Media Downplays Sunoco’s Huge Court Victory re Mariner East 2
Last Friday MDN brought you the really big news that Sunoco Logistics Partners had won a major appeals court case that recognizes them as a public utility in Pennsylvania with the right to use eminent domain to build the Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline (see Sunoco LP Wins Major Court Decision for Mariner East 2 Pipeline). Although Big Green groups like the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council are attempting to spin the decision as no big deal–it is a big deal, and they know it. So how does the Associated Press, in bed with Big Green, report the decision? This is their headline: “Sunoco clears 1 legal hurdle after pipeline project ruling.” Laughable! It’s more than one hurdle. Sunoco essentially put another 7 points on the board with 5 seconds left to play…
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It’s hard to believe something as simple and uncomplicated and safe has a storage tank for liquefied natural gas (LNG) could be controversial. But if you irrationally believe all fossil fuels are evil, you’re against such a storage tank. That’s the battle now shaping up in Somerset, Massachusetts. Spectra Energy is looking to build “two giant storage tanks full of liquefied natural gas” at a site in town , near Walker Street. The town administrator is in favor because Spectra will pay the town $10 million in lieu of taxes. But anti-fossil fuel nutters are rising up to oppose the project–even though they do so using the very fossil fuels the abhor every single day of their pathetic lives–being wholly dependent on fossil fuels for their very existence…
Ever hear of a “wide economic moat?” No, we hadn’t either. That is, until we read a Morningstar analyst writing about mighty utility and midstream giant Dominion. A “wide economic moat,” according to Investopedia, is “A type of sustainable competitive advantage that a business possesses that makes it difficult for rivals to wear down its market share and profit. The term is derived from the water filled moats that surrounded medieval castles.” Makes sense. We’d call it being so far ahead of the pack no one else can catch up. Whatever metaphor floats your boat. The interesting part (for MDN) in the Morningstar analysis of Dominion is *why* they are head and shoulders above their midstream and utility peers. Why? “[N]otably the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and Cove Point LNG facility.” That is, because of the Marcellus Shale. The analyst predicts Cove Point LNG will be the only LNG export facility on the East Coast. That would certainly qualify as a competitive advantage for Dominion…
Seems like Sunoco Logistics Partners has been fighting in court for years to get the right to use eminent domain for it’s Mariner East 2 pipeline project. ME2 is a $2.5 billion, 350-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia–carting ethane, butane and propane to the facility from both the Utica and Marcellus region, where it will be separated and sent on its way to destinations both domestic and international. Because the project technically crosses a state line, opponents have tried to state PA is not the proper government body to oversee it–it should come under the exclusive oversight of the federal government. However, Sunoco LP has maintained from the beginning that it is a public utility, properly regulated by the PA Public Utility Commission (PUC) and not the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The PUC has recognized Sunoco LP and its Mariner pipeline projects as public utilities, with the right to use eminent domain to condemn properties of holdout landowners in PA (see 
In April 2015 PTT Global announced they had chose a site in Belmont County, OH as the site of for their $5.7 billion ethane cracker complex (see 
In June MDN told you that Seventy Seven Energy (SSE), the old Chesapeake Oilfield Operating unit that was spun into its own company a few years ago, filed a “pre-packaged” bankruptcy plan that screws shareholders by devaluing their shares to worthless status and converting the company’s considerable outstanding debts into new shares of ownership (see 
The Obamadroids are once again ganging up on the semi-independent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Last week the Obama Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed comments with FERC critical of the Williams/Transco Atlantic Sunrise pipeline project (see 
The news is now months old that Halliburton and Baker Hughes ended their attempt to merge. The reason they called it off was because of opposition from the Obama Department of Justice (see 
Each month MDN reports on the rig count for oilfield services company Patterson-UTI Energy. Why? Because Patterson-UTI has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica and we use their rig count as a proxy for predicting the pickup or slowdown of drilling in the northeast. Last week we reported the exciting news that Patterson’s rig count had, after more than a year, reversed and went up (see 
We’re starting to crack a smile of hope that drilling has once again picked up. Our first bit of evidence that the tide is turning came last week when we reported that Patterson-UTI Energy’s rig count had gone up by two in June (see 
Are we finally, blessedly “done” with the ongoing soap opera that was the proposed takeover/merger of midstream giant Williams by fellow midstream giant Energy Transfer Equity? Can Williams now go back to its “considerable pile of knitting” (that pile meaning some 16 expansion projects)? Well, in a word, yes! Except….except if another suitor comes along who wants to buy Williams, which is a very real possibility. A couple of analysts mull over the possibilities now that the ETE plan to buy Williams is dead…