The theme of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association’s spring meeting on Wednesday was “changing the narrative in energy perception and policy.”
But the narrative felt familiar, albeit more defiant and peppered with anecdotes from a long, life-changing year of disease, energy disruptions, economic hardship and political swings.
“Don’t be afraid to stand up and speak out. You’re not doing anything wrong,” said Dan Weaver, president and executive director of the Marshall-based trade group, which represents oil and gas producers in the region.
He flashed a photo of a typical hospital room, where many of the staples like the bed and the hospital gown are made from petrochemicals derived from oil and gas.
“One year plus after COVID, we’re reminding people, ‘You need us. You still need us,’” Mr. Weaver said.
Attendees, a few hundred spread out at tables inside a conference center at the Rivers Casino, welcomed the message.
After a year of Zoom calls during which oil and gas again fell out of favor in Washington with a change in the White House, they talked optimistically about the recent rise in the price of natural gas and embraced the sense of pride that speakers like Mr. Weaver and others sought to instill in the group.
They knew what to expect when CNX Resources’ CEO Nick DeIuliis took the podium for his keynote address. He would be the one to speak for them, unapologetically.
“This industry is a noble one,” Mr. DeIuliis said. “You are doers that should be celebrated by all and appreciated by the informed.”
Mr. DeIuliis offered his thanks to natural gas workers for keeping the lights on, to the industry for paying more than $2 billion in impact fees over the past decade, to natural gas power plants for improving air quality and driving down CO2 emissions (by replacing coal generators as the dominant electric fuel on the regional grid), to pipeline workers and those who help export natural gas abroad.
A self-styled advocate for capitalism, the middle class and for developing nations — which he says will be hurt most by a move away from fossil fuels — Mr. DeIuliis predictably went after the “elites” and “academia” in his speech and said the pursuit of renewable energy gives power to the Chinese Communist Party. China provides the vast majority of the world’s supply of rare earth minerals, which are used in the manufacturing of solar panels, but also in high tech products like smartphones and lasers.
The same theme was being deployed at the same time nearby, where a group of labor leaders and the CEO of CNX’s former sister company, Consol Energy Inc., which mines coal, held a rally to protest Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to join a regional initiative that would cap carbon dioxide emissions.
“The raw minerals that you make solar panels from all come from China,” said Kenny Broadbent, the business manager at Steamfitters Local 449, from a podium in West End Overlook Park.
Instead, Pennsylvanians should be working with Pennsylvania resources, he said. That’s coal and natural gas.
Back at the Rivers Casino, the China theme was catching on.
“Can we start calling it red energy, not green energy?” suggested Clint Soderstrom, chief commercial officer for Cecil-based oil and gas producer Lola Energy Inc.
“That’s a good idea,” Mr. DeIuliis said.
He was followed by an impromptu pitch by Greg Wrightstone, a geologist and executive director of the Virginia-based nonprofit The CO2 Coalition, whose members believe that “additional CO2 will be a net benefit” to the planet.
“There is no climate crisis,” Mr. Wrightstone felt compelled to announce. He warned that each company in the room is under an “existential threat” by those who demonize carbon emissions and then offered to hand out “I heart CO2” masks to the bare-faced crowd.
The pre-taped message from West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin that followed seemed incongruous by comparison.
Mr. Manchin talked unskeptically about decarbonizing and praised natural gas as a “transition fuel” to a lower carbon future. He said he would work to get funding for carbon capture and sequestration technology.
No one clapped.
Anya Litvak: alitvak@post-gazette.com
First Published: May 20, 2021, 10:00 a.m.
Updated: May 20, 2021, 4:02 p.m.
