Leave it to ace reporter Paul Gough from the Pittsburgh Business Times to unearth some earth-shattering news–that ExxonMobil is actively looking at locations in Beaver County, Pennsylvania to potentially build a second multi-billion dollar cracker plant. Shell is already well along in building the region’s first ethane cracker–in Monaca (Beaver County). Will lightning strike twice for the good citizens of Beaver County? Maybe!
Continue reading
Pipeline, LNG Plant Outages Cause M-U Gas Prices to Plummet
The “bad old days” of low low prices for natural gas have returned to the Marcellus/Utica region–at least temporarily. During the past few weeks natural gas prices at Appalachian supply hubs Dominion South and Tennessee Zone 4 Marcellus fell from about $2 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in mid-September to lows of 76¢/MMBtu and 65¢/MMBtu, respectively, on October 4. Ouch. Why the drop-like-a-rock in price? For a variety of reasons, but there are two main factors…
Continue reading
EIA Oct ’19 Drilling Report: Permian Gas Grows More than M-U
According to the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration, our favorite government agency), in the coming month of November, the U.S.’s seven major shale plays will produce a combined 84 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, and 8.9 million barrels of oil per day–a brand new record high for each. The real eye-opener is that while the M-U will produce 132 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of additional shale gas, the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico will produce an additional 210 MMcf/d of shale gas!
Continue reading
Mountaineer Makes Progress on WV Delivery Pipe; Who Will Feed It?
Mountaineer Gas it close to completing Phase One of its Eastern Panhandle Expansion project in West Virginia, a 22.5-mile, 10-inch-diameter steel pipeline from Morgan County to Berkeley County. The project is designed to deliver Marcellus/Utica natural gas via local distribution channels to a new $150 million industrial facility in Berkeley County, WV, and to provide “a redundant supply” of gas to some 6,000 local businesses and residents in the Tri-State area. The system is supposed to be fed by a short 3.5-mile pipeline from Columbia Gas running under the Potomac River from Maryland into WV.
Continue reading
National Grid Uses Texas LNG Virtual Pipe to Supply Long Island
Sam Thigpen, founder and CEO of Thigpen Solutions, revealed something at Gulf Coast Energy Forum in New Orleans that is a revelation for us. Starting last winter, Thigpen and his Texas-based company has been shipping LNG to National Grid and their Long Island, NY operation during the wintertime, so that National Grid doesn’t run out of gas for its existing customers. In fact, Thigpen has a five-year contract to supply National Grid’s Long Island customers with (expensive) LNG.
Continue reading
Mass. Utility Gives Up on New Pipe, No New Gas Customers…Ever
For residents who want to build a new home or business in either Northampton or Easthampton (Hampshire County), Massachusetts, and connect to natural gas supplies–you can forget about it. Columbia Gas of Massachusetts has announced that a moratorium on new natural gas customers in those two municipalities, in place since 2015, will become permanent. Citing “cost impacts and benefits” to customers, Columbia’s president says the company will no longer build what it called the “alternate backfeed” pipeline project–a 6-mile pipe that would have run between Agawam and Holyoke to supply Northampton and Easthampton.
Continue reading
Enterprise Decides to Expand ATEX Ethane Pipeline to Gulf Coast
In August, Enterprise Products Partners, the builder and operator of the Appalachia-to-Texas Express (ATEX) ethane pipeline, launched an open season to gauge interest in expanding the capacity along the 1,192-mile pipeline (see Enterprise Looks to Expand ATEX Ethane Pipeline to Gulf Coast). Good news! The open season is now closed and yes, there is more than enough interest from customers to increase capacity along the line by an additional 45,000 barrels per day.
Continue reading
Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Oct 16, 2019
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Eastern Ohio’s low oil & gas production counties; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: New study blames some Permian Basin earthquakes on fracking; NATIONAL: U.S. oil and gas jobs fall as drilling declines; Warren and Sanders, policy mates; The crackdown on illegal immigration is hurting oil drillers; California and New York show the ugly face of ‘progress’; Technology takes over tight oil; Political challenges send chill through US gathering of LNG interests; INTERNATIONAL: Sales of electric vehicles in China are slowing; Climate worship is nothing more than rebranded paganism.
Continue reading
NY Police State: Cuomo Orders Natl Grid to Hook Up Gas Customers
Sounding like North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday “ordered” National Grid to connect 1,157 new natural gas customers previously denied service because National Grid won’t have enough natural gas on the coldest days in winter to service everyone. New York has descended into a police state, with our Dear Leader ordering around companies in contravention of established law. Yet not a peep from mainstream news organizations about Cuomo’s excessive abuse of power.
Continue reading
Fed Court Suspends Mountain Valley Pipe Permits; $2.15M Fine
We’ve seen this movie before. The radical fringe leftists from the Sierra Club (disgusting organization) convinced the clown judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (i.e. Circus) to block construction of Dominion Energy’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) pipeline by getting the court to toss U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permits that allow the project to kill a couple of bats along a few miles of the project (see 4th Circus Blocks Permit, Stops All Work on Atlantic Coast Pipe). The Clubbers have done it again, this time with Equitrans’ Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project.
Continue reading
Corrupt NJ DEP Again Denies PennEast Pipeline Fed Water Permit
How would you like to find out that your billion dollar pipeline project has just been denied another permit–by getting a tweet? That’s what happened to PennEast Pipeline on Friday. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy tweeted that NJ’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is, once again, denying a federal Clean Water Act Section 401 stream crossing permit for the project. The putz delivered the news to PennEast via a tweet–can you believe that? The NJ DEP is rejecting the permit not for any scientific reasons, which is what the law stipulates, but because of politics.
Continue reading
Proposed New PA Pipeline to Connect Rover Pipe to WV Power Plant
It’s not often a new pipeline project crops up and slips by us. On May 31, Equitrans (formerly EQT Midstream) filed an official request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a 16.7-mile pipeline from southwest Pennsylvania into West Virginia in order to feed what will become WV’s very first natural gas-fired electric power plant (see WV NatGas Power Plant Gets Final Permits, Construction Begins Soon). The pipeline will connect to and feed gas from the mighty Rover Pipeline.
Continue reading
PA DEP Reaches $1.48M Settlement with CNX to Plug Abandoned Wells
Last year the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued administrative orders requiring three oil and gas companies–Alliance Petroleum Corporation (a subsidiary of Diversified Gas & Oil), XTO Energy, and CNX Resources–to plug 1,058 abandoned oil and gas wells across Pennsylvania (see PA DEP Orders CNX, XTO & Diversified to Plug 1,058 Abandoned Wells). All three appealed the DEP’s order to the state Environmental Hearing Board. In March of this year the DEP cut a deal with Diversified (see DEP and Diversified Gas & Oil Compromise on Plugging Old PA Wells). As of last week, the DEP has now cut a deal with CNX, relaxing their earlier edict.
Continue reading
Revised Ohio Regulations Reduce Utica Well Spacing Distance
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) recently revised its regulations governing the spacing of horizontal oil and gas production wells. The revised regs, which became effective on Oct. 10, loosen spacing requirements and “will bring Ohio’s horizontal well spacing regulations in line with what accepted science and drilling data indicates is a more efficient and productive spacing for horizontal wells in Ohio.” The setback (from boundary lines) was reduced from a previous 500 feet to 400 feet in some cases, and down to 150 feet in other cases.
Continue reading
Conflict-of-Interest Delays Vote on SWPA Beech Hollow Power Plant
What happens when two of three elected town supervisors either have a lease with a pipeline company, or have close family members who have leases with the pipeline company, and they must vote to approve a new power plant project that would use shale gas from that pipeline to power it? It’s called a conflict of interest, and we’re about to find out the answer to that question in Robinson Township (Washington County), PA.
Continue reading
Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Oct 15, 2019
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Firefighters battle blazing conventional gas well in West Salem Township; Groups bidding for PES refinery due to tour fire-damaged site; Meeting to discuss plans for new power plant in Robinson Township canceled; WV’s oil and gas industry prepares for petrochemical manufacturing; GAIL selling two, seeking one LNG cargo; NATIONAL: Pipeline vandals have a friend in these phony enablers; Five U.S. LNG export projects eyed for sanctioning in 2020; Oilfield services firm ProPetro cuts almost 150 workers.
Continue reading