Williams, the pipeline giant, held its annual analyst day in New York City last Friday. The company’s top brass was there to wow and woo investors with the company’s plans for 2020 and beyond. In reading about the session, we picked up on some startling statistics. Stats like Williams now provides 30% of all LNG feed gas in the U.S. And most of that (all of it?) comes from the Marcellus/Utica.
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Category: CNG/LNG
Nova Scotia Bear Head LNG Gets Lifeline – App. Extended to 2022
For a number of years MDN has tracked an LNG export plant planned for the eastern shore of Nova Scotia–the Bear Head LNG project (see our Bear Head LNG stories here). In 2017, an official from the project said it was “shovel-ready” and could begin at any time (see Nova Scotia’s Bear Head LNG Sees Surge of Interest). However, not one shovelful of dirt has been turned. The project recently asked for and was granted permission to extend permits set to expire at the end of this year.
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U.S. Gov’t Grants New Fortress Permit to Ship NEPA LNG by Rail!
As far as we can tell, MDN is exclusively breaking the following news: On December 5 (last Thursday), the PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) granted a special permit to Energy Transport Solutions, LLC (i.e. New Fortress Energy) to transport LNG in DOT-113C120 rail tanker cars between Wyalusing, PA and Gibbstown, NJ. This is huge! There still is not a new regulation/law to allow shipment of LNG by rail across the country, but somehow New Fortress has gotten a special permit to do so anyway. Huge!
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Elliot Group Breaks Ground on LNG Equipment Plant in Southwest PA
We’re always delighted to discover a new (for us) company involved in the supply chain–providing goods and/or services to the shale industry, including the downstream petrochemicals industry. Elliott Group is one of those companies not previously on our radar. Elliott’s U.S. headquarters is located in Westmoreland County, near Pittsburgh. The company designs, manufactures, and services turbomachinery, including centrifugal and axial compressors, steam turbines, and power recovery expanders. Elliott broke ground yesterday on a new facility in Jeannette where they will test their recently acquired product line of cryogenic pumps and expanders–equipment used in LNG plants.
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Jacksonville, FL Welcomed LNG Export Plant “With Open Arms”
Last week MDN told you about a $23 million taxpayer incentive under consideration by the city of Jacksonville, Florida in order to attract a $542 million LNG export plant (see Jacksonville, FL Considers Tax Break for Eagle LNG Export Plant). We spotted another story about this project that sheds more light on Jacksonville and its role in attracting the plant.
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More Competition for LNG Exports Coming from Qatar
The U.S. is on track to overtake both Qatar and Australia to become the top LNG (liquefied natural gas) exporter by 2024. However, our reign at the top may be short-lived. Qatar announced last week it will boost LNG production by 64% by 2027.
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Andrew “Don Corleone” Cuomo Extorts National Grid, Wins Pipe Battle
Sometimes the bad guy wins. That’s life. It’s just happened in New York State. National Grid has caved–bowing to the extortion demands of an autocratic governor (Cuomo) in order to stay in business. New York’s system of justice is now fully, completely, 100% corrupted by Cuomo. A very sad day here in New York. Cuomo has claimed victory over National Grid and any other utility that would dare to challenge his autocratic, dictatorial authority in the state by getting National Grid to not only give up its demand for a new pipeline (Northeast Supply Enhancement, NESE) to provide natural gas supplies, but to actually pay a $36 million fine (i.e. bribe) in order to stay in business. Democracy is gone. Hello tyranny.
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Jacksonville, FL Considers Tax Break for Eagle LNG Export Plant
In September the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave final approval to Eagle LNG to build a small LNG export facility project at a site on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville, Florida (see FERC Grants Final Approval to Jacksonville, FL LNG Export Plant). Some of gas that will feed it will come from the Marcellus/Utica. Last week a bill was introduced to the Jacksonville City Council to grant the project $23 million in taxpayer-backed incentives, something called a “Recaptured Enhanced Value Grant.”
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Cove Point LNG in Maryland Loads Milestone 100th Commercial Ship
Seems like just yesterday that Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG export plant opened for business–in April 2018 (see First-Ever Shipment of Marcellus LNG Leaves Cove Point, Maryland). Fast forward a year and a half later and on Monday, November 11, Dominion loaded its 100th commercial LNG ship. Let’s celebrate!
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With “Backs Against Wall” Rhode Island Approves LNG Facility
Do Rhode Island regulators read MDN? Maybe! On Monday we brought you a post about the coming natural gas outages like that experienced last January in the People’s Republic of Rhode Island, due to eco-socialist pressure to ban new natural gas infrastructure (see Rhode Island Eco-Socialists Threaten State with NatGas Outages). Yesterday the state’s Energy Facility Siting Board waived a licensing requirement for a “temporary” LNG storage facility in Portsmouth to prevent another January episode from happening again. Board members complained they had no choice, that “we have our backs against the wall” and “people’s lives could be in danger” if they don’t approve the LNG facility.
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Potential Light at End of Jones Act LNG Tunnel?
For some time we have criticized the 100 year-old Jones Act that prevents LNG carriers built and/or crewed by other counties from transporting LNG from one U.S. port to another U.S. port (see Puerto Rico Imports Russian LNG Thanks to U.S. Jones Act). Among the statements we’ve made is that the Jones Act prevents all such shipments, with the implication there are no U.S. Jones Act shippers. We were recently contacted by an MDN subscriber to gently chide us and set the record straight. There ARE at least two Jones Act shippers, but perhaps not in the way you think.
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Explaining the U.S. LNG Marketplace – Who Sells It, Who Buys It
While on the surface the liquefied natural gas (LNG) marketplace may seem simple and straightforward, when you dig down you’ll find it is complex. There are different kinds of contracts between those who sell the gas, those who liquefy and ship it, and those who buy it. The LNG marketplace is, with the entrance of the U.S., changing rapidly. Our friends at RBN Energy recently posted an explanation for how it all works.
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U.S. Natural Gas Exports Double Jan-Jun 2019
Quick, when we ask you how natural gas gets exported from the U.S. to other countries, what do you think of? LNG, right? That’s true. Yet while LNG grabs all the headlines, more than twice as much natural gas is exported to Canada and Mexico via pipeline every day than is exported to other countries via LNG ships. LNG is expanding and catching up–but it has a ways to go. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, during the first half of 2019 natural gas exports from the U.S. to other countries doubled–largely because of LNG.
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Dominion Energy Sells 25% of Cove Point LNG for $2B
Yesterday Dominion Energy announced it has sold a 25% stake in the completed Cove Point, Maryland LNG export facility to Brookfield Asset Management for a cool $2 billion. Dominion completed the $4.1 billion facility in 2018. The share just sold to Brookfield values the facility at $8.22 billion. Holy smokes! Nice play–to double the value of your investment in not much more than a year after completing it. What will Dominion do with all that cash?
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US DOT Gets Serious About LNG by Rail – Publishes Proposed Rules
In April President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO) directing the Secretary of Transportation to write a new rule allowing specially constructed tanker cars for railroads (DOT-113 tank cars) to ship LNG, i.e., liquefied natural gas (see Here Come the “Bomb Trains” – Trump to Allow LNG by Rail). The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), in coordination with the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), has just issued a “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” to move the process forward. Think of it as draft regulations to allow LNG by rail car.
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Puerto Rico Imports Russian LNG Thanks to U.S. Jones Act
Here we go again. Not only does Boston and New England now depend on Russian LNG, so too does U.S. territory Puerto Rico (PR)–thanks to a century-old law that prevents the U.S. from shipping LNG to our own states and territories! It’s bizarre and must stop. The closest LNG export facility to PR is Kinder Morgan’s Elba Island, Georgia facility, which recently came online (see FERC OKs Kinder Morgan Elba Island LNG Train #1 to Begin Service). Yet none of the Marcellus/Utica LNG from Elba Island can legally go to PR–because there are no American built and flagged LNG carriers to transport it there. That’s the Jones Act.
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