PTT Global Final Decision re Belmont Cracker Plant Late Again
An MDN reader recently asked us, “Hey, what’s up with the Belmont County, OH ethane cracker? We haven’t read anything in a while.” You haven’t read anything on MDN, nor anywhere else, because there’s been nothing to read. PTT Global Chemical, based in Thailand, announced in April 2015 they are interested in building a $5 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH (see It’s Official: Belmont County Chosen as POSSIBLE Cracker Plant Site). In May 2016, a story in the Bangkok Post said the final investment decision (FID) will definitely come in 2017, but they called the decision “delayed.” PTT disagreed with that assessment, saying a decision coming in 2016 or 2017 is not “delayed” (see PTT Global Says Belmont, OH Ethane Cracker NOT Delayed). In December 2016, Belmont County officials said the FID would come by the end of March this year (see OH Cracker Final Decision Coming Soon, Site Now Cleared & Ready). But in February, PTT said the FID won’t come until “late 2017,” which is “several months later than we originally announced” (see PTT Global Delays Final Investment Decision for OH Ethane Cracker). It’s pretty “late” in 2017, wouldn’t you say? A company representative says the company will make some sort of an announcement “by the end of the year,” but that’s all he will say. It certainly doesn’t seem as if an FID is in the cards in the next three weeks…
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Last Thursday the the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) request to block of construction of Millennium Pipeline’s Valley Lateral Project (see 
In May MDN brought you the news that Noble Energy dropped a bombshell, selling its 100% interest in 385,000 Marcellus/Utica acres and wells producing 415 million cubic feet equivalent of natural gas in West Virginia and Pennsylvania for $1.225 billion to HG Energy (see 
We have a couple of important signs that Dominion and Duke Energy, the main sponsors of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, are getting ready to begin building the pipeline. Atlantic Coast Pipeline is a $5 billion, 594-mile natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. Years after the project filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), it was finally approved by FERC in October (see 
The legal beagles at the Vorys energy law firm have been keeping a close eye on court cases in Ohio that affect the oil and gas industry. Two of those cases caught our attention as being worthy of mention because they have the potential to affect Utica Shale rights owners, and conversely drillers, in the Buckeye State. In one case, a landowner thought she could terminate a lease by not picking up her mail and depositing royalty checks in the mail. Just ignore the mail and claim the driller wasn’t paying up. Oops. Nice try, but that didn’t fly in court. In another case, a landowner with an old oil & gas lease (dating back to the 1970s) tried to break the lease because the driller is happy as a clam to simply get gas out of conventional/vertical/shallow wells, and not go after (or allow someone else to go after) the deeper shale layers. The landowner tried to get the court to at least agree to free up the deeper layers so he could lease those–but no dice. The court found the existing lease is producing in “paying quantities” and under the terms of the lease, the landowner does not have the right to sever the lower layers from the upper layers. Here’s the details, with copies of the respective court decisions…
Last week MDN’s favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, posted an article about the increase in LNG exports from the United States. The article highlighted the one existing and five forthcoming LNG export facilities that are changing the world energy picture by exporting (literally) boatloads American natural gas. The existing, going-full-bore LNG export plant is Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass plant, located on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Two of the five forthcoming plants (Cove Point and Elba Island) are located on the East Coast–Maryland and Georgia respectively. Cove Point is due to begin exports this month (see 
The lefty propagandists, who refer to themselves as “editors” of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, are at it again. Last Friday they ran an editorial calling out State Rep. Eli Evankovich, a Republican from Murrysville, saying he should be “ashamed of himself.” Why? Did he secretly use false personas of his own constituents to attack the oil and gas industry? No, that was State Rep. Jesse White, whom the Post-Gazette “editors” were strangely silent about (see 
This is sick. Grab your barf bag before you read it. A group of radical adults have brainwashed (we’d call it mentally abused) a group of children to the point the children are allowing their abusers to use them in a lawsuit against the United States government–to force the government to turn over its sovereignty to other nations in the name of man-made global warming. In August 2015, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by a group of left coast radicalized children who want to force the federal government to become communist and “force action” on mythical climate change (see 
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events.
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Pipeline expansions feeding more Marcellus gas to New England & NY; Chinese investment in WV could include PE resin; the super basin behind US natgas dominance; DOE Sec. Perry discusses LNG exports to Saudi Arabia; shale producers, OPEC playing two different games; Moody’s says o&g industry to continue recovery in 2018; shale oil myths; and more!