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Here We Go Again: Enterprise Products Wants to Buy Williams

here we go againJust when you thought things had finally settled down with midstream giant Williams, a new rumor is making the rounds. Brief history: Energy Transfer Equity’s (ETE) billionaire CEO Kelsy Warren propositioned Williams for over six months before going public with his overtures (see Energy Transfer Makes “Indecent Proposal” to Buy Williams for $48B). Williams resisted, but eventually they caved and agreed to the deal, although the deal price went down by $10 billion (see Williams Accepts ETE’s “Indecent Proposal” – Price Went Down $10B). Warren claims he got snookered and got cold feet, eventually bailing (see Dead as a Doornail: ETE Terminates Merger with Williams). Now the rumor mill is buzzing. Another company, Enterprise Products Partners, is making overtures to buy Williams for an undisclosed sum…
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Tioga County, PA Landowners Won’t Let Driller Clean Up

keep outThis one has us scratching our heads. Landowners Damon and Kendra Baker, in Tioga County, PA, signed a lease with Shell’s SWEPI in 2006. We’re guessing the signing bonus was peanuts because at that time the Marcellus was still in its infancy in PA. SWEPI constructed a well pad on their property in 2010 but had drilled no wells by the time the lease expired in 2011. The Bakers wanted a healthy re-signing bonus to allow SWEPI to lease their land again. SWEPI’s final offer was $150,000 (not sure for how many acres). The Baker’s, according to SWEPI, wanted half a million dollars. SWEPI said “no thanks” and therefore, according to state Dept. of Environmental Protection standards, needs to restore the property to its original state and be done with it. But the Bakers won’t let them re-enter the property. So SWEPI is suing and the clock is ticking–they only have until December to put it back to original condition or the company will be fined $500/day until it’s done…
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Fayette County, WV Appeals Federal Court Ruling on Injection Well

appealIn January, three liberal Democrat county commissioners from Fayette County, WV, with the backing and help of the radical WV Mountain Party, voted to ban injection wells in the county (see WV County Officially Bans Injection Wells; Children Brainwashed). The ban was intentionally written so broadly it would also ban the operation of more than 500 vertical oil and gas wells in the county. The next day EQT sued to overturn the ban (see EQT Sues WV County that Banned Injection Wells, Seeks Injunction). One of the chief architects of the ban, from the Mountain Party, admits the ban was intended to stop all oil and gas activity in the county (see Anti Admits Fayette County, WV Ban Aims to Shut Down All O&G Wells). Fearing they would lose the EQT lawsuit, in March the commissioners backed away from the position of banning everything to do with drilling in the county. They revised the proposed ban regulation as a tactic to avoid losing their court case (see Fayette WV Commissioners Change Ban to Focus on Injection Wells). In June, a federal judge tossed out Fayette’s illegal ban (see Federal Judge Rules Fayette County Injection Well Ban Illegal). Now the lib Dems, with the assistance of the radical Appalachian Mountain Advocates, has had the gall to appeal the federal judge’s decision…
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Sierra Club Lawsuit Seeks to Block Power Plant, Atlantic Coast Pipe

enviro naziIn March 2015, Dominion–a huge natural gas and electric utility as well as a midstream company–announced plans to build the State of Virginia’s largest natural gas powered electric generating plant, in Greensville County, VA (see Virginia’s Largest Electric Plant to be Powered by Marcellus Gas). The $1.3 billion state-of-the-art natural gas-fired electric generating station will generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity. Dominion’s own $5 billion, 554-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline will provide cheap, abundant, clean-burning Marcellus/Utica Shale gas to power it (see Atlantic Coast Pipeline Makes Progress, FERC Timing Announced). The Virginia State Corporate Commission (SCC) approved the project in March of this year (see Virginia Approves State’s Largest NatGas-Powered Electric Plant). In June, Dominion began construction (see Dominion Begins Building Virginia’s Biggest NatGas Power Station). On Tuesday, environmental Nazis from the Sierra Club and Appalachian Mountain Advocates filed a federal lawsuit (in Virginia) to stop both the power plant and the pipeline, claiming the power plant won’t use the “best available emissions control technology” and that the pipeline will leak methane like a sieve…
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Marcellus/Utica is “Winning Strategy” for Trailer Park Company

UMH Properties logoA company we’ve written about for the past few years is UMH Properties–a New Jersey-based real estate company that keeps snapping up trailer parks in the Marcellus/Utica region (see our UMH Properties stories here). Although the drilling industry in the Marcellus/Utica has been in a slump, you wouldn’t know it from the performance of UMH. The company specifically credits the Marcellus/Utica with its stellar performance in the second quarter of 2016. Highlights of 2Q16 for UMH include: rental and related income up 25 percent; community net operating income up 33 percent; and home sales up 72.4 percent. The company’s decision to focus its expansion in areas where energy development has created high demand for affordable housing, like the northeast, is paying off big-time…
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Falling Associated Gas Volumes Means NatGas Price on the Rise

Associated_gas_geology
Click for larger version

A number of factors affect the price of natural gas in general–and the price of natgas is always important, no matter which geography it is produced in. One of the things that affects the price of natural gas is “associated gas” production. What the heck is that? When you drill a hole in the ground to extract hydrocarbons–like oil–other hydrocarbons come out of the ground along with that oil. Those other hydrocarbons are, first and foremost, methane–or natural gas. Propane, butane, ethane, and other hydrocarbons are also in the mix. But the fact remains, when you drill for oil, you also (almost always) get at least some natgas along with it. That natgas, the stuff you weren’t necessarily drilling for but get anyway, is associated gas. It’s usually extracted in conventional oil drilling–found in deposits close to oil deposits (see the graphic on the left). Perhaps you now begin to see how oil and gas–and their prices–are closely aligned. When the price of oil goes down and drillers quit drilling, the amount of associated gas being produced and brought to market also goes down–affecting the overall quantity of gas available for sale. The less gas for sale, with demand remaining constant, prices go up. Got it? Good! Fitch Ratings recently published a short article on how associated gas from oily shale plays is on the decrease, and that means prices for natural gas everywhere is on the increase…
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Stark State College Receives $506K To Expand ShaleNET Training

money-bag.jpgStark State College, located in North Canton, OH, has just been awarded a half million dollar grant from OH Gov. John Kasich’s Education Innovation program to provide ShaleNET education and training to students at Stark State’s sister schools, Eastern Gateway Community College in Steubenville, OH and Hocking College in Nelsonville, OH. MDN first reported on Stark’s new Well Site Training Center back in 2014 (see Stark State Launches Utica Well Site Training Center in Canton, OH). ShaleNET was launched in 2010 with a $5 million Community Based Job Training grant awarded to Westmoreland County Community College in Youngwood, PA by the US Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration. Since that time, the program, which provides vocational and educational training to put people in shale jobs, has grown to multiple colleges across PA and OH. The new grant from OH will allow Stark State to expand its program–and prep more workers for the blossoming Utica Shale industry in the state…
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Republican & Democrat Energy Platforms – There IS a Clear Choice

2016 electionWe’ve commented on the impending election this November a few times. We try to keep our opinions about the disastrous Hillary Clinton out of MDN as much as possible, realizing not everyone agrees with us. (Have we told you lately what a DISASTER she would be as president?) However, energy–in particular fracking and shale–is a key issue in the upcoming election. Nowhere is that more obvious than the official party platforms recently adopted at each national party’s convention (in Cleveland for the Republicans, and in Philadelphia for the Democrats). The National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) has done us a favor. NARO, a non-partisan organization, has extracted statements from each party platform with respect to energy issues (see it below). IT IS STRIKING. The Republican platform is pro-fossil fuel and the Democrat platform is anti-fossil fuel. There is no other conclusion you can draw. The Democrat platform calls for bizarre policies like requiring energy from so-called renewables to power 50% of our electricity within 10 years–an impossible goal that would destroy our country’s economy. Folks, there is no other way of saying this than to say it: A vote for Hillary is a vote to end your own job (if you work in and around the energy industry). Are you insane? No, we didn’t think so. Prove it by voting for Trump…
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Environmentalists Lose Their Minds, Strap Methane Backpacks on Cows

Source: INTA Informa
Bovine Borg – Source: INTA Informa

Have you ever read an article on The Onion? It’s a faux news site that runs stories that, at first blush, appear to be legitimate–but are in reality spoofs. Jokes. Made-up. That’s what we began to read a story sent along by intrepid MDN news hound Chris Acker, about researchers in Argentina strapping methane backpacks on cows and hooking up hoses to their digestive tracts (reminding us of the Borg in Star Trek) in order to capture global warming methane emissions from bovines. We thought, “This must be a joke, right?” But no! It’s not. It comes from Bloomberg–a legitimate mainstream news agency. Environmentalist wackos are so concerned that cow burps and farts will warm Mom Earth that they’re now driven to turn poor Bessie the cow into a Bovine Borg…
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Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Fri, Aug 19, 2016

best of the restThe “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Eric Schneiderman, NY’s tempestuous AG, does NRDC’s bidding in war against Exxon; final DEP Mariner East 2 hearing; TVA natgas-fired electric plant coming in TN; Sierra Clubbers file lawsuit against Sabal Trail pipeline; the coming frac sand boom; Eleventh Circuit Court disappoints, won’t hear WOTUS case; US ethane squeezing out Canadian propane/butane; and more!
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