Analyst Predicts 6 Big Cracker Plants Coming to Marcellus/Utica!
At last year’s Utica Summit III event held in Stark, OH, Tom Gellrich of consulting firm TopLine Analytics, a company that “closely follows ethane markets,” said he thinks the first ethane cracker to get built will be the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. He was right. Shell announced their official decision to move forward earlier this year. At that same event Gellrich said he thinks the Marcellus/Utica region will see three, possibly four, ethane crackers built (see Expert Tells Utica Conference NE Will See “3 or 4” Cracker Plants). The Utica Summit IV was just held, this time in North Canton, OH. Gellrich once again addressed the conferees and this year he’s upped the number. Now Gellrich believes it is “likely” that a “half-dozen multi-billion-dollar plants” will get built in PA, OH and WV…
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In January, Invenergy announced their intention to build a natgas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County (see 
We hate to say “I told you so,” but we’ll say it anyway. If you live in New England, prepare yourself. You’re about to experience more price shocks for natural gas and electricity (4x more than the rest of the country, or higher). Why? Because you’re blocking new pipeline projects that would bring cheap, abundant, clean-burning natural gas to the region. The Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale sits a few hundred miles away–yet very little Marcellus gas is flowing to New England at this point. New England, more than any other region in the country, relies on natgas to power electric generating plants. Without extra supplies, especially in the winter months when natgas gets used for heating, electric generators are forced to pay obscenely high rates to stay in operation. Those obscenely high rates get passed along to ratepayers–businesses AND residences. Yet anti-fossil fuel wackos continue to try and stop new pipelines, sometimes criminally (see 
Yesterday MDN ran a story reporting that a landowner rebellion against post-production cost deductions from royalties is spreading beyond just Bradford County in northeastern Pennsylvania–to counties in southwestern PA (see 
Last Friday MDN reported that none other than the man-made global warmists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a research report admitting that cows and rice farms are the real cause of an increase in global methane emissions–NOT shale drilling (see 
Even the anti-fossil fuel Barack Hussein Obama can’t ignore the fact that natural gas saved his pathetic administration’s rear-end over the past eight years. Without shale gas, the economy would be further in the crapper than it is now. Last week the White House National Economic Council released a report titled “Revitalizing American Manufacturing” (full copy below) to commemorate Manufacturing Day. The report finds the U.S. economy added some 800,000 manufacturing jobs since 2010–largely due to the shale revolution and cheap natural gas…
If you’re anything like us, you’re TIRED of the political commercials that play ad nauseam on television and radio. At least with junk mail and newspaper advertisements you can safely ignore them. But lately the political commercials for local races (not even counting Trump & Clinton) on TV and radio threatens our sanity. Watching the evening news is impossible due to these commercials. But our eyes and ears perked up we heard a different kind of political ad–something called, “I am an energy voter.” The ads were created and are sponsored/paid for by the American Petroleum Institute. Just prior to the election the API has ramped up these ads, extolling the virtues of oil and gas production, and encouraging voters to consider casting a vote “for” energy. We’ve heard these ads on local radio and TV. As good as these ads are, we found ourselves wondering, what is a vote “for” energy, anyway? The ads are nonpartisan–they don’t identify a candidate that is “for” energy. So we wonder if these ads, while good, are just a big vanity spend on the part of the API. Are the ads having an impact? Is the message of being “for” oil and gas being driven into viewers’ psyches?…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Impact of northeast gas demand on Marcellus production; Garrett County panel considers regulating drilling; shale has been a giant boon to OH economy; Phila. Energy Solutions laying off workers; natural gas rodeo; why the shale band will break; natgas prices will heat up as oil drilling cools off; and more!