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Southwestern Sells Fayetteville Shale, Now Focused 100% on M-U

Some exciting news to share. Southwestern Energy, headquartered in Texas, has cut a deal to sell all of their Fayetteville Shale (Arkansas) assets to Flywheel Energy for $1.865 billion in cash. The sale makes Southwestern a pure play, 100% focused driller on the Marcellus/Utica region (i.e. Appalachia). What will Southwestern do with an extra $1.865 billion? According to their announcement: (1) Spend $900 million of it on retiring IOUs (“notes”) previously issued. That is, debt retirement. (2) Buy back up to $200 million in outstanding shares of stock. (3) Spend $600 million of it over the next two years (2019 & 2020) on more Marcellus/Utica drilling. But not just any M-U drilling. Southwestern owns acreage in both northeastern PA and the northern panhandle of WV (with a some acreage in Washington County, PA). According to Southwestern’s announcement, the extra $600 million will go to drilling in the company’s “liquids-rich Appalachia assets.” Northeastern PA is dry dry dry–no liquids. WV landowners brace yourselves–Southwestern will soon bring an extra $600 million (over half a billion dollars) worth of drilling to your area. If you’re signed with Southwestern and haven’t yet seen drilling, you now stand a much better chance! Here’s the exciting news, along with extra resources we’ve located to better help you understand the news…
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Rover Pipe Asks FERC to Start Up Final 2 Laterals, for Antero

We finally come down to the final two lateral pipelines for Rover. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) played a game of hardball with Energy Transfer (ET) over the Rover Pipeline. For months FERC refused to allow four Rover laterals–feeder pipelines to shuttle gas from where it’s produced into the main Rover pipeline–to start up (see FERC Plays Hardball with Rover – Refuses to Certify 4 Laterals). The reason? ET had not, according to FERC, lived up to its word on restoration work. Things like smoothing over the dirt and replanting grass/other vegetation over top of the buried pipeline. In early August ET assured FERC it would have the majority of restoration work done on two key laterals–the Burgettstown Lateral in southwestern PA, and the Majorsville Lateral in the northern panhandle of WV–by the end of August. FERC made ET sweat. Finally, near the end of August, FERC gave ET permission to start up both the Burgettstown and Majorsville Laterals on Sept. 1 (see FERC Finally Approves 2 Key Rover Pipeline Laterals, Sept 1 Start). That leaves just two final laterals, the CGT (Columbia Gas Transmission) and Sherwood Laterals, still not online. On Friday ET asked FERC to approve the startup for those two laterals, along with a compressor station and two meter stations associated with them. The driller with the most at stake in the startup of these two final laterals is Antero Resources…
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EQT People: Who Stays with Mom & Who Goes with Dad After Co Split

It’s an amicable divorce, the split of EQT into upstream (drilling) and midstream (pipelines). But it’s still a divorce, and the parents have to decide which kids will go or stay with which company. The “kids” in this case are the top managers, the executives. And we have the list. After EQT announced its plan to buy/merge in Rice Energy last year, the company got pushback from a couple of so-called activist investors (i.e. corporate raiders). One raider, Jana Partners, tried its best to stop the EQT/Rice deal outright (see Proxy Fight: Jana Partners, Atlas Tries to Stop EQT/Rice Deal). Jana slithered away after the merger happened. However, a second raider, D.E. Shaw, supported the merger but lobbied hard that once the merger is complete, the company should split itself into two companies: upstream (drilling) and midstream (pipelines). Shaw’s pressure made EQT tap dance to their tune (see Under Pressure, EQT Moves Up Timeline to Explore Splitting Co.). True to their word, once Rice was merged in, EQT then added a couple of new board members and set about exploring how to separate the company into two companies. The theory is that by separating, each company can focus on what it does best (drilling or pipelines), meaning each separately will have a higher valuation/stock price than the two combined. That is, “the sum of the parts” is worth more than the whole. In February the company decided it will, indeed, split (see EQT Pulls Trigger to Split Company in Two: Drilling & Pipelines). Yesterday EQT released the list of which top execs will go, and which will stay, with upstream and midstream…
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2nd PA Toilet Paper Plant Converting from Coal to Gas-Fired Elec

In early 2013, the Proctor & Gamble manufacturing plant in Wyoming County (northeastern PA) began generating 100% of its own energy needs thanks to the Marcellus Shale beneath plant property (see PA P&G Plant: 100% Energy Self-Sufficient from Marcellus Gas). The plant, which manufactures Pampers and Luvs diapers and Charmin toilet tissue, uses a LOT of electricity and natural gas. They built their own gas-fired electric plant and began generating all of their own electricity–enough electricity to power 40,000 homes! Fast forward to today. P&G competitor Kimberly Clark has just announced that it too will build a gas-fired electric plant, in Delaware County (near Philadelphia), to power its plant that manufactures Scott 1000 toilet paper. What is it about toilet paper and gas? Kimberly Clark is getting a $6 million grant from PA toward the $150 million project. Make way for another new major customer for PA’s Marcellus fracked gas…
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Pittsburgh Utility Experiments with NatGas Fuel Cells in Homes

An intriguing concept: What if you could generate your own electricity for your own home–without big, ugly solar panels plastered on your roof, or without an unsightly (and loud) wind mill stuck in your yard? What if all you need is a natural gas pipeline connected to your home. What’s that? You don’t want to contribute to man-made global warming by *burning* natural gas? No problem. This nifty little invention, called a fuel cell, uses natural gas in a *chemical* reaction to create electricity. These types of fuel cells have been around for a while, but what’s new is that they are now getting good enough to be commercially viable. Peoples Natural Gas, the largest natural gas distribution company in PA, providing natural gas service to approximately 700,000 customers in western PA, West Virginia, and Kentucky, has cut a deal with a Westmoreland County fuel-cell manufacturer to put 100 test systems in customer’s homes to create electricity at home. It’s an experiment. If all goes well, more will be deployed. Remember when cable companies first began offering internet access, then telephone access? Yeah, electric utilities and electric generators might want to look over their shoulder. They may get some serious competition! If natgas fuel cells ever take off for the residential market, demand for natural gas would be ginormous. Hence our interest. Is this technology anywhere near mainstream yet? No. But let’s keep a close eye on this potential new market for Marcellus/Utica gas. It may happen sooner than you think…
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Making Sense of Insane NY – How Radicals Pressure Cuomo re NatGas

If you live in New York State, as MDN editor Jim Willis does, you often shake your head at the stupidity of our political leaders. Especially people like Gov. Andrew Cuomo. How could he, in good conscience, turn against natural gas and block pipelines, electric plants and fracking? Is he obtuse? Is he getting paid-off by someone? There has to be a reason for his obviously irrational behavior. What is that reason? We have, perhaps, a better understanding now. The radical left is well-organized–think Saul Alinksy, Obama and Hillary Clinton’s idol. Taking a chapter from Alinksy’s “Rules for Radicals” book, the green radicals in NY have organized themselves to pressure Cuomo. We’d call it highly organized and well-funded. The radicals have weekly meetings, plan strategy, and motivate groups of blind followers to show up and heckle Cuomo at public events. And guess what? Cuomo caves–every time. Like a house of cards. The radicals have found the magic formula to pressure Cuomo into doing their bidding. Andrew Cuomo is actually weak-willed. He’s a patsy for the green movement because he fears them, fears a public shaming by them. And so they have their way with him–every time. None other than a liberal Gannett reporter has outed Cuomo as a Big Green patsy…
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Captain Planet Cartoon that Brainwashed Kids, Now a Foundation!

You know, for years we’ve poked fun at green leftists, saying they were raised watching Captain Planet cartoons–and that’s what warped their brains. Little did we know how right we were in our jocularity! Captain Planet was a cartoon created and produced by Ted Turner & Barbara Pyle, airing from 1990-1996. Did you know that there’s now a foundation, endowed with big bucks, called The Captain Planet Foundation? No lie! It was set up in 2001, funded by Turner and other lefty whack jobs. This is what we’re up against folks. The Captain Planet cartoon, brainchild of radical leftist Democrat Ted Turner (Turner Broadcasting), intentionally brainwashed a generation of our children, planting kindergartenish, simpleton ideas into our children’s heads. Unfortunately some of our kids never grew up. Not intellectually. Some of them still harbor childish, immature ideas that corporations are out to “loot and plunder”–there’s a character in CP cartoons called Looten Plunder, no lie. Do you know how silly it looks to support a foundation based on a kid’s cartoon?…
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Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Sep 5, 2018

The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Dominion Energy/SCANA merger achieves another key milestone; Alamance County, NC commissioners oppose Mountain Valley Pipeline; Schlumberger CEO warns transport constraints to slow shale gains; Venture Global’s two Louisiana projects would double U.S. LNG exports; Investing in the Energy Sector 101; Stanford researchers discuss how to reduce major cause of oil and gas production emissions; Natural gas is already a bridge fuel; Melting Arctic creates new opportunities for LNG; Big Oil’s LNG obsession; and more!
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