.

The push to extend and expand EV subsidies is particularly troubling given that studies have repeatedly found that these taxpayer dollars are overwhelmingly going to the richest Americans, at the expense of infrastructure and social programs that would more widely benefit the masses who are footing the bill.

Since EVs have significant constraints—ranging from cost to range issues—and make them impractical for many Americans, these subsidies have the (hopefully unintended) effect of picking the pockets of middle-class Americans to help fill the four-car garage of the wealthy. Add in the free parking, HOV lane passes, and free charging that some states offer and you can be forgiven for thinking that the push for EVs is really an attempt to more explicitly privilege rich Americans at the expense of the masses.

And the drive to create expensive networks of EV chargers promises to take hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars. Since this scheme generally allows utilities to build chargers and bundle the costs into their utility customers’ energy bills, this means that poor families—many of whom are already struggling to keep the lights on—will fund rich Americans’ EV hobby and line utilities’ pockets.

In this sense, the New American Road Trip is perfectly in line with other EV adoption techniques. As it makes its way from San Francisco to NYC, it will award cash prizes of up to $7,000 to people and organizations that have developed innovative ways to reduce their carbon footprint.

Margaret Thatcher once noted, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”  It seems EV advocates plan to keep pushing until someone yanks their access to taxpayer dollars. One hopes that will happen before more Americans are left in the dark in order to light wealthy Americans’ EV utopian dream.

Editor’s Note: There is nothing wrong with electric vehicles. Indeed, because the electricity they use is more likely than not to be generated by natural gas, there is every reason to support them as something much preferable to vehicles powered by gasoline or diesel fuel. It’s the damned subsidies that are the problem. If we’re going to subsidy electric vehicles primarily purchased by those who can afford them without government help, why not go straight to CNG vehicles? Or, better yet, why not pull all subsidies and let the market decide by the votes of millions of consumers?

The subsidization of electric vehicles is a dead-end for several reasons, not the least of which is the outrageous pandering, with others people’s money, to the trendy Tesla buyers produced by a megalomaniacal con man who has already ripped off New York and other US taxpayers for billions in subsidies. There is also the fact the primary beneficiaries of EV subsidies are also urbanites who only need to go short-distances. Rural America gets no particular benefit from the EV.

That’s why Two-Faced Tom Wolf is spending money from the Commonwealth’s Volkswagon settlement to pay for EV charging stations; because those stations will all, undoubtedly, be in urban areas and college towns where his voters live. He says it’s to reduce NOx pollution but we know the best way to do that, switch from coal to gas in generating the electricity these EVs will use. His proposal will do nothing in that direction, of course, meaning the EVs charged up at his stations could well be coal cars for all practical purposes. Such is life in the irrational world of environmental virtue signaling as corporatist PacMen gobble up EV subsidies.

The post Is It A Winged Dragon, An EV or A PacMan Subsidy Gobbler? appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/is-it-a-winged-dragon-an-ev-or-a-pacman-subsidy-gobbler/

Total Sees Cash Flow, Output Boost From Deepwater Projects

Oil and gas major Total (NYSE: TOT), said on Tuesday it expected deepwater oil and gas operations to make a strong contribution to its output and cash flow thanks to major developments in the West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea region, Brazil and U.S. Gulf area. Production from deepwater projects is expected to reach 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) by 2020, contributing to its 6% to 7% output growth target per year from 2017 to 2020.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/total-sees-cash-flow-output-boost-from-deepwater-projects/

Foreign Influence on Pennsylvania Gas Industry Taken to Task

Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

 

The Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held a hearing on the subject of Foreign Influence on natural gas development.

Yesterday, I was honored to be asked to testify at a hearing conducted by the Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee on the subject of Foreign Influence on Natural Gas Development in Pennsylvania. Three of us testified, including Tom Murphy, the Director of the Penn State Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, Kevin Mooney, reporter with the Daily Signal and me. Tom and Kevin both filled their excellent testimony with facts galore. You can see the video and read all our testimony here.  I have also embedded the video below along with my testimony, which begins at about 49:00.

Senators Gene Yaw and John Yudichak

My name is Thomas J. Shepstone and I’m a planning and research consultant from Northeast Pennsylvania. I have over 40 years of experience working with communities throughout the Commonwealth. I also represent numerous private clients, including some in the natural gas industry and I publish a blog advocating for natural gas development in our region. Finally, I’m a landowner with a natural gas lease that has been in limbo for nearly a decade due to DRBC/SRBC double standards.

I’m here today to talk about what I’ve learned in researching the foreign influences on Pennsylvania’s energy sector. Those influences are exercised primarily, though not exclusively, through wealthy foundations set up as tax-exempt non-profit corporations. These supposed charitable groups are highly political, engaged in massive grass-roots lobbying as defined by the IRS and operate under the guise of being 501(c)(3) entities when they are anything but.

These entities are doing the dirty work of the wealthy families and very special interests who fund them—special interests with large investments in foreign oil and gas. They are focused on doing anything and everything they can to stifle Pennsylvania natural gas production that, thanks to Cove Point and other proposed LNG export facilities, threaten to compete with those foreign investments.

Who are these tax-exempt foundations? There are a handful  who fund the bulk of opposition to natural gas development. One of the most prominent is the Heinz Endowments, a creation of one of Pennsylvania’s most famous families. 

The Heinz Endowments has funded one radical anti-gas initiative after another. It is behind the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Clinic, for example, which is a purely junk science outfit intended to generate anti-gas headlines. It has funded PennFuture, the Clean Air Council, the NRDC, the Delaware Riverkeeper and even the on-line journal StateImpactPA, which serves as an echo chamber for stories ginned up by the former.

We learned something about the Heinz family and one of the Heinz Endowments directors recently, though, that tells us there’s a lot more than altruism going on here. We learned  Chris  Heinz is heavily invested in Burisma, a Ukranian oil and gas company that brags it “operates the largest modern rig and hydraulic fracking fleet…in Ukraine and across the region.” 

Burisma clearly hopes to supply Europe with natural gas as a competitor to Gazprom, the Russian natural gas company. Burisma will also be competing with LNG from the US; Pennsylvania LNG that initially comes out of the ground in Bradford, Lycoming and Washington Counties, is then converted to LNG and finally shipped out of Cove Point to import terminals all of the world.

Meanwhile, the Heinz Endowments, on which Chris Heinz sits as a director, just funded the Delaware Riverkeeper “to support communities seeking to limit the environmental and public health impacts of oil/gas development in Pennsylvania,” which means to fight any fracking whatsoever anywhere in Pennsylvania, including far outside the Delaware watershed. 

Chris Heinz’s family foundation also just funded the Clean Air Council “to protect communities and environment from fossil fuel infrastructure impacts,” which means to fight any and all pipelines that might deliver natural gas to LNG export terminals.

So, what we have is the Heinz family spending money to thwart natural gas development in Pennsylvania on the basis of supposed environmental and health impacts even as it invests in that industry overseas. The Heinz Endowments, for all practical purposes, is acting as an agent of foreign influence, nurturing the development of Ukranian gas by delaying, frustrating and killing the potential for competition from Pennsylvania  gas. 

Worse, it’s doing it as private tax-exempt foundation that’s not supposed to doing any lobbying whatsoever but is evading the rules through grants to shill organizations who are permitted to do modest amounts of grass-roots lobbying but blatantly ignore the rules. 

The Delaware Riverkeeper, for instance, arguably does very little that is not grass-roots lobbying opposed to natural gas development. It even hired BerlinRosen, a political strategy consultant firm associated with Andrew Cuomo, the Jill Stein campaign for President, former New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. 

The Riverkeeper gave BerlinRosen a contract for $125,000 in 2016 for “media.” Yet, it claims to have spent zero dollars that year on grass-roots lobbying. Heinz protects its family’s foreign investments by investing in the Riverkeeper’s campaign to frustrate Pennsylvania natural gas.

And, it’s not just Heinz or just foundations. The Rockefeller family, for example, employs several interconnected foundations to support the same or similar shill groups, as it has heavily invested in the development of a Chinese petrochemical terminal. 

Steven Clark Rockefeller, Jr. (Nelson’s grandson and son of Steven, Sr. who has been Bill McKibben’s patron at Middlebury College) has created Rose Rock Capital, investing billions in something called China Rose Rock, through a joint venture with Hongfa Investment Group, which is constructing and managing the new terminal in Tianjin. It will import basic petrochemicals for now. The Rockefellers are clearly trying hard, though, to develop a Chinese petrochemical industry that will compete with the one Pennsylvania is creating. They have a special interest in slowing natural gas development here, as they invest there.

There’s also the NRDC, of course, and other Rockefeller funded attack dogs who’ve done everything they can to prevent Pennsylvania gas reaching or going through New York via pipelines. The NRDC, the Open Space Institute and the Catskill Mountainkeeper are all interconnected with the Rockefeller family and share directors. 

The NRDC has also gone out its way to avoid offending China as Congress has noted. House Natural Resources Committee members say “NRDC’s relationship with China has many of the criteria identified by U.S. intelligence agencies and law enforcement as putting an entity at risk of being influenced or coerced by foreign interests.” 

Moreover, Rockefeller Capital Management, 10% of which is owned by Rockefeller family trust, was recently launched with $18.5 billion in assets and is focused on China like a laser beam. Its Chief Investment Strategist, Jimmy C. Chang, in fact, has authored an article for the investment group’s website. It’s entitled “The Silk Road: China’s Inevitable Ascendancy; An Alternative Vision to Western Liberalism.” This shouts foreign influence and, the NRDC being an integral part of the Rockefeller network, its “China can do no wrong” attitude is no coincidence.

It’s also no accident this same NRDC and its Catskill Mountainkeeper affiliate have been in the thick of opposing the Constitution, Northern Access and the Atlantic Sunrise pipelines. The Atlantic Sunrise, it complained, would “deliver gas to the Cove Point LNG export terminal in Maryland.” Of course, that doesn’t fit the template the NRDC and its Rockefeller masters have in mind; one where China is ascendant.

The Russians are also influencing our energy policy, of course. The Sea Change Foundation, which is believed to have served as a money launderer for the Russian money that ultimately went to the Energy Foundation, the NRDC and the Sierra Club, among other anti-gas extremist groups. 

The Russians, too, do a lot of social media under various guises to support anti-gas initiatives. They use their Russia Today media outlet to provide talking points and retweet opportunities for the likes of various anti-gas radicals in Pennsylvania and New York.

And, the Russians have representatives in this country, including the Ketchum public relations firm, which does things here to promote Gazprom, the Russian Federation’s gas company and its interests. Much of it is innocuous but, in a 2013 report to the Department of Justice about Ketchum’s activities on behalf of its Russian gas client it reported “correspondence with Tribeca Film Festival on future sponsorship options.” That just happened to be the year Tribeca served as one of the few theatre runs of Josh Fox’s Gasland II. 

Coincidence? I doubt it. This is how foreign influence is done and it is impacting the Pennsylvania gas industry.

There’s but one antidote to all of this; sunlight. Pennsylvania can and should be requiring non-profit tax returns in the Commonwealth to include disclosure of all donors giving such organizations more than $5,000 per year. It should also request the Auditor General investigate the unholy alliance between these organizations and foreign actors. What we need is exactly what you’re doing today; exposing of the foreign special interests behind so much of what passes as fractivism.

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Analyst Sees Shorter Crude Market Cycles

The U.S. oil and gas industry is about to get even bigger in the next decade, with the country continuing to grow in its role as a global energy superpower. Domestic producers have been exporting gas, liquids, crude and petrochemicals, and these volumes will keep growing. What will the impact be on prices? At first glance it would be easy to predict they’ll go up as the U.S. gains market share in various regions. However, other countries are also increasing their export volumes, demand dynamics are changing and there are important geopolitical considerations that will impact pricing in both the short and long terms. “We’ll start to see shorter cycles in the crude oil market so that instead of 15-year cycles, we’re going to see three- to four-year cycles,” Dan Lippe, managing partner, Petral Consulting Co., told Hart Energy.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/analyst-sees-shorter-crude-market-cycles/

Pennsylvania State Senators Lay Down A DRBC Takings Marker

Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

 

PA State Senators Joseph B. Scarnati, Lisa Baker and Gene Yaw have moved to be admitted as intervenors in what they effectively called a DRBC takings case.

When the Wayne Land and Minerals Group (WLMG) initially filed its lawsuit against the DRBC’s attempt to regulate gas drilling as if a well pad was somehow a water project, three Pennsylvania State Senators filed a petition to intervene in the case in favor of the Commonwealth and its landowners. That petition wasn’t approved, although the Delaware Riverkeeper was approved, which tells you a lot about the undue influence environmental groups wield in Federal courts.

The Scranton Federal District Court judge’s decision in that initial case was a highly unusual one in that it largely trashed the DRBC for its inconsistency and outrageous inaction on regulations, but then ruled that well pads were, indeed, water projects. WLMG then appealed the decision to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which remanded the case back to Scranton with direction to consider the arguments of WLMG. Now, the three Senators have again filed to intervene. They have, in the process, raised two additional and very powerful points and have made it clear there is a DRBC takings issue that will not be ignored.

Pennsylvania State Senate Chamber

The DRBC takings issue is laid out nicely in this excerpt from the Senators’ filing (emphasis added):

37. The Senators incorporate the foregoing paragraphs as if fully set forth herein.

38. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that private property shall not “be taken for public use, without just compensation.” U.S. Const. amend. V (the “Takings Clause”).

39. The Takings Clause applies not only to a physical taking of property, but also to governmental regulations that substantially diminish the economic value of land or significantly hamper its economically beneficial use.

40. As a preliminary matter – and apart from the fact that the Commission’s interpretation of the Compact is untenable under ordinary principles of contractual construction – the moratorium is not reasonably necessary to effectuate the Commission’s purpose, as set forth in the Compact.

41. To the extent the challenged conduct is found to be a valid exercise of authority granted to the Commission by the Compact, the moratorium constitutes a regulatory taking without just compensation of privately-owned land within the Formation that is encompassed by the Basin.

42. Furthermore, because that moratorium extends beyond privately owned property and prohibits the Commonwealth from executing leases for the extraction of natural gas from state-owned land within the Basin, it also constitutes a regulatory taking without just compensation of publicly-owned land held in trust for the benefit of the citizens of the Commonwealth.

43. Accordingly, to the extent this Court finds that the de facto moratorium is within the ambit of authority transferred to the Commission under the Compact, the Senators respectfully request that this Court declare it an unconstitutional regulatory taking under the Fifth Amendment and, in consequence, enter an order: (a) invalidating the moratorium and enjoining the Commission from enforcing it; or, in the alternative (b) directing the Commission to afford just compensation for the diminution of the economic value of the property it has appropriated.

This is a well done argument on behalf of not only landowners, but also with respect to the interests of all citizens of the Commonwealth. One can even hear echoes of the environmental rights amendments reasoning advanced by the likes of the Delaware Povertykeeper a/k/a Riverkeeper in the language about lands held in trust. The Senators show us that argument is a two-way street.

We also hear echoes of Senator Lisa Baker’s proposed legislation in SB 1189 to deliver equal justice to DRBC region landowners. When the Senators say “the moratorium is not reasonably necessary to effectuate the Commission’s purpose,” they are referring to the fact the SRBC, governed by the same majority as the DRBC, has found it can fulfill its mission and protect water quality without a moratorium or ban. It’s an argument that can’t really be broken and, by turning it on its head, the Senators make a compelling DRBC takings case.

The beauty of this, of course, is that the DRBC couldn’t possibly afford to reimburse landowners for takings, meaning, as a practical matter, that if accepted by the court, it forces the DRBC to do what it should have done long ago and regulate gas drilling water use in the same reasonable way it does with its SRBC hat on its head.

The Senators also very effectively note, with respect to the challenge now before the District Court, that the “the Court of Appeals remanded the matter “for additional fact-finding on the intent of the Compact’s drafters.” That’s what this is case is all about, of course. The SRBC has stuck to original intent, whereas the DRBC, under former Executive Director Carol Collier, and now at the direction of four demagogic governors, took a hard left turn and attempted to turn it into a super land use agency that usurps the power of the states.

The Senators state their “involvement this action will assist the parties and this Court in discerning legislative intent,” which is also a compelling argument. After all, who could be better to reflect on legislative intent than legislators? The Senator’s explain:

The Senators’ interests will be affected by the disposition of this action because the Court’s ruling will necessarily tum on the legislature’s intent as a party to a contract. Moreover, the Court’s assessment of that intent and the attendant circumstances of the Compact’s execution will also affect other interstate agreements which the General Assembly has approved, or may contemplate approving in the future.

That’s well said. The DRBC is attempting to intrude on the role of the Commonwealth in regulating a land use and render legislators irrelevant. The Senators are saying “Whoa.”

All in all, this is an excellent piece of work. Landowners and anyone who gives a damn about equal justice and the rule of law ought to standing up and doing a long slow clap for Senators Scarnatt, Baker and Yaw.

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Shale Gas News – September 22, 2018

Bill desRosiers
External Affairs Coordinator, Cabot Oil & Gas

 

The Shale Gas News, heard every Saturday at 10 AM on 94.3 FM, 1510 AM and Sundays on YesFM, talked about oil prices, the “Cracker Effect”, water projects and much more last week.

The Shale Gas News has grown again; welcome Gem 104 as our FOURTH station! Gem 104 helps to solidify the Shale Gas News coverage in an important Marcellus region, PA’s northern tier. The Shale Gas News is now broadcasting in Bradford, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Luzerne, Lycoming, Pike, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga and Wayne Counties, as well as in greater central PA. The Shale Gas News is aired on Saturday or Sunday depending on the station.

Every Saturday Rusty Fender and I host a morning radio show to discuss all things natural gas. This week, as a guest, we had State Representative Mike Tobash, representing the 125th Legislative District, which spans portions of Schuylkill and Dauphin counties.

Cabot Oil and Gas released its next installment of their “Looking Back, Moving Forward” series. To celebrate Cabot’s ten year anniversary in the Marcellus shale they sit down with your neighbors, area landowners and local leaders all across Northeast PA to ask for their real opinions on what the oil and natural gas industry has meant to the region. This week they talked with Dale Howell and you can see his interview here. You can follow the series on Cabot’s blog Well Said Cabot. 

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the September 22nd show (click above), we covered the following new territory (see news excerpts below):

• Trump blasts OPEC ‘monopoly’ for higher oil prices. President Donald Trump has once again cast blame on OPEC for high oil prices, even though his own policies have helped fuel the surge. In a tweet on Thursday, Trump blasted OPEC for continuing to “push for higher and higher oil prices. The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!” Trump said, adding that countries in the Middle East would not be “safe for very long” without protection from the United States. Trump is right to point to OPEC as a cause.
• Governor Wolf Announces More Than 350 New Projects to Improve Water Infrastructure, Promote Community Development, and Protect the Environment. Harrisburg, PA – Today, Governor Tom Wolf today announced 359 new project approvals through the Commonwealth Financing Authority (CFA): 236 Small Water and Sewer Program projects to protect and improve municipalities’ water systems, and 123 projects using funds collected from the impact fee on unconventional gas wells in the Marcellus Shale which will support public services and environmental protection projects.
• Chesapeake Energy Gets $3B Line of Credit from 15 Banks. Chesapeake Energy “amended and restated” its “senior secured revolving credit facility” on Wednesday. What does that mean in everyday language? It means the company has talked a bunch of banks into allowing the company to borrow up to $3 billion on a line of credit backed by the value of the company and its assets. That’s some kind of line of credit! The 15 banks doing the loaning were actually willing to pony up $3.8 billion, but Chessy only wants to use up to $3 billion.
• Local NatGas Pipes Explode Near Boston Killing 1, Injuring 25. You don’t often think of the safety of the pipeline network that delivers natural gas to your home or business because it’s so rare there are any problems with it. When’s the last time you heard about a local delivery pipeline exploding? Last Thursday a major incident occurred 25 miles northwest of Boston when delivery pipelines owned by Columbia Gas (NiSource) in three communities–Andover, North Andover and Lawrence–exploded and caught fire at “more than 60 locations.” The explosions and resulting fires tragically killed one teenager and injured some 25 others.
• MarkWest Plans to Build New Marcellus/Utica NGL Pipeline. Yesterday MarkWest Liberty NGL Pipeline, a subsidiary/part of MarkWest Energy (now MPLX since being bought out and merged into Marathon Petroleum in late 2015), announced plans to build a new NGL pipeline. MarkWest Liberty launched a binding open season for the new pipeline–a time when drillers can sign on the dotted line to reserve capacity along the new pipeline. The new NGL pipeline is a bit different than other NGL pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica.
• “Cracker Effect” – Shell Plant Will Create 7,400 Permanent Jobs. Ever hear of the “cracker effect”? No, we hadn’t either. Not until we read about a new study by a husband and wife team from Washington & Jefferson College. The pair studied the economic impact of cracker plants on surrounding communities–some 34 ethane crackers in 16 counties around the country. Most of the cracker plants are located along the Gulf Coast. The purpose of the study is to accurately forecast what will happen with Shell’s new $6 billion ethane cracker currently under construction in Beaver County, near Pittsburgh. What might the real, measurable economic effect be from Shell’s cracker? According to the authors, the Shell cracker will generate ~7,400 permanent, long-term jobs.
• EdgeMarc Energy Sued for Failing to Pay Overtime – Class Action. Last Wednesday a single person employed by EdgeMarc Energy in Ohio filed a lawsuit against the company in federal court claiming he was “misclassified” as an independent contractor when in reality he was functioning as a full-blown employee. Why does it make a difference? Because independent contractors (1099s) are paid a straight, per-hour rate no matter how many hours they work, whereas employees must, under federal (and state) law, be paid overtime for any hours worked over 40. The worker alleges the company intentionally uses independent contractor status to wiggle out of paying overtime, and that he’s not the only one.

The Shale Gas News sponsored by Linde Corporation

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https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/shale-gas-news-september-22-2018/

Impact Fees Paid by PA Gas Industry Reach Incredible $1.5 Billion

Madison Weaver
Cabot Oil & Gas
External Affairs Intern, Pittsburgh

…

…

Tom Wolf says Pennsylvania gets nothing from age drilling companies, but while he dissembles, the Commonwealth has collected $1.5 billion in impact fees.

In August, Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission (PUC) released the results of the Impact Fee in 2017, and they were astounding.

Last year, the Impact Fee totaled nearly $210 million, bringing the total over the past seven years to almost $1.5 billion. Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation contributed around $15.5 million alone in 2017, bringing our total contributions to over $88 million.

Click image to play video

The Impact Fee, also known as Act 13 or the impact tax, requires natural gas producers to pay a fee for each well drilled. The money is distributed back to local and state governments to benefit communities.

“The local side of this tax is important,” Cabot Director of External Affairs George Stark said during a radio interview the day after the results were released.  “When the counties get those dollars, they’re making decisions on what has changed. What has the impact been locally? Do they need to have a wider road? Are the community needs being met? School districts will see those dollars, the county will see those taxes.”

For example, according to the county and municipality fee spending breakdowns from PUC, the most money went into capital reserve funds, emergency preparedness and public safety, and public infrastructure construction in 2016.

Gary Sutton, a host on NewsTalk 93.9 & 910 WSBA, asked Stark about state and federal policies that affect the natural gas industry both positively and negatively. Stark noted that while the Impact Fee has had a massive positive effect for local communities in Pennsylvania, other proposed fees would not.

Sutton asked, “What is the difference between the Impact Fee and the Severance Tax, from your particular interpretation of it?”

“The most particular answer is, where does the money go? Does it go to Harrisburg or does it go to Bradford?” Stark said, honing in on the idea that the impact tax allows a larger, positive impact on the local communities that are participating in the production of natural gas rather than statewide, which could include places already thriving from other industries like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

“ didn’t have a lot going for them, but now they have it. Let’s allow them to benefit locally,” Stark said.

Stark also debunked a common statement that Pennsylvania is one of the only state without a severance tax: “To say that we’re the only state in the union without a severance tax is really a choice on words. We have an impact tax.”

To add some perspective, in 2016 the Impact Fee brought in more revenue than severance tax collections in Ohio, West Virginia, Colorado, and Arkansas combined.

Industry expert Tom Pyle, the president of the Institute for Energy Research and served at the head of President Donald Trump’s Department of Energy transition team, was in Pennsylvania the same week the Impact Fee results were released. In a Penn Live article, Pyle mentioned the need for appropriate policies in Pennsylvania to continue the successful production of natural gas resources in the Commonwealth.

“Pennsylvania gas producers already pay an impact fee that allocates revenue to every county in the Commonwealth, particularly to counties and municipalities where unconventional natural gas development is occurring,” Pyle writes. “With the right policies in place, Pennsylvania’s natural gas producers can continue to provide good-paying jobs for families and steady revenue for local communities.”

“Pennsylvania’s natural gas helps meet our domestic energy needs at home and increasingly around the world,” Pyle writes.

Pennsylvania’s natural gas production is increasing, allowing resources to be shipped across the world, while local benefits of the Impact Fee continue to grow here in the Commonwealth.

Reposted, with permission, from Well Said Cabot.

Editor’s Note: Now compare this with Tom Wolf’s political ad earlier this year, which was called out by nearly everyone for the lie that it was:

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Facts & Rumors 304 September 15, 2018

Expo/Industry events for the next few months

 Midstream PA 2018 September 25, 2018 Penn Stater Conference Center State College, PA http://midstreampa.com/  WV Energy Expo 2018 October 3, 2018 Hazel and J.W. Ruby Community Center Morgantown, West Virginia http://wvenergyexpo.com/ Utica Summit October 10, 2018 Walsh University North Canton, OH http://www.uticasummit.com/ Shale Insight October 23-25, 2018 David Lawrence Conference Center Pittsburgh, PA http://shaleinsight.com/

For other events visit

http://www.shaledirectories.com/site/oil-and-gas-expo-information.html

Latest facts and a rumor from the Marcellus, Utica, Permian, Eagle Ford, Bakken and Niobrara Shale Plays

Williams Seeks Final Approval for Atlantic Sunrise.  Williams Companies, Inc. recently reported the completion of construction of its major Atlantic Sunrise project. The production and pipeline operator has requested for the final approval of the project by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Importantly, the Atlantic Sunrise natural gas pipeline, worth $3 billion, is an expansion of the company's Transco pipeline, which is the largest-volume natural gas transmission system in the United States. Atlantic Sunrise will have a transportation capacity of around 1.7 billion cubic feet of gas per day (Bcf/d). It will transport Marcellus shale gas from Pennsylvania to the rest of the country. The project design includes 200 miles of new greenfield pipe, two compressor facilities in Pennsylvania along with other compressor station modifications in five states. Notably, Atlantic Sunrise had received a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity from the FERC in February 2017 amid opposition from green campaigners, as the opponents of the pipeline could not gather satisfactory facts. The court ruled that the implementation of the measures proposed by FERC and the company will reduce environmental hazards to significant levels and greenlighted it to proceed with the construction. The company expects the pipeline to add value to its existing energy infrastructure, which will provide it with a steady flow of revenues in the future. This will also help citizens by providing them access to an affordable and clean energy source, as well as contribute to the economic growth of the country. Nexus Seeks FERC Approval.  The Nexus natural gas pipeline is seeking approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to begin service on Sept. 28, Kallanish Energy reports It wants to begin moving 967 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and will eventually move 1.5 billion cubic feet per day across northern Ohio. Nexus Gas Transmission made its request on Monday. It wants FERC approval by Sept. 26 so that service could begin on Sept. 28. The $2.6 billion natural gas pipeline will move Utica and Marcellus natural gas across northern Ohio to the Midwest, the Gulf Coast and Ontario. The 256-mile pipeline across northern Ohio to Michigan and Ontario will transport natural gas from Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. It is being developed by Michigan-based DTE Energy and Enbridge. The company had reported in late July that the project was 80% complete. E&P Companies on Spending Spree.  Oil and gas producers are nearing a worldwide spending spree not seen since 2013, pointing to a potential windfall for oilfield services (OFS) companies, Morgan Stanley forecasts. The bank believes global growth in capital spending on new oil and gas production — that will last for several years -- is just over the horizon, CNBC reported. Morgan Stanley believes 2020 will be a year of synchronized growth in capital expenditures, and oilfield service firms will be one of the biggest beneficiaries. This comes after oil giants and independent producers slashed spending in 2015 and 2016 during a historic downturn in crude prices, CNBC reported. The recovery has been relatively isolated to U.S. shale plays and a few international markets, but Morgan Stanley sees the rebound extending to many more parts of the world, Kallanish Energy understands. "Importantly, 2020 looks to be the first year the industry will experience material, synchronized capex growth since before the downturn," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote, in a research note. After rising just 5% from the trough in 2016, capital spending is poised to increase by roughly 15% through 2020, Morgan Stanley states. In 2022, expenditures on finding and developing new oil and gas assets will raise by roughly 30% from this year, to roughly $583 billion, the bank forecasts. Morgan Stanley analysts believe Wall Street is underestimating the growth potential in three key areas, CNBC reported. The market currently sees European oil majors like Royal Dutch Shell and Total holding capital spending roughly flat at roughly $80 billion in 2021. But Morgan Stanley believes these energy giants will actually increase spending to about $100 billion, or 25% above consensus. The bank also thinks its peers underappreciate spending in the U.S. The independent producers in the country’s various shale plays have pledged to return more cash to shareholders. However, Morgan Stanley thinks capital spending will still jump by more than 15% in 2020, once producers in Texas and New Mexico's Permian Basin overcome bottlenecks currently constraining output. "We do not think U.S.-focused service stocks are discounting the substantial activity increase and margin expansion this is likely to lead to," the bank's analysts said. Morgan Stanley believes growing Chinese demand for liquefied natural gas will mean supply and demand will balance between 2020 and 2021. Currently, the broader market sees oversupply lasting through 2023-2024, according to the bank. Permian Problems Good for the Eagle Ford.  The Permian Basin, rich in oil, but plagued by labor, housing and pipeline shortages, may be losing some of its luster as energy companies look to other shale plays where costs are lower, markets are closer and hassles are fewer. That description seems to fit the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, where both investment and drilling activity is picking up. As the Permian has boomed over past years, the Eagle Ford has climbed slowly from the oil bust. But signs point to the pace picking up as the Eagle Ford emerges as an alternative to oil and gas producers looking to get away from Permian crowds. Production from the oilfield has rebounded from a low of 1.1 million barrels of oil a day in August 2017 to a projected 1.5 million barrels a day in October — second only to the Permian, according to the Energy Department. The number of operating drilling rigs in the Eagle Ford has more than doubled to 78 from the 2016 low of 33, according to the Houston oilfield services company Baker Hughes. The value of mergers and acquisitions in the Eagle Ford Eagle has already hit $15 billion this year, second to the Permian’s $45 billion, but well ahead of the $9 billion in SCOOP and STACK fields of Oklahoma and the $5 billion in the Bakken oil field of North Dakota, according to Canadian financial services company Scotiabank. . Subash Chandra, a managing director at Guggenheim Partners, a New York investment firm, said the Eagle Ford’s key advantage is that it is far closer to Gulf Coast refiners and export hubs, particularly the Port of Corpus Christi, than the Permian in West Texas. “The Eagle Ford is unique, with proximity to markets,” Chandra said presented at the DUG Eagle Ford conference in San Antonio Thursday. “The Permian is the surface of Mars.” The Permian remains the hottest shale play in the world, producing some 3.5 million barrels of oil a day and accounting for nearly one-third of U.S. crude output. But that success has outstripped many of the resources in West Texas, particularly pipelines. While several companies are racing to complete pipeline projects, the capacity shortage is expected to last into next year. As a result, producers are discounting their oil in Midland because they can't easily ship it to Gulf Coast markets. In August and September, crude in Midland was selling for $20 a barrel less than along the Gulf Coast, according to the Energy Department. Oil and gas companies, meanwhile, are beginning to redirect spending outside of the Permian, the Energy Department said in a report released Wednesday. So are services companies. Paul Shearer, director of sales for Superior Silica Sand of Fort Worth, said the relative calm in the Eagle Ford was among the reasons the company developed a 4-million-ton-a-year frac sand mine south of San Antonio to focus on the Eagle Ford. TX Shale Replacing Iranian Oil.  Falling Iranian oil exports from U.S. sanctions open the door for U.S. oil and gas producers to fill a void in Asia for a niche oil market. Texas shale is beginning to produce more ultra-light condensate oil and there's growing demand in Asia, said Sandy Fielden, director of oil and products research at Morningstar, in a new report this week. Iran has served as a major source for condensate in Asia. About half of all U.S. condensate production comes from Texas, especially South Texas' Eagle Ford shale and West Texas' booming Permian Basin. "Regardless of how much Iranian condensate remains available for export, the current tight conditions represent an opportunity for U.S. producers to gain valuable market share," Fielden argued. BP Betting on TX.  Nearly a decade after Deepwater Horizon, BP is ready to grow again, betting much of its comeback on Texas after completing the biggest energy deal in the world this year. Its pending acquisition of the U.S. shale assets of the Australian mining company BHP Billiton for $10.5 billion puts BP in the Permian Basin in West Texas and the Eagle Ford shale in South Texas, and expands its presence in the Haynesville shale in East Texas, positioning itself to compete for the spot as the biggest producer in the United States. If the acquisition pays off, it would likely mean additional growth in Houston, where BP’s U.S. subsidiary is headquartered and the company employs about 4,500 people. TX Shale Oil to Make Big Gains.  A new report shows that West Texas’ Permian Basin will continue to post the biggest oil production gains of any U.S. shale field in October. The report by the Department of Energy predicts the Permian will add 31,000 barrels of production in October, bringing overall production close to 3.5 million barrels a day. The Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas is expected to add 16,000 barrels a day of oil production, bringing its production — the second highest in the country — closer to 1.5 million barrels a day. The production gains in the Permian come despite tightening pipeline capacity, which is said to have fallen below production. Low E&P Debt.  More Drilling? A new review by the Department of Energy shows that debt levels in the energy industry are at their lowest levels since the third quarter of 2014. The financial review of the global oil and gas industry for the second quarter of 2018 ending June 30 found that companies had reduced their debt for seven consecutive quarters, leading to the lowest long-term debt-to-equity ratio since the third quarter of 2014, which was right before oil prices began to plummet. Debt was reduced by more than $20 billion in the second quarter, while the long-term debt-to-equity ratio was 41 percent, according to data from the Energy Department. The Energy Department report reviewed 107 oil and gas companies of which 76 were U.S.-based, 13 in Canada, nine in Europe and another nine in other areas. More than half had production of less than 100,000 barrels of petroleum liquids a day. Among the companies included are Apache Corp., Devon Energy, ExxonMobil, and Royal Dutch Shell. FERC Approves Atlantic Coast Pipeline Construction.  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has lifted a stop work order on the Atlantic Coast natural gas pipeline, Kallanish Energy reports. That action came Monday in a two-page letter to Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC and Dominion Energy Transmission. FERC said it had received updated filings from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and from the National Park Service. On Aug. 10, FERC had halted construction on the $6.5 billion pipeline after a federal appeals court had vacated two permits for the project. Construction has started in West Virginia and North Carolina, but has not yet started in Virginia. That action came from the Richmond, Virginia-based Fourth U.S. Circuit of Appeals. The court ruled two permits for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline were invalid: a permit from the National Park Service to run the pipeline under the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia between Augusta and Nelson counties, and a second permit allowing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow the “incidental taking” or killing of five endangered species when no other options exist along the pipeline route. Construction was able to continue in areas not impacted by the permitting questions. The 600-mile pipeline is designed to move natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales through West Virginia and Virginia to the Carolinas. It would move 1.5 billion cubic feet per day. It is being developed by Dominion, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and Southern Company Gas. Work is under way in West Virginia and North Carolina, but an erosion permit is still needed in Virginia before construction can begin. The appeals court has scheduled a Sept. 28 hearing on the Virginia erosion issue. The project is expected to be completed in late 2019. New Senior Exec at Blue Mountain Resources.  Blue Ridge Mountain Resources has a new high-ranking executive, Kallanish Energy reports. Michael Hodges became senior vice president of finance, effective on Sept. 19. He will become executive vice president and chief financial officer after the merger of Blue Ridge Mountain Resources and Eclipse Resources is completed. That is expected to be in the fourth quarter 2018, subject to regulatory approvals. Hodges will replace Matthew DeNezza, Eclipse’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. DeNezza will remain with Eclipse and aid Hodges in the transition until the close of the merger. Hodges previously worked at PayRock Energy II, an EnCap portfolio company. It was focused on the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. He has also worked for Ward Energy Partners, Rex Energy, Chesapeake Energy and SandRidge Energy. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma and a master’s degree from Oklahoma City University. He is a certified public accountant. “Michael brings with him significant industry experience and an excellent track record of leading finance functions in the upstream energy sector while possessing executive-level experience at both public and private energy companies,” said John Reinhart, president and CEO of Blue Ridge, in a statement. Reinhart will lead the merged companies. Blue Ridge, with offices in Irving, Texas, is active in the Marcellus and Utica shales in the Appalachian Basin. Eclipse Resources is based in State College, Pennsylvania, and is active in the Appalachian Basin. Shale economy big plus for Ohio: Drew $64 billion in investment in seven years, led to 100,000 paychecks.  Energy growth triggers company expansions, community improvements “When it comes to energy, no region, not even the Gulf, can compete with Ohio,” said Dana Saucier Jr., senior managing director of energy and chemicals at JobsOhio. Joe Barone jbarone@shaledirectories.com 610.764.1232 Vera Anderson vera@shaledirectories.com 570.337.7149

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