Major Investors Pressure Marathon Petroleum to Split into 3 Cos.
Here we go again. “Activist investor” Elliott Management is pressuring Marathon Petroleum to split itself up into three companies–retail (Speedway convenience store chain), refining, and midstream (or MarkWest Energy). Recall that Marathon bought out and merged in MarkWest just a few years ago, in December 2015 (see MarkWest Energy Investors/Unitholders Approve Merger with Marathon). Now Elliott wants the company carved up to “unlock value.” Two other large shareholders either want the company split up and/or Marathon CEO Gary Heminger gone–now.
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Last December Williams announced its Leidy South Project, a new expansion of the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania (see 
Sunoco Logistics Partners, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer, is still on the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environment Protection’s (DEP) naughty list. In February, PA Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the DEP to suspend all reviews of clean water permit applications and other pending approvals for ALL of ET/Sunoco’s pipeline projects in the state–including the Mariner East and Revolution pipeline projects. The ban on approving reviews has not yet been lifted and means that in 33 locations across the state (most of them in the Philadelphia area) Sunoco can’t complete underground horizontal direction drilling (HDD) work for its Mariner East pipeline projects.
The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) is calling attention to the “great untold story” in Ohio and across the nation, a story intentionally ignored over the past week of faux climate change protests by kids playing hooky from school. What is the untold story? That the United States in general, and Ohio in particular, is “leading the world in environmental stewardship and emission reduction.” How? Because of shale energy–specifically because of shale gas.
Not everyone who lives in the Greater New York City area is falling for the bogus line by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that he’s not to blame for a natural gas shortage plaguing the region. As we’ve chronicled, endlessly, Cuomo ordered his Dept. of Environment Conservation to reject the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project (see 
Last September MDN reported that Southwestern Energy was the very first driller to earn the label of producing “responsible gas” from the Independent Energy Standards Corporation (IES)–what they call their TrustWell™ Responsible Gas Program certification (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: City to issue recommendations for developers eyeing PES refinery; Akron receives first high-efficiency, natural gas boiler for new energy production plant; Climate week sadly misses the boat on natural gas; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: New research: Fracking helped lower crime rates in North Dakota; Annova LNG requests swift FERC project approval; NATIONAL: Political rhetoric aside, fracking must remain legal; Fracking ban proposed by 2020 Dems would kill millions of jobs; LNG developers looking beyond China; INTERNATIONAL: LNG buyers fret over feast-or-famine forecasts; Surging ethane demand to trigger big gas-carrier orders.