Chesapeake Energy Hands Over Keys to Barnett Shale to Someone Else
Chesapeake Energy had some big news on Tuesday. The company is selling off its Barnett Shale assets, and in the process lightening the company’s future debt load considerably. This is a bit complicated, but we’ll try our best to break it down. Chesapeake announced Tuesday they are handing over the keys to 215,000 Barnett Shale acres (some developed, some not), along with 2,800 operational wells–giving it away to Saddle Barnett Resources LLC, a Dallas-based firm backed by First Reserve Corp. In return, Saddle Barnett is taking on renegotiated midstream contracts with Williams. The net result for Chesapeake is that the deal will “incinerate” about $1.9 billion in payments they would have had to make to Williams and others. As we said, it considerably lightens the stress on Chesapeake’s balance sheet. Williams is trying to put a happy face on the fact they will get less money after the deal than before. But then again, a solvent Chesapeake (and/or Saddle Barnett) paying something less is better than a bankrupt Chesapeake paying nothing. Why cover this story on MDN, a Marcellus/Utica focused website? Because if Chesapeake did it in the Barnett in Texas, they (or someone else) may try to do something similar in the Marcellus/Utica…
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We have been making the point, loudly, for the past year, that IF New York State blocks the Constitution Pipeline, as they have now done, the state runs the very real risk of having the federal government strip away their right to make such decisions about any federally-approved pipeline project. We’ve previously warned that New York is in grave danger of losing their power by attempting to block the Constitution. We wrote the following in October 2015: When MDN editor Jim Willis attended the Shale Insight conference in Philadelphia in September, he listened to a panel discussion of midstream (pipeline) experts, including a former FERC commissioner. He got to ask a question and the question, roughly, was this: “The NY DEC is currently holding up the FERC-approved Constitution Pipeline. What if the DEC refuses to issue the necessary permits? What happens next?” The answer Jim got was, “It depends.” The bottom line seems to be that it’s likely FERC (and Williams) will need to take the DEC to court. The DEC frankly has no legal right to prevent a federally approved project from being built. That’s the bottom line. It may take a court to force the DEC (and Gov. Cuomo) to act, but in this matter the law is on our side. This is not a question of “if,” it is a question of “when” the pipeline will get built (see 
Time to do a happy dance. THE (arrogant) Delaware Riverkeeper has lost yet another court case–one of many such cases they continuously file to stop any fossil fuel-related project in the northeast. In March MDN told you that THE Delaware Riverkeeper had sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, challenging their decision to approve the Williams Transco Pipeline’s Leidy Southeast Expansion from PA to New York City (see 
Earlier this week Williams announced a deal to sell its Canadian businesses and assets to Inter Pipeline for $1 billion. Williams is wasting no time following the aborted merger attempt by Energy Transfer Equity to buy Williams. Following that aborted attempt, nearly half of the Williams board quit because they couldn’t get their grubby hands on big piles of money (see 
Midstream giant Williams released their second quarter 2016 financial and operating update on Monday. After the deal by Energy Transfer Partners to buy Williams fell apart, some stockholders in Williams were waiting (agitating) to see what new strategy or direction the company might take. However, the “new” strategy is to keep doing what they’ve always done, according to CEO Alan Armstrong. What do we glean from the Williams 2Q16 update? For one thing, they lost $90 million in the second quarter, versus making $300 million in profit in 2Q15. That’s not so good. However, there are some promising projects on the way for Williams, including the Constitution Pipeline (once the courts slap New York around and force the state allow it), and the Atlantic Sunrise project in PA. Atlantic Sunrise is an expansion of one of the largest interstate pipeline systems in the country–the mighty Transcontinental Gas Pipeline (Transco). Below is the update from Williams, along with links to a transcript of their quarterly earnings phone call with analysts, and a link to their latest PowerPoint slide deck. We’ve also included analysis from Bloomberg on Williams’ “everything old is new again” strategy…
MDN sent an email to our list of daily headline subscribers last week (below). This is a quick reminder that 
In July 2015 Williams filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the $130 million New York Bay Expansion project, which will flow Marcellus gas to 500,000 additional New York City residents by the 2017/2018 heating season (see 
As we reported yesterday, last Friday Williams and the Constitution Pipeline filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend their application to build the Constitution Pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY (see 
Stone Energy, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (E&P) headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana drills mainly in the Gulf of Mexico but also has a presence in the Marcellus/Utica Shale with 75,000 acres of leases. Last year Stone quit drilling in the northeast and actually shut-in part of their production due to low prices (see 
The Obamadroids are once again ganging up on the semi-independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Last week the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed comments with FERC critical of the Williams/Transco Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project (see 
Are we finally, blessedly “done” with the ongoing soap opera that was the proposed takeover/merger of midstream giant Williams by fellow midstream giant Energy Transfer Equity? Can Williams now go back to its “considerable pile of knitting” (that pile meaning some 16 expansion projects)? Well, in a word, yes! Except….except if another suitor comes along who wants to buy Williams, which is a very real possibility. A couple of analysts mull over the possibilities now that the ETE plan to buy Williams is dead…