Last Friday National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Western New York State which operates drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources and pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline, issued its second quarter 2018 (everyone else’s first quarter) update. Via Seneca Resources, NFG drills wells in northcentral and northwestern PA. Via Empire Pipeline, they build and maintain hundreds of miles of pipelines. NFG wants to add to their pipeline portfolio by building the Northern Access Pipeline–a $455 million project with 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern PA up to Erie County, NY. Northern Access would allow Seneca to drill new wells in an area currently pipeline “constrained.” However, Northern Access construction has been blocked by the corrupt NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (see Cuomo’s Corrupt NY DEC Blocks NFG Northern Access Pipeline Permit). During a conference call with analysts on Friday, NFG CEO Ron Tanski outlined what we call Plan B for the Northern Access. Yes, NFG still wants to build Northern Access, but they now have an alternative. NFG recently signed an agreement with Williams’ Transco Pipeline to flow 300 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Seneca natural gas to Transco Zone 6 markets. Transco is talking with other shippers before it files to expand the existing pipeline–a project that would not be online until late 2021. If by some miracle NFG could get the corrupt DEC to change its mind and authorize Northern Access, that project would be online in 2020. Other interesting bits of news coming from last week’s update: Seneca plans to drill Utica wells on some of its existing Marcellus well pads. Seneca added a second drilling rig in 2017, and plans to add a third rig any time now…
Last Friday National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Western New York State which operates drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources and pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline, issued its second quarter 2018 (everyone else’s first quarter) update. Via Seneca Resources, NFG drills wells in northcentral and northwestern PA. Via Empire Pipeline, they build and maintain hundreds of miles of pipelines. NFG wants to add to their pipeline portfolio by building the Northern Access Pipeline–a $455 million project with 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern PA up to Erie County, NY. Northern Access would allow Seneca to drill new wells in an area currently pipeline “constrained.” However, Northern Access construction has been blocked by the corrupt NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (see 