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PA Investing $967K on New Gas Pipes in Heart of NEPA Marcellus

Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (PIPE) grants cover part of the cost of building new natural gas pipelines to connect homes and businesses, typically in rural parts of the state, to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the dozens of PIPE grant projects awarded over the years (see our PIPE stories here). Yesterday the State Dept. of Community and Economic Development (DCED) announced another $1 million PIPE investment, most of it going to a project in Susquehanna County in northeastern PA.
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Women Excel in Marcellus Shale Jobs in NEPA

Karen Hubbard, sales representative for Rain For Rent, with a heating unit on a Susquehanna County gas pad. (click for larger version)

Women make up a small but growing part of the natural gas industry in the northeastern Pennsylvania Marcellus. Estimates are that women make up 15 to 22 percent of the workforce in the petroleum and natural gas industry. Below are the stories of several women who have found rewarding work in the NEPA Marcellus–and it’s not just success with indoor jobs.
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Wyalusing, PA Finally Gets to Tap “Motherload” of Marcellus Gas

Location of Wyalusing in Bradford County, PA

According to the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO), five counties in Pennsylvania produce 74.5% of all the natural gas produced in the state (see PA Natural Gas Production Hits New All-Time High in 2020). Two of those five counties are in northeastern PA: Susquehanna (#1) and Bradford (#4). Wyalusing is a borough (think small town) that sits in Bradford. While this may seem unbelievable (but is true), residents in Wyalusing have not had (never have had) natural gas available for their homes and businesses. That’s about to change.
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Corning Gas Buys Out JV Partner in PA Leatherstocking Gas & Pipe

Corning Natural Gas (based in Corning, NY) has a 50% joint venture partnership in Leatherstocking Gas Company and Leatherstocking Pipeline Company with another Upstate NY-based company, Mirabito. Leatherstocking runs gas mains to residents and businesses in small, mainly rural communities–like Montrose, PA (see PA Rural Residents Burn Marcellus Gas, Save Big Bucks on Heating). Corning announced yesterday they are buying out Mirabito’s 50% interest on the PA side of the border.
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Leatherstocking Moves Forward with Pipeline System in Windsor, NY

By Andy Leahy (see MDN note at end)

exclusiveNew applications filed Feb. 20 and 27 with the New York State Public Service Commission show that built-up areas of Windsor, NY (Broome County) are in line to be the first in a sequence of small town conversions to natural gas previously announced by Leatherstocking Gas Company, LLC. Assuming the Windsor application doesn’t hit any hitches with the state, Leatherstocking’s target date for installation is Fall 2015, according to Town Supervisor Carolyn Price. “It’s one of the most frequently asked questions I get,” Price told MDN Monday morning. “When am I going to get natural gas?” Price also said a number of Windsor residents, while they wait, have needed to replace furnaces, and they’ve been installing propane-fueled burners–because those are reported to be more easily switched over to natural gas, down the road…
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Dimock is Back in the News – New LDC on the Way

Welcome to Dimock signDimock. That single word for many people evokes pictures of brown water in clear jars with claims that shale gas drilling “polluted the water in Dimock, PA.” Of course, it isn’t true. But that doesn’t stop good propagandists like Josh Fox from making money from peddling a lie (see Study Proves Fracking Didn’t Cause Methane in Dimock Water Wells). Now that Dimock is resolved and behind us, this little township in rural Susquehanna County is back in the news. Because of natural gas. But this time, Josh Fox certainly won’t make a movie out of it. Last week the PA Public Utility Commission (PUC) approved an application from Leatherstocking Gas (a local distribution company–or LDC) to run local natural gas pipelines to schools, homes and businesses in Dimock…
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NY Company Plans to Tap Constitution Pipeline, Sell Locally

unreportedAn important, and apart from MDN friend Andy Leahy, unreported development on the Constitution Pipeline, a new Marcellus Shale gas pipeline proposed by Williams and Cabot Oil & Gas that will run from Susquehanna County, PA to upstate New York (Schoharie County) where it will connect with two large interstate natural gas pipelines.

The important “new news” is that the Constitution will be an “open gas pipeline” and already one company—the Leatherstocking Gas Company of New York—plans to build an interconnect along the Constitution to buy and resell locally produced natural gas locally. Hey, there’s a concept! Leatherstocking plans to set up a low-cost natural gas distribution network in Broome, Chenango, Delaware and Madison counties in New York’s Southern Tier area.

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