Welcome back to The Link-Up, your weekly rundown of our favorite stories from the past seven days in the oil and gas industry!
Noozhawk
This one slipped a bit under the radar for us last week, but it's a story we've mentioned here before, so a little cleanup is in order. There had been, as the headline obviously states, an issue to ban the fracking process and new wells in California's San Luis Obispo County, which presently contains roughly 216 active wells, most of which feed a Phillips 66 refinery. The measure failed as part of what was, on balance, a great Election Day for the industry.
Denver Post
However...know what I hate about politics? Nothing is ever actually settled. You win one, and pretty much immediately, there's a push to undo it.
"I’m not looking to drive out the industry from the state, but we have to respond to the need of communities so they feel safer," said [Speaker of the Colorado House KC] Becker, who was one of the only Democratic officials to back Prop 112. "If we don’t do something at the legislature in the next two years, the issue will be back (at the ballot box) and with a greater level of funding."
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The external affairs director for Cabot Oil & Gas wrote in to remind everyone how awesome all of the new gas power plants are, what with their jobs, and economic impact, lower emissions and whatnot. Wait, am I supposed to be doing stuff like that too?
WTOV
"Mobile command center?" What? That sounds...awesome.
The Ohio Oil & Gas Association wrote a $50,000 check to purchase the unit for the county, which will assist with emergency response. There's an obvious industry interest in having a state-of-the-art vehicle for that purpose, should something happen on a wellsite, but it's yet another example of our doing good in the larger world.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
There are four fracking sites in Penn Township, PA that had received a zoning exception to operate. An advocacy group called Project PT took issue with that and has appealed the township's zoning board's decision to the Commonwealth Court (the intermediate appellate court in Pennsylvania).
Project PT is currently considering whether to appeal to the state supreme court, in addition to its numerous other lawsuits involving the industry. Get another hobby maybe, you're not very good at this one.
Newark Advocate
Let's close this out with a little bit of a fun story. That really, really weird office building, shown above, is in Newark, OH and was formerly the headquarters of now-defunct basket company Longaberger. So now, the building's available and it's being marketed...to oil and gas.
Now obviously, you can sell the real estate and build something else there, or you can simply renovate the building so that it doesn't look like a basket anymore. But you'll be making Bryce Custer sad if you do that.
"With shale gas and petrochemical complexes locating along the Ohio River, this will be an excellent location for a petrochemical, plastics or derivative manufacturers... This is a great opportunity for an organization to own one of the most unique office buildings in the country if not the world. This building is not for a user looking for the run of the mill, cookie-cutter office. This building and campus will set the organization apart from everyone else."
Hopefully someone out there has a similar outlook on things. If nothing else, it's a conversation starter.
See you next week!
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