Creston News

Rev. Craig Blankenship brought the sermon at the Burning Springs M. E. Church & served Holy Communion.  His wife, Carol was named "Teacher of the Year" at the Elizabeth middle school.

The big spring Creston ATV poker run is set for Saturday April 30.  We guarantee that riders will go at least one place where they have never been before and see other places from a different perspective.  The route is almost 60 miles long with lots of water & mud.  There will be special places for the "he men & Amazon women" and routes around for all the others.  This can be the place that a feller can "impress" his sweetie by doing the he man route and either making it through or getting stuck or ending up upon one's side & having to ask her to set the chariot up right again.  The wild flowers are at their peak.  Signups for the route will stop at noon but folks should go early to enjoy the views & vistas and allow for having to tow someone, fix a flat, stop for a picnic lunch, etc.  Folks who haven't been to Creston for a spell will get to see the sign that was repaired by Leon after having wind damage.  Biscuits & gravy from the kitchen will start out the day right.

On Saturday May 7 the Creston Area Neighborhood Watch will have a litter cleanup.  Trash bags & vittles will be provided.  One should be at the Creston Community Building by 9 A. M.

Even when it rains it has been beautiful spring weather.  The red buds are still spectacular and now there are dogwoods, lilacs, wild geraniums, wild vetch and lots more phlox.  The toads are trilling and the wood boring bumblebees are out and about.  Fishermen have been reeling in the "big ones" and folks are trying to bag the wily gobblers.

Not so long back the SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers) sponsored a talk on bitcoin mining in the oil field.  Seems as if one has some "stranded natural gas" one can buy a generator and get some special Chinese made computers, invest about a total of $2 million and "mine" bitcoin by having the computers work to solve the questions that are asked.  Apparently there is an operation somewhere near Ripley & another near Middlebourne.

Cap'n Eddie & Gloria Norman, Leon Jurasik, Sonny Burdette & nephew were among those calling on Ted Grim.  Some other local folks are down checking out the Hatfield & McCoy ATV trails with other family members before going on the Creston ATV poker run .

The comely Kim was visiting her mother Wilma Mowrey.

Some Brooksville & Creston oil men and oil women attended the spring SOOGA (Southeastern Ohio Oil & Gas Association) meeting in Marietta.  Former Creston resident Jim Javins is significant in the group as is Winnie Sinnett.  Bob Gerst, who formerly was a regular visitor in Creston, won an award.

There was a discussion about the new federal rule on "escaping" methane and now there is a new comment period.  It would seem that the bureaucrats don't understand that, unlike Russia and other third world countries, there is an effort to collect each & every methane molecule to be sold for what was, for a time $8.00/MMBTU.  That is why there are meters and why folks walk or check their lines to find & fix gas leaks.  It was also noted that the green weenies want the ESG rules, environment, social welfare, equity, blah, blah, blah apply to small companies.  A bank was told to inquire "how many fracking wells do you have?"  Insurance companies were so instructed as well.  Of course, almost all wells drilled since 1955 have been "fracted" as have most older wells that are still in production.  Such is in line with the announcement that military vehicles will now no longer pollute.  The enemy will provide electric charging stations for tanks, armed personnel carriers, Humvees, without a doubt.  No doubt dictator Xi is busting a gut laughing at the foolish talk emanating from the lower Potomac swamp.

Jerry James gave an excellent talk explaining that this area is in the largest world class oil & gas field on the planet and if West Virginia, Ohio & Pennsylvania was a separate nation then that are would be the #3 gas producer world wide behind the United States & Russia.  Our legislators seem not to grasp the amazing wealth the area has and instead work hard to reduce royalties which should be 25% gross and tax payments and work to avoid honest metering of gas sold.  Just who do these folks represent?  EQT used to brag to their investors that they got for free 2 1/2 gallons of natural gas liquids from each MCF (thousand cubic feet) of natural gas that they produced.

The Shale Crescent folks note that because the resource is here and that the market is close the logical place to build ethane crackers & downstream chemical plants is between Pittsburgh, Parkersburg & Huntington.  One of the restraining factors is the fact that schools now teach gender fluidity, the 1619 project, CRT [critical race theory] and other such and do not teach scholars how to read, write and do basic math, let alone the advanced math need to work in science based industries.  Royal Dutch Shell's $15 billion ethane cracker in Monaca Pennsylvania is almost ready to start and will use just under 100,000 bbl. of ethane/day.  Some Marcellus wells have 14% ethane and some Creston gas, mainly from the Big Injun sand, is 18% ethane.  This [polyethylene] is, of course, the raw material for almost all plastics.

Mr. James provided a graph that showed that, in the past, when oil prices took a big jump a recession followed even when it was not the fault of America.  This time the price increase was deliberate "to save the planet" & make gasolene prices higher so the peasants would not drive around & be free from the ruling elites.  Of course now, in addition to the rampant inflation there is constant talk of the recession to come.

John Heinz Kerry, the energy czar, whose family, like the Bidens, Romneys & Pelosies "cleaned up" in Ukraine, said that the oil & gas companies had six (6) years to get to "net zero" CO2 emissions, however that is calculated & determined.  A 20% net zero would cost each person in the US $75/year while 40% would cost each person $485 and 70% would cost just $11,270/per person/year and would require 14% of the nation's gross domestic product and most folks would end up living like our ancestors did in the early 1800s.  Presently 85% of electric is generated in this country from fossil fuels & it is obvious, or should be obvious, that windmills & Chinese solar panels that get tax breaks are out of the question anytime in the foreseeable future.  It was noted that it would cost $150 trillion to do the energy transition.  While all this is to "save the planet" such is not to happen in China, Russia & India as if they are on a different planet.  One might think that the real reason for all this is to destroy the United States & allow China to rule the world.

On the tee vee there are only ads for EVs [electric cars] but if all purchased and ran such the entire national power grid would go down, also there is not enough lithium and cobalt for batteries although some nice folks sorta based around Washington (U. S. oligarchs) made sure that their Chinese friends acquired key cobalt sources in the Congo.  Most of the lithium presently comes from Australia, Chile, China & Argentina but the senile one "gave" the Afghanistan reserves to son Hunter's business associates.

There is now said to be a shortage of cement which means that concrete jobs will be much higher and might not happen at all and that the rail roads have cut fertilize shipments by 20%.  It was noted that this would result in starvation in "poorer" countries.  One might want to read about Malthus.  Some say that all this "has nothing to do with Creston" but just go to the store -- everyone is impacted.

The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude fell to $101.07/bbl. with condensate fetching just $87.07/bb. with Marcellus & Utica light bringing $92.07 & medium $101.07/bbl.  Henry Hub natural gas which had been up to over $8.00/mmbtu is now $6.47 while the price in the Orient is $22 and in Europe $30/MMBTU. It should be obvious how Vladimir, the fellow who is dealing for us in the Iran deal, makes so much $$ selling gas & oil.  Ethanol fetches $2.22/gallon while "Y grade" NGLs [natural gas liquids] bring $50.725/bbl. Heating oil is $`04.61/bbl. while steam coal fetches $327/ton and uranium is $56.70/lb. Back in November it was just $31/lb.  Uranium is present in the Devonian shales and BPB (British Plaster Board) had the feds take a core of the A. B. Wilson #21 well at Brohard to see just how much was there.  Some years back thousands of acres in Calhoun & other counties were leased for uranium. One should find out what the terms should be before anyone signs something new.  Also folks are taking CO2 sequestration leases.  Again, one needs to be very careful as to money, liability and general terms.

Dr. Fauci is upset that a judge said folks did not have to wear masks that didn't work anyway while on airplanes, etc.  Also it was learned that the Pfizer vaccine has, apparently, a 3.7% death rate,  One can understand why there is concern that Twitter might allow actual free discussion of the topics that impact citizens without the stamp of the censor.