Report: Rager Mountain Gas Storage Well Casing Failed from Corrosion
Last November, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) began to leak. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see Equitrans Gas Storage Well in Cambria County, PA is Leaking). The leak took nearly two weeks to get fixed (see Storage Well Leak Fix in Cambria County Failed, Leaked 1.4 Bcf). Both the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) investigated (see Feds Investigate Equitrans Storage Well Leak in Cambria County, PA). Equitrans hired an independent, third-party company with expertise in reservoir management and well and corrosion engineering to do a “root cause analysis” to determine what happened. The report was just filed with the PHMSA.
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East Daley Analytics, based in Colorado, is a consulting firm that specializes in identifying, understanding, and monitoring operational risk throughout the oil and gas value chain. A “Daley Note” published yesterday by the company focused on the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), providing a status update and a couple of intriguing (some might say controversial) comments. East Daley says while Equitrans, the builder of MVP, says it will finish the project by the end of this year, East Daley’s analysts don’t think so. East Daley also says when (not if) the pipeline gets done and comes online, the newly available capacity won’t translate into new/more shale drilling in the Marcellus/Utica–at least not initially.
The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) is giving utility giant Duke Energy (mega profitable) and one of its natural gas suppliers, Williams (i.e., the Transco Pipeline, also mega profitable) $1 million of taxpayer money to do their jobs of monitoring for methane leaks. Dontcha love corporate welfare? Of course, if the government is going to blow taxpayers’ money on energy projects like uncompetitive and unreliable renewables, why not give a little love to fossil energy too, right? Still, it bugs us.
Carbon offsets are the same thing as carbon taxes. A carbon offset refers to reducing so-called greenhouse gas emissions by buying a credit from someone who plants trees or agrees not to cut down trees. A company gets to keep on polluting as long as it pays a tax to do it–pretending they are helping the precious environment by paying to plant or not chop down trees. It is the darnedest feat of mental gymnastics we’ve ever seen. Who thinks up this stuff? (Hey, wanna buy a bridge in Brooklyn? We have one to sell!) A new study by the leftists at the University of Cambridge published yesterday in the journal Science exposes the sale of carbon credits as a scam.
Bonus post today! Something we came across after completing our list of stories to write and share–but just too good to pass up. This story perfectly illustrates what has happened inside the Democrat Party from its fearmongering about climate change and demonization of fossil energy. A group of kids in their early 20s (thoroughly brainwashed from K-12 and now in college) showed up at a hoity-toity, very exclusive fundraiser for Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, herself a hardened anti-fossil fuel leftist. The kids crashed her party being held at a private Nantucket Island home. The kids demanded Healey shut down all new fossil-fuel projects in the Bay State, and demanded she answer “yes or no” right then and there to their demands. Healey demurred, and the wacko kids got loud and mouthy and had to be escorted out of the event. It came close to a fistfight between some of the older leftwing libs attending the event and the kids. Civil war in the Democrat Party.
New shale permits issued for Aug 14 – 20 in the Marcellus/Utica finally turned around. There were 27 new permits issued last week, way up from the 10 issued the prior week. Last week’s permit tally included 21 new permits in Pennsylvania, 2 new permits in Ohio, and 4 new permits in West Virginia (after no permits in WV for three weeks in a row). The top permittee for the week, for the second week in a row, was Chesapeake Energy, receiving 6 permits–5 in Bradford County and 1 in Susquehanna County.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Drought watch remains for 20 Pa. counties, lifted for 47 counties; Reformers say make Pa. state permits more like pizzas; Pennsylvania farmers benefit from strong natural gas industry; NATIONAL: GOP candidates embrace domestic energy production in first debate; Carbon capture faces several challenges to wider commercialization; INTERNATIONAL: IMF says fossil fuel subsidies hit record high in 2022; Citi says OPEC may need to cut again.