Dominion Employees Move into Swanky New WV HQ Office Building
Dominion Transmission announced yesterday that they have completed building a brand new 106,000 square foot office building in Bridgeport, WV and some 300 employees have moved into the new facility. Those 300 employees used to work at a facility in Clarsburg, WV, a few miles from the new facility. Dominion says they will continue adding employees at the new facility as they ramp up to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a $5 billion pipeline that will run from WV through VA and into NC. The new office building is the regional headquarters for Dominion’s 7,800-mile pipeline system. WV Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin was happy as a clam and said the company is committed “to the ongoing development of West Virginia’s natural gas industry.” Here’s more about Dominion’s swanky new office building in Bridgeport…
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Halliburton is in the process of buying its smaller competitor Baker Hughes. Although the plan was to have the merger complete by December 1st, it’s almost certain the date will slip into early 2016 (see 
Good news! The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have approved Dominion’s $165 million New Market Project, a project that expands Dominion’s transmission pipeline from western New York across the state to the Capital Region of the state, near Albany. As with any fossil fuel-related project, radical environmentalists objected (see 
Enough is enough. It’s become quite obvious that NY Gov. Cuomo is up to his old tricks–delay and then deny. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) long ago approved the Williams Constitution Pipeline (see 
Last year International Paper’s Ticonderoga mill in northern New York, near the Vermont border, received $1.75 million in grant money from Andrew Cuomo and New York State (that is to say, from we the taxpayers) to help with an $11 million project to convert the plant from using oil to using natural gas (see the Albany Times Union story: 
If landowners along the route of the PennEast Pipeline don’t sign a lease with the company, PennEast says they will be forced to (and will) use eminent domain to gain lease rights. The PennEast, as a reminder, is a proposed pipeline costing $1 billion that will run from Luzerne County, PA (near Wilkes-Barre) all the way to Mercer County, NJ (just outside of Trenton), flowing 1 billion cubic feet of clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas each and every day. Landowners along the pipeline’s route will still own the land, but there will be restrictions–you can’t erect a building over top of a pipeline, for example. PennEast looks at eminent domain as an absolute last resort. However, according to the radicals at the PA Sierra Club who are opposing the pipeline, around two-thirds of the landowners along the pipeline’s route have not yet signed a lease to allow the pipeline across their land. PennEast recently filed their official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay), the largest oilfield services company in the world, reported its third quarter 2015 financial results yesterday. Schlumberger has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica, as well as 85+ other countries around the world. BIG company–employing over 100,000 people. Schlumberger is a good proxy for how the entire oil and gas industry is doing, given its size. And how is the mighty Schlumberger doing? Worldwide revenue for the company is down 33% from the same quarter last year. If you look only at North America, Schlumberger’s revenue is down 47% year over year–nearly half! Revenue from outside of North America performed slightly better–down “just” 27% year over year. The reason for the massive drop in revenue, according to CEO Paal Kibsgaard: fewer rigs operating and for those rigs that are operating, drillers are hammering the company to lower prices. Was there any good news in the update? Schlumberger has taken advantage of the low price environment to hoover up a number of associated and/or quasi-competitive companies, including Cameron International, Novatek Inc., and T&T Engineering Services. Below are select extracts of yesterday’s update, followed by a PDF of the full update (for those into that sort of thing)…
Canadian company TransCanada is perhaps best known for its Keystone XL Pipeline project, a 1,179-mile crude oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska–if it ever gets built. Lord Obama opposes the pipeline and as we all know when a dictator opposes something, it doesn’t happen. The Keystone XL Pipeline would flow Canadian crude oil as far south as Texas. However, moving Canadian oil isn’t the only thing TransCanada does. They’re also owners of electric generating plants, and one of the markets they have their eye on is the northeast with its access to abundant, clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas. Last week TransCanada announced a deal to buy the Ironwood natural gas-fired power plant located in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Ironwood produces up to 778 megawatts of electricity–enough electricity to power over half a million homes. TransCanada is paying $654 million to buy the plant…
In April 2013 MDN reported on the tragic death of 56-year-old Bruce Phipps from Marietta, OH who was working at a Eureka Hunter “pig” (Pipeline Inspection Gauge) receiving station near near Wick (Tyler County), WV (see 
It wasn’t just upstream/drilling companies that presented at the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association’s annual meeting two weeks ago at Oglebay Resort (see today’s story about Antero). Midstream (pipeline and processing plants) companies were also represented. Two of the biggest addressed the delegates: MarkWest Energy and Columbia Pipeline Group. A couple of items piqued our interest in comments made by each. MarkWest’s executive VP and chief commercial officer Greg Floerke teased that it’s not just pipelines that will transport natural gas liquids out of the Marcellus/Utica region–but also railroads. That’s the first time we’ve seen public comments by a MarkWest muckety muck mentioning an alliance with rail to move NGLs out of the northeast. Columbia Pipeline’s executive VP and chief commercial officer Stan Chapman offered an eye-popping statistic: Columbia will triple in size from now until 2018 because of the Marcellus/Utica. According to Chapman, their experience is not unique…
Last week Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) filed their official, full application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) seeking approval for their Orion Project. The project will cost $143 million and construct 13 miles of “looping” pipeline in Pike and Wayne counties, Pennsylvania. The project will boost capacity on the TGP by another 135 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), allowing TGP to pump more Marcellus Shale gas to Mid-Atlantic and New England states. If all goes according to plan, the TGP Orion upgrade will be complete and in-service by June 2018…
Yesterday Rice Energy announced that the company’s subsidiary, Rice Midstream, has signed a joint venture agreement with competitor Gulfport Energy to develop a pipeline gathering and water delivery system for Gulfport’s Utica Shale drilling program in Ohio’s eastern Belmont County and Monroe County. Rice will be 75% owner and in charge of the jv. Rice and Gulfport plan to invest a combined $640 million into the jv over the next six years. Construction begins immediately and the first gas (and water) will begin to flow through the new system by middle of next year. Here’s the details…
Don’t look now but Utica/Marcellus condensate being produced at a MarkWest Energy processing plant in Cadiz, OH is being exported out of the country via a ship docked on the Hudson River at Perth Amboy, New Jersey–just across the river from Manhattan! The condensate is transported to NJ via railroad in specially designed rail cars. A second ship is being loaded up and will leave with Utica/Marcellus condensate from MarkWest, according to the Reuters story below. The first ship loaded with condensate left Perth Amboy one month ago heading to the Netherlands. No word yet on where the second load is heading, but sources say exporting condensate from Perth Amboy is now set up to become a routine thing, which is fantastic news for drillers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia that produce condensate…
Oilfield service giant Baker Hughes released their venerable monthly rotary rig count report yesterday for September 2015. After posting gains in the overall land-based U.S. rig count number for two straight months in July and August, the September numbers dropped like a rock. September U.S. active land-based rigs averaged 848, down 35 from the average of 883 in August and down 18 from July’s average of 866. Rig counts for the Marcellus/Utica also continued to drop, showing another four rigs were idled during September across the combined PA/OH/WV. It’s getting bloody out there…