Trinidad LNG Exports Continue to Fall – New England Shortage?
From time to time we sound the alarm that New England’s primary supply of natural gas, which comes via LNG tankers from Tinidad & Tobago, is in danger of drying up. New England continues to pay prices 3-4 times higher than the rest of the country for their natgas–due to lack of supply. That hasn’t (and won’t) change, until more supplies make it to New England, either by pipeline or ship. Opponents of new pipelines to New England have included LNG importers in the region. Specifically, GDF Suez imports Trinidad gas at the Everett, MA LNG import terminal, near Boston (see New England Importer Received 59% of All LNG Ship Imports 1H15). LNG imports are one of the primary sources of natgas for New England. Antis holler and scream, “Forget the pipelines. If you must use gas, use LNG. There’s more than enough LNG to supply New England.” In a macro sense that may be true, the world is awash in LNG. But arranging shipments and sources for it takes months, even years. And it costs more to get natural gas via LNG shipments than it does via pipelines. Right now most of the LNG GDF Suez imports come from Trinidad. As we pointed out in an article last year, Trinidad’s natural gas sources are drying up (see Is New England Heading for Huge NatGas Price Spike this Winter?). The country is exporting less and less. We have yet more evidence of that. Trinidad’s natural gas production decreased another 9% during the first half of this year. Again we sound the alarm! New England is heading for a natgas shortage…
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A Broome County, NY judge ruled yesterday that the Town of Fenton Planning Board did not take a hard enough look at environmental and traffic issues related to their approval of NG Advantage’s plan to construct a facility in the town to compress and load natural gas onto tractor trailers for delivery to regional customers who desperately need the gas–what is called a “virtual pipeline.” MDN has chronicled the project from the beginning (see our 
Researchers at West Virginia University have just published a new study that looks at how to reduce methane emissions from LNG (liquefied natural gas) and CNG (compressed natural gas) fleet vehicles in coming years. Today’s heavy-duty natural gas fueled fleet is less than two percent of the total fleet. However, in the next 20 years, the heavy-duty truck fleet is expected to undergo a massive change–to as much as 50% of those vehicles powered by natural gas. That is a HUGE number! And potentially a huge new market for Marcellus/Utica gas! Natgas has a lot of advantages over diesel fuel, but folks are concerned over the mythical global warming potential of methane leaking into the atmosphere. Hence this study which looks at ways to prevent that…
Fantastic news to report! Dominion has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to begin flowing feed gas (for testing purposes) to parts of the Cove Point LNG export facility. We are now getting close to startup at the facility, which is supposed to go online in the fourth quarter of this year. Cove Point sits along the coast of Maryland. Dominion began work on the $3.5 billion plant in 2015. When complete, the plant will liquefy and export 1.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica Shale gas to India and Japan. Currently there is only one export facility in the U.S. in operation, along the coast of Louisiana (Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass). That one facility has fundamentally changed the economics of LNG (liquefied natural gas) here at home and around the world. Just imagine what another 1.8 Bcf/d will do! And it’s ALL from our region. Here’s more about the good news that Cove Point is ready to begin testing…
Somewhat surprising for our local Gannett outlet here in Binghamton (the Press & Sun-Bulletin), but on Sunday the newspaper published two opinion pieces that make a very strong case FOR building a natural gas transfer station (i.e. virtual pipeline) in the Town of Fenton, on the outskirts of Binghamton, by NG Advantage. One of the editorials was written by a resident who lives in the community where the station will get built. The arguments are compelling and destroy the NIMBYism and hysterics of local residents opposed to the project. The other editorial is from the fire chief and emergency management director from a community in New Hampshire that has two facilities to decompress gas delivered by NG Advantage. He speaks about the safety of the trucks and the gas carried on them. Bottom line: This facility is safe, the trucks hauling the gas are safe, and it’s good for the economy. There’s absolutely no reason why it should not get built in Fenton (near Binghamton)…
Everyone wants to know where the price of natural gas will go in the future. Ask one analyst, and he/she will tell you it’s going lower. Another? Staying where it is–for a long time. And yet another will tell you the price just HAS to go higher. Of course “the price” of natural gas is not just one price. Most people refer to the benchmark Henry Hub price, used for trading futures contracts on the NYMEX exchange. All other prices where gas is bought and sold are somehow compared to or even connected with the price of gas at the Henry Hub. We spotted a speculative post on the Seeking Alpha investor’s website from someone we often read, Andrew Hecht, muses that he thinks the price of natgas is heading higher. He makes a convincing case. We boil it down and simplify it to this: an increase in LNG exports, of which we wrote about yesterday (see US Exports Now 2.4% of NatGas Production, Heading for 11% in 2019 //marcellusdrilling.com/2017/08/us-exports-now-2-4-of-natgas-production-heading-for-11-in-2019/), plus scads of new natgas-fired electric plants coming online, which we write about all the time, plus a cold snap across the country, but particularly in the northeast, would necessarily drive natural gas prices at the Henry Hub and other locations MUCH higher. Is he right?…
A sharp MDN reader recently brought to our attention some exciting news. The only export facility currently in operation is Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass facility. In July Sabine Pass (in southwestern Louisiana, right on the border with Texas) exported 2.19 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of American-produced natural gas to other countries. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that in May (most recent month available) the entire production of natural gas in the U.S. was 89.5 Bcf/d. When you run the math, you find that Cheniere alone, with that one facility, exported 2.4% of all U.S. natgas production. The EIA published an article yesterday (below) that predicts the U.S. will become a net exporter of natural gas–exporting more than we import–THIS YEAR. EIA also predicts by the end of 2019 we will be exporting 9.5 Bcf/d of natural gas. If overall production stays about the same, which is a pretty safe guess, that means we will be exporting 10.6% of the natgas we produce, to other countries. Amazing! Of course, production may increase as prices increase, so that 10.6% may be under 10%. But you get the idea. With just LNG exports alone an important new market is opening up over the next two years for our shale gas. One of those export facilities coming online (later this year) is Cove Point, Maryland, which will be exporting Marcellus/Utica gas…
Dominion Energy released its second quarter 2017 update and held a conference call yesterday to discuss those results. Dominion is a huge producer and transporter of energy with its fingers in a lot pies. Dominion produces 26,200 megawatts of electricity, owns 15,000 miles of natural gas transmission, gathering and storage pipelines, and owns 6,600 miles of electric transmission lines. Dominion operates one of the nation’s largest natural gas storage systems with 1 trillion cubic feet of storage capacity. They also are a local utility company, serving more than 6 million customers. Yeah, big company, big deal. However, our interest in Dominion is fairly narrow: They are building an LNG (liquefied natural gas) export facility along the shoreline of Maryland. The Cove Point LNG facility will export 1.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of Marcellus/Utica Shale gas–to India and Japan. On yesterday’s call, Dominion CEO Tom Farrell said Cove Point is “95% done” and “remains on-time and on-budget” to begin operations by the end of this year. That’s great news! The other thing we closely watch with Dominion is the $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP)–a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. With respect to ACP, Farrell said they’ve already purchased 84% of the materials needed for the project and that it remains “on-track to start construction later this year.” Farrell said the pipeline should be done in the “second half of 2019.” More good news! Here’s the latest from energy giant Dominion Energy…
For the past few years, MDN has tracked the progress of an LNG export plant planned for the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, the Bear Head LNG project (
In May 2015, MDN brought you news that UGI Energy Services, a subsidiary of northeast PA utility giant UGI Corporation, announced they will spend $60 million to build a new LNG production plant in Wyoming County, PA (see 
Recently Broome County (NY) Executive Jason Garner sounded the alarm about county finances. He compared Broome County’s economic situation to the Titanic. The New York State Comptroller’s office issued a report in September 2016 that said Broome County has been in fiscal stress over the past three years. Thank you Gov. Cuomo for banning fracking–the one thing that could have pulled us out of the hole. With all of the bad news, you would think Broome County would be a cheerleader for a proposed “virtual pipeline” project from NG Advantage, planned for the Town of Fenton in a Binghamton suburb. In fact, Fenton approved the project (after a detailed review), and construction began in June (see 
NG Advantage wants to build a “virtual pipeline” operation in ultra-liberal Broome County, NY, in a suburb of Binghamton. The location NG picked, after considering up to six locations in the region, was selected because of it’s proximity to major highways, proximity to the Millennium Pipeline, and availability of high-power electric lines. A virtual pipeline is nothing more than a compressor plant (series of compressor plants) that grabs gas from a pipeline, in this case the Millennium, and compresses it and loads it onto special tractor trailers that then deliver the gas to industrial customers like manufacturing plants, hospitals, and even small regional systems servicing homes. The location NG selected, in the Town of Fenton (within spitting distance of Hillcrest and Port Dickinson) was approved by the Town of Fenton after a detailed review. The area they selected is zoned industrial and is, in fact, a former dump site. However, residents from nearby neighborhoods (Hillcrest and Port Dick) were not aware of the project (so they claim) and when construction began to clear the dump site, and residents learned what was going to be built at the site, some of them demanded court action to oppose it. So far we’ve had two court cases asking county-level court (called “Supreme Court” in NY) to stop the project, which it temporarily did (see 
This week has been “Energy Week” at the White House, and yesterday President Trump (we just love saying that, “President Trump”) announced six new initiatives not to just make America energy independent, but to make America energy dominant. We love that too! Energy DOMINANT. Throughout the world. Number one. One of the six initiatives in Trump’s plan was the announcement that Sempra Energy is in negotiations with South Korea to sell them our LNG (liquefied natural gas, see more on that below). That’s a good thing! No doubt some of the gas heading to the Korean peninsula will come from the Marcellus/Utica. Another of the six initiatives announced yesterday is approval for two applications to export LNG from Louisiana. And a yet another initiative involves more offshore drilling for oil and gas. So half of the initiatives announced somehow impact or relate to natural gas (two of which also impact Marcellus/Utica). Here’s the full list of six initiatives announced yesterday in a speech by President Trump…