FERC Delay Pushes Back NFG’s Northern Access Pipeline Project
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), the Buffalo-based utility giant with both a drilling subsidiary (Seneca Resources) and a midstream/pipeline subsidiary (Empire Pipeline) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March 2015 for a pipeline project they call Northern Access 2016 (later renamed to simply Northern Access Project, dropping the “2016” part). The $455 million project includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton (see NFG’s Marcellus Pipeline from NWPA to NY Hits Resistence). In July 2016, FERC issued a favorable Environmental Assessment, paving the path for full approval (see NFG’s Northern Access Pipeline Gets Favorable FERC Review). NFG had hoped to have the project done and in-service by November of this year. However, due to foot-dragging by FERC, NFG has just announced a revision. They now say the project can’t get completed until “the second quarter of the Company’s 2018 fiscal year.” NFG doesn’t operate on a calendar year for reporting, they’re a quarter ahead. So the Company’s 2Q18 means 1Q18 for everyone else. Translation: NFG hopes to have it built and in-service by March 2018. In addition to the “bad news” of the delay, NFG sprinkled in some good news about production in 4Q16: due to an increase in Marcellus production, NFG’s calendar 4Q16 production (for subsidiary Seneca Resources) was up 16% over the same period in 2015…
Read More “FERC Delay Pushes Back NFG’s Northern Access Pipeline Project”
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) covers the full span of the oil and gas business–from upstream (with its wholly-owned drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources), to the midstream (with wholly-owned subsidiary Empire Pipeline) to downstream (NFG’s natural gas utility service to 740,000 customers in NY and PA). Big company. Diverse operations. Late last week NFG issued what they call their fourth quarter update (everyone else’s third quarter update), covering July through September. NFG’s CEO Ronald Tanski said lower natural gas prices and higher temperatures didn’t help. However, the company improved. In NFG’s 4Q15 the company lost $188 million–but this year they made $37.5 million. That’s a significant $225 million improvement in just one year’s time. However, NFG ended the full year in the red–losing $291 million (an improvement from losing $379 million last year). As for Seneca’s performance, it was a good year overall, with banner production. Seneca’s production was 161.1 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent) in fiscal 2016, an increase of 3.3 Bcfe, or 2%, versus fiscal 2015. Seneca voluntarily curtailed an estimated 34.6 Bcf (billion cubic feet) of net natural gas production in fiscal 2016. Seneca’s average realized natural gas and oil prices, after the impact of hedging, was $3.02 per Mcf and $57.91 per Bbl, respectively, a decrease of $0.36 per Mcf and $12.45 per Bbl, versus fiscal 2015. Below is the NFG update for all of their subsidiaries including Seneca and Empire, along with a copy of the latest PowerPoint slide deck…
We can’t say enough good things about Rusty Braziel and 
There is a new development in the case of an illegal ban on injection wells passed by Highland Township in Elk County, PA. In 2013 the radical leftist PA-based group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) convinced ignoramuses in Highland Township to pass a so-called Community Bill of Rights. Seneca Resources, a driller with leases and an active drilling program in Elk, had planned to drill an injection well on their own property to dispose of their own flowback and produced water. The CELDF-inspired ordinance Highland Twp prevented it, and Seneca threatened to sue the town (see 
Last week MDN reported on National Fuel Gas Company’s quarterly recently-filed quarterly report (see 
National Fuel Gas (NFG), the Buffalo-based utility giant with both a drilling subsidiary (Seneca Resources) and a midstream/pipeline subsidiary (Empire Pipeline) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March 2015 for a pipeline project they call Northern Access 2016 (later renamed to simply Northern Access Project, dropping the “2016” part). The $455 million project includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton (see 
Last Friday MDN brought you the news about a professor who devised a clever formula for evaluating the overall environmental impact of 20 Marcellus drillers (see