PTT Clearing Ohio Cracker Site, Nearby Residents Must Move?
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 It’s Official: Belmont County Chosen as POSSIBLE Cracker Plant Site). In short order PTT began spending money on the project, doling out $100 million for two engineering firms to design the plant (see PTT CEO Arrives in OH to Announce First $100M for Cracker Plant). As for real estate, part of the chosen site is the 130-acre R.E. Burger Plant, a coal-fired electric generating plant owned by Ohio utility company FirstEnergy. The Burger Plant site is currently being cleared and remediated by FirstEnergy. However, the entire project will need something like 400-500 acres. So where will the extra real estate come from? MDN previously reported that PTT had signed an option to buy 300 acres adjacent to the Burger Plant site owned by Ohio-West Virginia Excavating (see 300 Acres Next to FirstEnergy Site Part of Belmont Cracker Plan). But it seems that still may not be enough. We spotted a story that says residents who live west of the Burger Plant site have been contacted to let them know they may need to move too…
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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…
Sunoco Logistics Partners, builder of the Mariner East pipeline projects and operator of the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia (among many other projects) is floating more debt in order to pay off older debt. Last week Sunoco LP announced a new round of debt, or what we call IOUs, to the tune of $550 million. The sale will conclude tomorrow…
In May MDN told you about a sham lawsuit brought by two radical environmental groups–Homeowners Against Land Taking – PennEast Inc. (HALT PennEast) and the New Jersey Conservation Foundation–against the PennEast Pipeline (see 
It’s been some time since we’ve heard anything about/from the Ashtabula Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) plant project that Velocys says it will build in Ashtabula, Ohio. As a quick tutorial for those who may not know, GTL converts natural gas, a hydrocarbon, into other hydrocarbons, like diesel fuel, gasoline, solvents and (for Ashtabula) waxes. An abundance of cheap natural gas in the Marcellus/Utica is one of the prime motivators for establishing a GTL plant in the area. But although we’ve heard plenty of talk about such plants, none of them seem to get built–including the Ashtabula plant. There has been progress on the Ashtabula project. Early in 2015 Velocys filed for a permit, which was subsequently granted (see 
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed a lengthy comment with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week regarding the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project (full copy below). The EPA said, in a nutshell, that more studies should be done. The EPA said the pipeline could have “significant adverse environmental impacts.” They also said alternate routes should be considered. A few things to know about the EPA’s filing: First and foremost, the EPA is treated like any other individual or organization who files comments on a project with FERC. That is, the EPA’s comments will receive no special treatment or consideration. Second, the only value in EPA’s comments is publicity for anti-pipeline nutters. Third, the “alternate routes” the EPA professes to prefer have already been considered, thoroughly, and discarded by FERC. So this is a lot of smoke and noise and mirrors–and nothing else…
Another day, another attack on natural gas by the radicals of the Sierra Club. In this case, the Virginia chapter of the Sierra Club found a retired geologist they could buy, er, a, hire to write a report slamming the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The pipeline is due to be built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners. The geologist who sold himself out to the Sierra Club says the pipeline would run through a “karst” area–an area of sinkholes and caves–and building the pipeline could potentially damage the water aquifer in that area. Below is a news report and a copy of the sham report released by the Virginia Sierra Clubbers…