Williams Files 3rd Lawsuit Against ETE to Force Merger by June 28
Energy Transfer Equity (ETE) pushed and prodded and poked and cajoled and insisted, and finally with the help of an inside corporate raider, forced Williams to agree to a buyout/merger (see Williams Accepts ETE’s “Indecent Proposal” – Price Went Down $10B). Then the bottom dropped out of the price of natural gas and drillers scaled back drilling and consequently midstream (i.e. pipeline) companies like ETE and Williams got pinched. And ETE got cold feet (see ETE Wants Out of Williams Merger/Takeover, Offering $2B Breakup Fee). Williams said “not so fast, you wanted us, you’ll be taking us” and consequently sued ETE to force the merger to happen (see Merger Turns Sour: Williams Sues ETE/CEO Kelcy Warren). On Friday, Williams filed their third lawsuit to force ETE to complete the merger. ETE’s CEO Kelsey Warren says Williams is “meritless” and will “lead to delays” in the merger. What in the world is going on?…
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The process of screwing over existing stockholders in favor of debtholders continues at Seventy Seven Energy (SSE). In April, MDN told you that SSE–the old Chesapeake Oilfield Operating unit that was spun into its own company a few years ago–was ordering up one prepackaged bankruptcy to go (see 
EXCO Resources was once a sizable player in the Marcellus. They still have 145,000 net acres in the Marcellus, with 124 horizontal Marcellus wells drilled and in production. However, EXCO, as we pointed out in March, has pretty much abandoned the Marcellus at this point (see 
The U.S. Dept. of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) selected Penn State University to lead a consortium of nine universities in all that will study fossil fuel technologies for the next six years. NETL is giving Penn State $20 million of your money (i.e. taxpayer’s money) “to accelerate the development and deployment of fossil fuel-based technologies.” We can certainly think of worse uses for the money. Penn State will lead the Lucky University CoalItion for Fossil Energy Research (LUCiFER). Uh no! That’s not right! Let’s try it again: Penn State will lead the University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER). There, that’s it! Here’s what the feds said, and what Penn State said, about the new grant and the new UCFER coalition…
Fitch Ratings, one of the world’s top ratings services (rates stocks, bonds and more), issued a press release/opinion on Friday that tackles the issue of LNG (liquefied natural gas) and how the LNG market is rapidly and radically changing because of U.S. shale gas. Historically the price for LNG and oil have been linked. When the price of oil goes up or down, so too does LNG. But that’s now changing, because of the super abundance of U.S. shale gas. Fitch points out that with the U.S. now in the LNG export game, the link between LNG, natural gas and oil has “weakened.” They also say the U.S. natural gas market is “too big and too well supplied” for LNG exports to affect natgas prices here at home. In other words, we can export all of the LNG we want and it still won’t raise the domestic price of natural gas for consumers…
A general warning and heads-up on the newest/latest attack in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Well, maybe it’s not all that new–it’s been going on for a few years–but the intensity and pace of the attacks have picked up. We’re talking about the argument being made by anti fossil-fuelers that FERC doesn’t, by law, consider all pipelines when it evaluates a single pipeline–i.e. “cumulative effects.” For example, if three different pipeline requests for the same region are filed with FERC, FERC does not have the authority to decide only one of the three is really “needed” and that building all three would be “overbuilding.” FERC evaluates them one by one and (properly so) and lets the free market (i.e. capitalism) decide which one(s) will get built. FERC is not in the business of Communistic command-and-control decisions over private companies. FERC’s concern is that a given, single pipeline project doesn’t harm the environment and shows a need. Period. Antis, detecting an opportunity, want to force FERC, either by social pressure or by the courts, to take into consideration larger regional concerns–and even mythical global warming concerns–before making decisions. Here’s the latest example, from Virginia…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Fracking will pay off for Appalachia; natgas-fired power plants proliferating in OH, PA, WV; northeast gas supply/demand hits another milestone; the noose tightens around corrupt Gov. Cuomo; new Souki venture files with FERC for LNG plant approval; which shale plays will increase 2016 production; the perfect natgas storm; and more!