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    EQT CEO Didn’t Show Up for Annual Mtg – CFO Talks of Wild Ride

    Last Thursday EQT held its annual shareholder’s meeting. By all accounts it was a sleepy affair with few people attending–inside at least. Even the current interim CEO, David Porges, didn’t bother to show up, sending along CFO Rob McNally to be the official face of the company. McNally spoke about the past few years as hectic, going from “one transaction to the next.” McNally said “there’s a light at the end of the tunnel” for things to now settle down–once the company splits in two later this year (into upstream and midstream). However, a handful of Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) protesters showed up to mouth off–marching outside EQT HQ where the annual meeting was held. McNally said, in so many words, protests of MVP are no big deal. The company thought there would be protesters, and they even planned for illegal protests in the construction timeline (people chaining themselves to bulldozers, etc.). Just one more day in the life of a fossil fuel company that deals with nutters all the time…
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    Sierra Club Succeeds in Delaying MVP Project in WV via Court Order

    The insidious and well-funded Sierra Club has scored another temporary legal victory in stopping Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) construction throughout West Virginia. One month ago we reported that the Clubbers had claimed a temporary victory in stopping construction work of MVP at four river crossings in WV. At that time (in May), the Clubbers and a mishmash of other radicalized groups filed a motion asking the Fourth District U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to suspend a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that allows MVP to construct the pipeline across streams and rivers in the Mountain State (see Army Corps Engineers Suspends MVP Permit for River Crossings). The Clubbers’ tortured logic was this: When constructing the pipeline across a river, the stated government standard is that construction can take no longer than 72 hours. MVP says it will need longer when constructing the pipeline across four rivers–Elk, Gauley, Greenbrier and Meadow. Therefore (say the Clubbers), MVP is in violation of the general permit issued by the Corps and that means ALL (not just those four rivers) construction should be stopped, immediately. The Corps said they had reviewed the standards and have (for now) rescinded the permit as it applies ONLY to those four rivers, NOT to any other locations. However, the Fourth District Court ruled late last week that construction at all 591 stream crossings the pipeline traverses must now be immediately stopped until the court farts around and considers the full lawsuit brought by the radicalized Clubbers. Enough of this nonsense!…
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    Ithaca Power Plant Tries Once Again to Convert from Coal to Gas

    In 2013 so-called environmentalists protested, agitated and lobbied to prevent an electrical generating power plant in Tompkins County, near Ithaca, NY, to switch from burning coal to burning natural gas–because they’re afraid it will mean more fracking (see NY Eco Group Protest to Stop Plant Converting from Coal to NatGas). The owner of the plant, Cayuga Operating Co., ended up selling it two years ago. The new owner, Riesling Power, tried to continue to get approval for converting the coal-fired plant to burn natural gas (not only cleaner, but also cheaper). Ultimately, the Cuomo-controlled Public Service Commission (PSC) turned down the request to convert. So the new owner kept operating it as a coal-fired plant–belching out far more pollution than a natgas plant would. Congratulations idiot fractivists (including obtuse Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, who wanted the plant closed). They screwed themselves and all of their neighbors too. But what’s this? Riesling Power has just filed another application to close the coal-fired plant, and reopen it as a gas-fired plant. But instead of using pipelines to feed the gas-fired plant, they will use compressed natural gas (CNG), trucked in. Which has set off the local crazies once again, spewing fossil fuel hatred and talking about “bomb trucks” visiting the area. Incredibly, the antis would rather keep a nasty coal-fired plant operating than switch to natural gas. Clinically insane…
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    Rhode Island Gas-Fired Plant Making Money – Before It’s Built!

    At a big ceremony in 2015, none other than Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo joined the CEO of Invenergy to announce the Clear River Energy Center–a 900-1,000 megawatt electric generating plant that runs on natural gas (see New NatGas Powered Electric Plant Coming to…Rhode Island?!). A new gas-fired plant planned for the socialist paradise of Rhode Island, home to old money and people who oppose change of any kind. Who woulda thunk? The new plant will lower RI residents’ electric bills by a collective $280 million and replace aging coal and oil power plants–cleaning the air in the process. With the jobs created, the investment in the facility, and lower electric rates, it’s calculated this single plant will have a $1.3 billion impact on the economy of RI. The plan was to begin construction in summer 2016 and have the plant up and running by 2019. What’s happened since the initial announcement? A lot of bureaucratic bull. The project is under review now and a final decision by the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission will not happen until January of next year. In the meantime, the plant is making money, even though it’s not yet built! How? By selling its contracts to provide electricity. The plant won’t be running next year, so Invenergy, the builder, has sold the right to provide electricity to the grid (for a time) to different plant…
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    PA Gov. Wolf Signs On-Time Budget with No Severance Tax

    There is nothing “bipartisan” about Tom Wolf, Governor of Pennsylvania. He’s a hard-left partisan all the way. Yet this year, for the first time since taking office, he signed a “bipartisan” budget on time–before the June 30 deadline. Wolf practically genuflected before the Republicans who control both the House and Senate in PA. This is the first budget Wolf has signed at all. The previous three annual budgets adopted during Wolf’s tenure were done so without his signature. So why did Wolf practically fall over himself to sign a budget that does NOT include a new severance tax, as he has requested each year since taking office? Simple: He’s running for reelection and wants to appear as if he’s actually governing. He’s attempting to smear a little lipstick on the pig of his awful tenure in office. Question is, will it work? Do people have the attention spans of gnats? Or will they remember the pain and suffering he inflicted by dragging out previous budgets for months? Pennsylvanians should understand that Wolf’s nicey-nice with the budget this year will completely evaporate next year (if he’s reelected). Back will be the hard-left partisan who lives under the lipstick…
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    Fake Duke Study Says Fracking Will Make you Fat

    Yet another wild, totally false “study” has been published by Duke University and University of Missouri researchers that finds when you pump rats full of chemicals, some of which may (or may not) be used in fracking, dosing the rats at many multiples of times more that any human would ever be exposed to, it makes the rats gain weight. And voila, a new meme in mainstream faux media is born: fracking makes you fat. How do “researchers” actually get jobs after publishing this kind of garbage? Who would hire them? Perhaps the Heniz Endowments or William Penn Foundation. This is the same “research” team that tried to connect shale drilling to impaired immune systems, low sperm counts, ovarian follicle problems and pre-cancerous mammary gland lesions, in previous fictional studies. More of the same with this study…
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  • Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jun 25, 2018

    The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Cabot expecting 70% production growth by 2020; Marcellus production continues to increase thx to improved tech; fracked shale well appears alongside Rachel Carson Trail; Atlantic Coast Pipe gives birth to an RV park in NC; U.S. shale drillers aren’t waiting for OPEC; study finds climate change shareholder resolutions worthless; Big Green outted for trying to pressure local govts into passing climate laws; EPA applauds oil and gas companies; and more!
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