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    Virginia Democrat Lawmakers Side with Lawbreakers in MVP Protest

    More than a dozen liberal Democrat state lawmakers in Virginia attended a press farce yesterday to express their support for a lawbreaking Virginia woman from Roanoke County who has, like other radical anti-fossil fuelers, taken to living at the top of a tree on her property (see VA Tree Sitting Continues in Failed Attempt to Stop MV Pipeline). The tree is in the legal right-of-way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline and needs to be cut down. The trespassing woman won’t publicly admit her name, and the sycophantic press, which knows her name, won’t publish it. If we find out we certainly will publish it. At any rate, she calls herself “Red.” We call her Grandma Red because she’s an old(er) lady. Grandma Red, along with her daughter, are illegally perched/trespassing at the top of a tree (on a platform, a “magic treehouse”) on her property, refusing to come down. Police officers now keep 24/7 watch of the tree, preventing radical supporters from passing food and water and toilet paper up to Red and her daughter. The “more than a dozen” Democrat lawmakers at yesterday’s farce waved “I stand with Red” signs and said preventing radicals from aiding and abetting Grandma Red in her illegal tree sitting is “inhumane.” If anyone can now just decide to disobey a law they don’t like, maybe we’ll disobey a law too. What if we show up at the home of one of those Virginia lawmakers and sit down in the middle of their driveway and refuse to move–preventing that lawmaker from backing his/her Mercedes out of the garage? Maybe set a pup tent up in the driveway and hang out for a few weeks–block that person from leaving the house. How is that any different from what Grandma Red is doing? When our leaders, the people who make the laws, encourage disobedience of those laws, we have anarchy–a lawless society…
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    Gulfport 1Q18 Update: Utica Production Up 37%, SCOOP Up 198%

    Yesterday Gulfport Energy released an initial look at the company’s first quarter operations (full copy below). The update does not include financial performance–only operational performance. Gulfport is an “independent” oil and gas driller with significant acreage positions in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio and the SCOOP Woodford and SCOOP Springer plays in Oklahoma. Gulfport also owns acreage along the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Our primary interest is in Gulfport is their Ohio Utica Shale program. In 1Q18, when you role everything together (methane, NGLs and oil) converting it all to natural gas “equivalent,” Gulfport produced 92,772 million cubic feet equivalent (MMcfe), versus producing 67,559 MMcfe in 1Q17–a 37% increase year over year. However, what you can’t ignore in this update is that Gulfport has really turned up the activity in the Oklahoma SCOOP. In 1Q18 Gulfport brought online 3 Utica wells, but 7 SCOOP wells. In 1Q18 Gulfport produced 22,103 MMcfe in the SCOOP, versus producing just 7,398 MMcfe in the SCOOP a year ago in 1Q17–a 198% increase. The conclusion is inescapable: the SCOOP is ascending for Gulfport, occupying the company’s time, attention and money…
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    Rover Pipeline Still Waiting on FERC to Start Up Michigan Segment

    Last Friday, Energy Transfer Partners asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to start up service along another major chunk of it’s massive Rover Pipeline (see Rover Pipe Asks FERC for OK to Open New Segments in OH, MI). ET wants to begin service along a 100-mile segment of Rover in northwest Ohio and in Michigan. ET also asked for permission to start up a segment of Mainline B in Crawford and Wayne counties (OH). The 100-mile segment through Michigan, called the Market segment, completes the pipeline, connecting to the Vector Pipeline in Livingston County, Michigan, which will allow Utica/Marcellus gas to flow all the way to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada via Vector. In last Friday’s request, ET asked FERC to hurry it up because customers are desperate (our words) to get their Utica/Marcellus gas to market. ET requested a starting date no later than April 25–next Wednesday. Unfortunately there’s been no word, as of today, from FERC. The silence is deafening…
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    Sauce for the Goose: NY Town Considers Moratorium…on Solar!

    In June 2014, New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, reaffirmed two lower court rulings that empowers townships and municipalities across the state to strip away property owners’ rights to allow drilling and other energy projects (see Shale Drilling in NY is Over – High Court Upholds Town Bans). NY’s high court ruled in the “Middlefield” and “Dryden” cases that local municipalities have the right to regulate energy development within their jurisdictions–where it can and cannot happen. As we said at the time, “In our opinion it means there will never be any meaningful shale drilling in New York. No driller in his right mind will roll the dice, lock up thousands of acres by spending millions of dollars, just to see it all disappear at the next town board election with a vote by 3 of 5 people.” But what’s sauce for the goose is now sauce for the gander. The Town of Delaware Town Board in Sullivan County, NY is seriously considering, and about to adopt, a one-year moratorium on solar farms. It seems a company has expressed serious interest in plastering ugly solar farms all over the beautiful countryside, and town regulations are not yet in place to control what may turn into out-of-control solar farm development. So Delaware plans to adopt a moratorium to slam the breaks on–for at least a year. Can anyone say poetic justice? This action by Delaware does not fit Lord Cuomo’s wishes. You see, in NY, only elitist snobs like Cuomo get to choose what kind of energy source we serfs who live under his rule can use. Natural gas is out, solar is in–because Cuomo wants it. Yet the Court of Appeals ruling from 2014 has now risen up to bite Cuomo and his thuggish Big Green cronies on their fat rear-ends. We love it!…
    Read More “Sauce for the Goose: NY Town Considers Moratorium…on Solar!”

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    ATF Doubles Reward re Stolen Dynamite; 40 Agents in Lancaster Co.

    The stolen dynamite looks similar to this picture – click image for larger version

    We don’t want to belabor this issue too much, but once again we have more/new information about a serious situation in Lancaster County, PA. As we reported earlier this week, someone(s) has stolen a bunch of dynamite and the blasting caps (needed to detonate the dynamite) from a construction site for the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline (see Dynamite Stolen from Atlantic Sunrise Pipe Site in Lancaster County, PA and More Dynamite Stolen from PA Pipe Site than Originally Reported). Investigators with the federal ATF–Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives–are “moving with a sense of urgency” to locate the thieves. How urgent? ATF has just doubled the reward money, from $10,000 to $20,000 for information leading to an arrest. They also have “30-40 agents” swarming through Lancaster County working on the case. Make no mistake, they will find out who did it. The ATF also says it appears the contractor storing the dynamite violated federal storage standards, making it easier for someone to steal it…
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    Another Look at Aborted Coudersport Wastewater Treatment Plant

    MDN previously reported on a promising brine wastewater treatment plant planned for Coudersport, PA by Epiphany Water Solutions. After JKLM Energy walked away from the project, in pretty short order the Coundersport Area Municipal Authority (CAMA) voted to revoke agreements it had with the project, which recently led us to declare the project dead (see Planned Potter County Frack Wastewater Treatment Facility is Dead). A local newspaper editor penned what is one of the most thoughtful, reasoned editorials we’ve seen in the fracking debate–about the Epiphany project’s demise. The editor says when you clear away the inflammatory verbal clutter surrounding the project, if the technology is sound and produces water from wastewater that is “clean enough to drink,” that’s laudable and “still worth pursuing.” The editor encourages Epiphany to find another location in PA for this much-needed project. Here’s an common sense editorial worth reading…
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    Sunoco Says ME1 Ready to Restart, but PUC is Dragging its Feet

    Ethane and propane had been flowing through the converted Mariner East 1 (ME1) pipeline safely for more than year, hauling the two natural gas liquids (NGLs) from southwest PA all the way to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. However, ME1 was suddenly switched off on March 3 by order of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) after a sinkhole opened up under the pipeline in Chester County, exposing some of the bare steel to the open air (see PA PUC Shuts Down Mariner 1 Pipeline Due to Mariner 2 Sinkhole). Sunoco Logistics Partners, the owner of ME1, is building a new set of pipelines called Mariner East 2 (ME2) close to the existing ME1. Construction work in the area on ME2 led to the sinkhole that exposed ME1. The PUC shut down ME1 until further notice, requiring Sunoco to conduct a study of the area and provide the PUC with evidence to reassure them that ME1 is OK and will not leak or explode. Sunoco conducted the study, provided its results, and has told the PUC it’s time to restart ME1. But the PUC is dragging its feet, taking its time to review Sunoco’s work, and in no particular hurry to restart ME1–even though the outage is impacting the drilling program at companies like Range Resources…
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  • Other Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Apr 20, 2018

    The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: PA House to vote on bill rolling back conventional oil & gas regulations to 1984; Appalachia markets itself as global energy hub; Buckeye Partners revise plan for liquids pipeline; Wetzel County, WV residents to discuss road safety in midst of natgas boom; Schuylkill Transportation System switching to CNG vehicles; crisis at the heart of U.S. shale; full fracking ban within NJ governor’s grasp; traders “lose their religion” re natgas stats; a new low in media’s war on fracking; Afghanistan getting its first natgas-fired electric plant; and more!
    Read More “Other Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Apr 20, 2018”