Making Government Sorta Work-- When Your Land and Way of Life Depend On It

A temporary ban is better than none at all (4.00 / 1)

Senator Thompson was integral in getting the Senate part of this passed. Looks like it could not pass in the upcoming class of Senators.

See http://www.docudrama.com/diary...

BTW, the new possible owner of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team - Terry Pagula - made his $3 billion dollar portion by selling his company - East Resources - off to a big major oil company, Royal Dutch Shell. He first allowed the takeover firm KKR to buy a part of his company, and then they made the sale to Shell, for $4.7 Billion, of which he got $3 large.

This is the only way to make money on the fracking scene in the Marcellus region these days while the Ngas prices are in the crapper - now retailing for around $4/MBtu, and the futures prices are similar to that for the next 4 years. This is the use of the Asset Play - see http://www.declineoftheempire....

Nice work if you can get it....

Nb41

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by: Nb41 @ Wed Dec 01, 2010 at 16:48:17 PM UTC

Don't actually agree with that (4.00 / 1)

I don't think that Thompson made possible a short-term moratorium that would otherwise have not passed the Senate.  I see it as him watering down a 2-year moratorium that had enough Senate support to pass, in order to continue to collect campaign cash from the oil and gas companies.

AND, this is really not so much a partisan issue, actually.  Not clear what the future of fracking in NY is....

As far as the ASSET BUBBLE, shell-game, sell off to the big-boys game that is the Marcellus Shale play.... well, be careful you don't get blinded by your sports team owners.  That is somebody's children's future that they are selling down the river.  If you want to see what an oil and gas colony looks like when Shell owns it, check out Nigeria.  I have grandkids; I want them to live in NY more than I want Buffalo to have a sports team today.

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by: robinia @ Wed Dec 01, 2010 at 16:56:12 PM UTC

Nothing good about that asset play... (4.00 / 1)

I don't think there is anything good about that asset play as it has all kinds of long term bad issues. And eventually the majors will want to drill and tap the gas when the Ngas price rises to some acceptable (to them) level.

But a big theme going around is that the Marcellus is about jobs and about national energy security. But this is a money losing prospect on that basis, and since it is a money loser, no jobs is the likely result. And not a lot of taxes on the profits, too as no profits means no taxes.

Of course, that theme is a lie, but lies never stopped the corporate onslaught on all kinds of peoples and communities. And I think that this is a point that can be used to slow down fracking. But the real key is to provide a viable economic and energy source, which is where wind turbines, biogas and biomass based electricity and/or co-gen come into play. And ther is the "nags price ceiling" to deal with. The maximum price that Ngas can get to before wind turbines become the lower cost  way to make electricity is in the $10 to $12/MBtu price range, and that is just where the Marcellus stuff starts to get good and profitable.

That's why we need a Feed-in Law for renewable electricity in NY - it makes wind the and biomass/biogas the preferred options on a long term basis.

Nb41

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by: Nb41 @ Thu Dec 02, 2010 at 02:24:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Senator Thompson stood in the way (4.00 / 2)

There were at least four Republican votes for the real moratorium (including one cosponsor), and at most four Democrats who might have voted against it.  But Senator Thompson, as chairman of the committee, blocked any vote on the bill.

Senator Thompson was trying to play both sides of this game; it's no wonder he lost his reelection bid.

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by: Dan Jacoby @ Wed Dec 01, 2010 at 17:08:50 PM UTC