Energy Services

Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Crestwood Midstream | Crime | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | NGLs | Schuyler County

Criminals Arrested Blocking Crestwood Seneca Lake Facility
January 28, 2016January 28, 2016

We Are Seneca Lake criminals being carted off in a paddy wagon

When someone organizes and repeatedly shuts down a legal, functioning business with so-called “civil disobedience,” it’s not civil and it’s not an act of disobedience–it’s a crime. If you show up with a bunch of nutters to block the entrance to a facility once and the cameras are there to record it–you’ve made your point. Anti fossil-fuel radicals opposed to creating an underground propane storage facility in a depleted salt mine along the shore of Seneca Lake (in upstate New York) have recently stepped up their so-called civil disobedience at the facility–staging weekly blockades at the site three weeks in a row. One of those instances was on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, when Sandra Steingraber, so-called scholar in residence at Ithaca College (where she’s paid to agitate and never teaches a class) invoked the name of Dr. King attempting to tie the great civil rights struggle with anti-fossil fuel nuttery. It’s offensive. Below is a rundown, with the names of the latest criminals who have colluded to try and shut down a legal business, Crestwood Midstream, from operating the facility they own at Seneca Lake…
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Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners

Energy Transfer Lowers 2016 Capital Budget by $750M
January 28, 2016January 28, 2016

Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), a huge midstream company in the process of buying out Williams, another huge midstream company, announced yesterday they are scaling back capital spending in 2016. Last November ETP forecast they would spend on the order of $4.95 billion in 2016. That number is now $4.2 billion after ETP identified $750 million in further cuts it will make to the budget…
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Chenango County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide NY | Williams

Cuomo Needs to “Snap on a Pair” and Approve the Constitution Pipe
January 26, 2016January 26, 2016

Constitution Pipeline Meeting in Afton – click picture for larger version

“What do we want? Pipeline! When do we want it? Now!” It was a raucous crowd who gathered last Saturday in the tiny village of Afton, New York to show support for the Williams Constitution Pipeline project. The River Club in Afton was jammed with people–by our estimation some 250-300 people. The meeting was organized and hosted by the Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY). The JLCNY’s attorney, Scott Kurkoski (from Levene Gouldin & Thompson LLP) began the meeting with a full-throated yell: “New York Can’t Wait!” That simple sentence summed up the focus of the rally. The Constitution Pipeline is fully permitted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The only thing holding up construction of the pipeline is a stream-crossing permit from New York State. The tail is wagging the dog. Speaker after speaker (politicians, business people, labor reps) outlined the reasons why New York State can no longer wait for Gov. Cuomo to continue his waffling on this project. The frustration with Cuomo and the DEC was palpable in the audience. Whenever Cuomo’s name was mentioned there were cat calls and boos. Perhaps the best line of the day, from all of the speeches, was uttered by Assemblyman Clifford Crouch. Cliff mentioned he had called the Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) just a few days prior to ask about the status of the permits. Without saying so, the DEC rep indicated the delay is not due to the agency itself. The implication was clear: Cuomo is holding it up. Crouch then said this: “We need to contact Snap-on Tools and get the governor a pair to snap on!” The crowd roared. They loved it!…
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Energy Services | Halliburton

Halliburton’s Ugly 4Q15: Fired Another 4,000, Lost $28M
January 26, 2016January 26, 2016

Oilfield services giant Halliburton, with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica, released their fourth quarter and full year 2015 update yesterday. It wasn’t pretty. For the last three months of 2014, Halliburton made $901 million in net income. For the last three months of 2015, that number went to minus $28 million. There are a number of reasons for the big swing. The price of oil (and gas) tanked in 2015, and with it, drillers laid down rigs operated by Halliburton. Top line revenue–how much revenue came in–tanked in 4Q15. In 4Q14 Halliburton’s total revenue was $8.77 billion, and in 4Q15 the number was $5.08 billion. Add in higher impairment costs (a permanent devaluing of a company’s assets on paper), costs related to laying off another 4,000 workers in 4Q15, costs related to buying Baker Hughes, etc., and the numbers for Halliburton are ugly. Total revenue for full year 2015 was $23.6 billion, a decrease of $9.2 billion, or 28%, from 2014. Reported operating loss for 2015 was $165 million, compared to reported operating income of $5.1 billion for 2014. Even so, Halliburton’s president Jeff Miller puts a happy face on and says the company is doing better than its peers…
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Energy Services | Schlumberger

Schlumberger’s Ugly 4Q15: Fired Another 10,000, Lost $1B
January 26, 2016January 26, 2016

Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services company, released its full year and fourth quarter 2015 update last week. Like Halliburton, which we also report on today, Schlumberger was hit hard in 2015 with the slowdown in drilling. Revenue in 4Q14 for Schlumberger was $12.6 billion. In 4Q15 their revenue was $7.7 billion. Ouch. Schlumberger had a net income loss for 4Q15 of $1 billion, whereas they made $302 million of profit in 4Q14. While Halliburton laid of 4,000 people in 4Q15, Schlumberger laid of another 10,000 people. So that’s a cumulative 14,000 people out of jobs in the last three months of last year–from just two companies. With all of the bad news, Schlumberger, unlike Halliburton, did turn a profit last year. When you look at all of 2015, Schlumberger made just over $2 billion in profit, whereas Halliburton lost $165 million for the year…
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Energy Services | Williams

Williams Slashing 2016 Capital Budget by $1B
January 26, 2016January 26, 2016

While Marcellus/Utica midstream giant Williams won’t release a full financial and operating update until Feb. 17, yesterday the company did release the outlines of spending plans for 2016 yesterday. The big news from that announcement is this: Williams will spend $1 billion less on capital projects in 2016 than it did in 2015–a 32% decrease. In 2015 Williams spent, in round numbers, $3 billion on capital projects. In 2016 that number will be $2 billion. The reason? The slowdown in drilling. Here’s yesterday’s announcement…
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Clarion County | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Laurel Mountain Energy | Patterson-UTI | Pennsylvania

Laurel Mountain Drilling First Well in Western PA – It’s a Utica
January 25, 2016January 25, 2016

One of our ace tipsters alerted us that Laurel Mountain Energy, a relatively new E&P (exploration and production) company is firing up a drilling rig to drill one, possibly two new Utica wells in Pennsylvania. You may recall MDN brought you the news one year ago that Laurel Mountain, essentially a reborn Vista Resources with big money backing from TPH Partners (Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.), had formed and set up headquarters in Pittsburgh (see “New” Pittsburgh Company Forms to Target Marcellus/Utica in W PA). Since that time we’d not heard anything about Laurel Mountain Energy–until now. Below we’ve pieced together information from our tipster and from the forthcoming edition of the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook…
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Energy Companies | Energy Services | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Con Edison Becomes a Partner in Mountain Valley Pipeline
January 25, 2016January 25, 2016

The $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) stretching from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last October (see Mountain Valley Pipeline Files FERC Appl, Now Just Matter of Time). It’s now working its way through the process. Along the way, the number of project partners expanded from the original EQT and NextEra Energy to include WGL Holdings, Vega Energy Partners, and RGC Resources. You can now add one more partner: Consolidated Edison. Con Edison is purchasing a 12.5% interest in the pipeline and at the same time signed a 20-year deal to buy/move 250,000 dekatherms per day of natural gas on the pipeline. In a related deal, Con Edison also agreed to a 20-year firm transportation agreement for 250,000 dekatherms per day on the Equitrans system, located in northern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania, providing more direct access to supply resources upstream of MVP…
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Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide VA | Statewide WV | Virginia | West Virginia

US Forest Service Blocks Atlantic Coast Pipeline in National Forests
January 25, 2016January 25, 2016

Cow Knob Salamander

In the end it was the cow nobs and red spruce that have slowed down Dominion’s $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. Specifically, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has refused to grant Dominion a special permit to cross teeny tiny sections of the Monongahela and George Washington national forests in West Virginia and Virginia. Why? Because of concerns about cow knob salamanders, northern flying squirrels and red spruce trees. Just last November MDN told you that Dominion and ACP were bending backwards, forwards and sideways to avoid running through cow nob salamander territory (see Dominion Files Pipeline Route Change to Avoid Salamanders, Swamp). Apparently the USFS doesn’t think Dominion’s plan is good enough. It’s now back to the drawing board to see where, in those regions, ACP can safely be run to avoid radical environmentalist demands. Of course the answer is “no where” as they are always unreasonable about these things. There is no “how can we work this out to your satisfaction” when it comes to nut cases. The antis simply demand, like petulant children, that you not do it at all. Which is just what the other side is now saying about ACP…
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Belmont County | Energy Services | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Processing Plants | PTT Global

OSU Prof “Optimistic” that OH Ethane Cracker Will Get Built
January 25, 2016January 25, 2016

There’s not much new news to report on any of the three ethane cracker plants announced as being thought-about for the Marcellus/Utica. Those three are Shell’s project planned for Beaver County, PA, Odebrecht’s project announced for Wood County, WV, and PTT Global’s project announced for Belmont County, OH. Both the Shell and PTT projects appear to still have a pulse. WV’s does not. Hey, just keeping it real. One professor at Ohio State University says he is an “optimist” regarding the PTT project, for a number of reasons. When an OSU prof is optimistic, it gives us reason to be optimistic too! Here’s the reason our OSU prof believes the PTT Global ethane cracker will get built…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Pipelines | Tennessee Gas Pipeline

MA Town Plans to Raise Taxes to Oppose 1 Mile of NED Pipeline
January 22, 2016January 22, 2016

Part of the Kinder Morgan expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline in New England, called Northeast Energy Direct (NED) is due to go through the Town of Warwick, MA. Warwick sits on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border. Town leaders are opposed to the pipeline running through their town. In order to fight it, the town has opened a voluntary fund that residents can contribute to, to help with legal fees. Apparently the town “fathers” (and “mothers”) don’t have much hope anyone is going to contribute, because they want to allocate money from the town–and raise residents’ taxes in order to do it. Some Warwich residents aren’t thrilled with the prospect, since they’re already taxed up to the eyeballs. Here’s the kicker: Only about one mile of pipeline will traverse the Town of Warwick. They want to soak taxpayers to oppose a project that’s one mile of pipeline. Really? Are they really that radicalized against fossil fuels?…
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Energy Services | Seventy Seven Energy

Seventy Seven Energy’s Stock Threatened with Delisting from NYSE
January 22, 2016January 22, 2016

Last week we told you that Seventy Seven Energy, the former Chesapeake Oilfield Operating division of Chesapeake, spun off into its own company on July 1, 2014, had hired a “turnaround” company to help it, well, turnaround…financially (see Seventy Seven Energy Hires Turnaround Expert, Hopes to Stay Afloat). Perhaps we now know why. Yesterday Seventy Seven notified the world that the New York Stock Exchange has sent them a warning that their stock has fallen below minimum standards for continued listing on the exchange–unless they turn it around, fast. We’re not sure whether or not that will happen. Last week when we told you the company had hired a turnaround expert, their stock was trading at 60 cents per share. As of end of trading yesterday, that number was 48 cents per share. Last week the company’s market capitalization (how much the company is worth on paper) was $45.4 million. As of yesterday, the company’s marketcap was $21.13 million…
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Chenango County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Williams

Rally to Support Constitution Pipeline in Afton, NY Tomorrow
January 22, 2016January 22, 2016

As we’ve previously mentioned, a few times, there will be a meeting tomorrow in Afton, NY to support the Constitution Pipeline. The Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) is sponsoring this rally to support the Constitution. MDN editor Jim Willis plans to be there–and we hope you do too. Meeting details are listed below. It’s time–in our opinion long past time–to sue the state and force the issue. It’s time to build the Constitution Pipeline!…
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Energy Services | Nuverra Environmental

Nuverra Environmental Delisted from NYSE, Now a Penny Stock
January 21, 2016January 21, 2016

Nuverra Environmental Solutions is one of the largest companies in the United States that handles transportation and disposal of shale drilling wastewater and leftover rock and dirt from drilling. The company has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. We’ve written about Nuverra a couple of times in the past, most recently in 2013 when we highlighted an investor lawsuit against the company (see Nuverra Environmental Sued Over Stock Price Tumble). Those investors have even more to make them angry. As of yesterday, Nuverra was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and became a penny stock trading on the OTCQB Market…
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Bradford County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Kinder Morgan | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania | Pike County | Pipelines | Tioga County (PA)

Kinder Morgan 4Q15: Cutting Dividend, PA Pipeline Progress
January 21, 2016January 21, 2016

Yesterday Kinder Morgan, the largest midstream company in the U.S., released their fourth quarter 2015 update. The update starts with the news that KM is lowering the cash dividend in order to avoid chasing new loans. KM says by cutting the dividend they will be able to self-fund new projects, which ultimately benefits everyone, including shareholders. The update also chronicles progress made on three Pennsylvania pipelines: the Susquehanna West Project (Tioga and Bradford counties, the Orion Project (Pike County), and the Triad Expansion Project (Lackawanna County). Below is the full update from KM…
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Energy Companies | Energy Services | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Range Resources Corp | Statewide PA | Sunoco Logistics

Range Resources Ethane Heading to Marcus Hook Beginning February
January 20, 2016January 20, 2016

Range Resources’ ethane will start to flow through a “fully operational” Mariner East 1 pipeline to the Marcus Hook refinery in February, according to an announcement by Range. Mariner East 1 has been up and running for some time, but has not, until now, flowed ethane. Yesterday’s announcement states the ethane will be loaded onto ships. Range doesn’t say where the ethane on those ships will go, but we already know that part of the story. The ethane (at least some of it) is headed for Norway, Scotland and possibly Panama (see Ineos Gets Ready to Begin Ethane Exports from Marcus Hook, PA). Here is the fantastic news that the Mariner East 1 pipeline is about to be fully, 100% ethane operational, after a very long battle to complete it…
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