| | |

Shocker: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Tells Mike Bloomberg to “Butt Out”

Butt Out, Mr. Bloomberg!

Every now and again, the editorial board at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a far-left-leaning newspaper, surprises us. Yesterday’s editorial is one such day. We brought you the news yesterday that the uber-arrogant billionaire Mike Bloomberg is spending $85 million to try and shut down or block petrochemical plants like the Shell ethane cracker in the Pittsburgh region (see Mike Bloomberg Spends $85M to Stop Petchem Plants in M-U, Gulf Coast). Bloomberg’s efforts don’t sit well with the Post-Gazette editors, who are telling Bloomberg to “butt out” of interfering with petrochemicals in the Ohio Valley.
Continue reading

|

Primer on Propane and Its Relationship to Crude Oil & Natural Gas

From time to time, we write about propane–the “other” NGL produced in the Marcellus/Utica “wet gas” region. When M-U drillers sink a well, methane is the number one hydrocarbon that comes out of the hole. But in certain areas in southwestern PA, eastern OH, and the northern panhandle of WV, other hydrocarbons come out of the hole along with methane. Being heavier than methane, they are referred to as natural gas liquids (NGLs). The primary NGL produced in the M-U region is ethane. Ergo Shell has built a $6 billion-plus cracker plant to leverage our region’s abundance of ethane. After ethane, the next most plentiful NGL is propane.
Continue reading

| | | | |

Propane Industry Fights Back Against Radicals in New York

Bill Overbaugh, executive director of the New York Propane Gas Association

The propane industry in New York State is in a fight for its life. New York State’s so-called Climate Act (passed in 2019) requires New York to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40% by 2030, and no less than 85% by 2050, from 1990 levels. So far, the Climate Action Council (CAC), which is tasked with developing a framework for implementing these impossible goals, has proposed outright bans on fossil fuels in favor of electrification. Just two of the 22-member committee represent the fossil fuel industry (which passes for fair and balanced in NY). The New York Propane Gas Association (NYPGA) is fighting back against the crazies who demand an end to the use of propane in the state. Learn how the NYPGA is responding, below.
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

Mariner East & Marcus Hook Hit Record High M-U NGL Exports in 2Q

Earlier this week, Energy Transfer (ET), the builder of the mighty Mariner East pipelines and owner/expander of the Marcus Hook refinery, issued its second quarter update. The company had plenty of positive news to report, including net income of $1.33 billion, a $700 million increase from the same period last year. In July, the company hit a new record high for the amount of NGLs flowing through the Mariner East pipeline system. It has also found a way to squeeze another roughly 10,000 barrels per day of NGL exports out of Marcus Hook.
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

Antero Resources 2nd Largest LNG Exporter, $765M Profit in 2Q

Antero Resources, one of the largest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica (with major assets in West Virginia), the fifth largest natgas producer in the country and the second largest LNG exporter, issued its second quarter 2022 update yesterday. During 2Q, Antero placed a new compressor station online in West Virginia, boosting Marcellus gas flows by 160 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day). The new Castle Peak compressor station will be expanded to 240 MMcf/d in 2023. Antero generated $664 million in free cash flow and $765 million in net income during 2Q. Big company. Important company.
Continue reading

| | | | | | | |

FERC Aggressively Expands Enforcement, Fines Utica NGL Pipe $30K

God help you if you are a midstream company that has to wade through the mountain of federal regulations and codes generated by agencies including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and are subject to those agencies’ arbitrary decisions on what they will and won’t enforce. In what amounts to a game of Simon Says, FERC has just fined M3 Ohio Gathering, Utica East Ohio Midstream, and UEOM NGL Pipelines–all three either current or former owners of two tiny NGL pipelines that flow propane and ethane from the Scio (Ohio) fractionation plant–$30,000 for not filling out a particular form over a six-year period. Thirty grand for a paperwork violation. It is, according to lawyers who watch these things, an escalation, an “aggressive expansion of enforcement” on the part of FERC.
Continue reading

| | | | | | | | |

Clean Air Council Claims Victory in Marcus Hook Air Permit Case

The radicals of the Clean Air Council (CAC) are claiming a (very small) victory in their campaign against processing NGLs at the Marcus Hook refinery located near Philadelphia. CAC is CACkling that they have forced Energy Transfer, builder of the mighty Mariner East (ME) pipeline system (a pipeline that CAC couldn’t stop), to back down on how permits are issued for the Marcus Hook facility–the place where NGLs from ME end up for processing and loading for export. The end result is…well…not much. Nothing will really change. The same volume of NGLs will still flow to Marcus Hook, and the same volume of NGLs will be loaded onto ships and exported to other countries. The only thing that changes is that ET spends more time and pays more money to obtain a single large permit instead of two separate, smaller permits. We’ll explain.
Continue reading

| |

Without Fossil Fuels, Half the World’s Population Will Starve

Vaclav Smil is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba. Smil is the author of over forty books on topics including energy, environmental and population change, food production and nutrition, technical innovation, risk assessment, and public policy. His newest book, titled How the World Really Works, contains some startling information. Modern societies would be impossible without mass-scale production of many man-made materials. Four materials rank highest on the scale of necessity, forming what Smil calls the four pillars of modern civilization: cement, steel, plastics, and ammonia. All four require fossil fuels or the don’t exist.
Continue reading

| |

M-U Industry Asks Feds to Use M-U Butane to Stretch Gasoline

Butane formula

The leaders of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, Kentucky Gas and Oil Association (KGOA), Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia (GO-WV) wrote a letter to Washington, D.C. last week encouraging the federal government (i.e. Joe Biden) to allow butane blending with gasoline as a great way to lower prices at the pump. But the groups didn’t send the letter to Joe Biden, knowing it would get filed in the circular file next to Biden’s desk. Instead, they sent the letter to another Joe–U.S. Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia. Manchin, chairman of the powerful Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has the attention of the Bidenistas since he torpedoed the administration’s Build Back Worse plan last December. If Joe Manchin talks about something, Joe Biden pays attention (if he isn’t napping).
Continue reading

| | | | | | | | | |

Mariner East Pipe Fulfills Promise as Southeast Pa. Economic Engine

As we told you last week, Energy Transfer, during its first quarter update, spoke about the now-completed Mariner East pipeline system that flows NGLs, including ethane, propane, and butane, from eastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania all the way to southeastern PA and the Marcus Hook terminal (see Energy Transfer 1Q: ME Pipe Done; Possible Marcus Hook Expansion). Here’s two pieces of information we picked up in a new article in the Philly Inquirer: (1) The original ME1 Pipeline (an older pipeline repurposed to use for NGLs) is being converted back into flowing refined fuels from Midwestern refineries to the Philadelphia market, and (2) a temporary workaround pipeline in the Philly area used for ME was taken out of service back in February.
Continue reading

| | |

Former NJ DuPont Dynamite Factory Near Philly Exporting NGLs

propane exports

New (for us) information has us laughing and snickering at THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Food & Water Watch, and other leftist “environmental” groups who have opposed building a new LNG export dock on the Delaware River. We’ve told you, for years, about a plan to build an LNG liquefaction plant in land-locked northeastern Pennsylvania, in Wyalusing, Bradford County (see Big News! Marcellus LNG Export Plant Coming to Landlocked NEPA). New Fortress Energy (NFE) planned to build the plant and to use both trucks and (more importantly) rail cars to ship chilled LNG to an export terminal (a dock in the river) in the Gibbstown area of Greenwich Township, located in Gloucester County, NJ. Guess what? NGLs already ship from the Gibbstown facility!
Continue reading

| | |

New Ohio LNG Rail Terminal Fed by Marcellus/Utica Propane

Sycamore, Ohio (credit: Wikipedia)

We’ve often said it before: We love a good railroad story. And here’s one for you… NGL Supply Co. Ltd. recently opened a new propane rail terminal in Sycamore (Wyandot County), Ohio. The 180,000-gallon Sycamore terminal has the capability to offload eight rail cars at 1,500 gallons per minute (gpm). The best part? The terminal is supplied by rail cars primarily from the Marcellus Shale region. Most if not all of the molecules flowing through the terminal come from the Marcellus/Utica.
Continue reading

| | | | | |

WV Senator Capito Tells WV-GO Biden Infra Bill has $$ for NGL Hub

U.S. Senator from West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito “Zoomed” in to address the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia’s (GO-WV) annual winter meeting last week. She talked about the Biden infrastructure bill, which she supported, and Biden’s so-called Build Back Better bill, which she does not support. As part of her comments, Capito mentioned the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill includes money for “an Appalachian ethane/hydrogen storage hub.” Wow! We thought that project was long dead.
Continue reading

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Shell Cracker Set to Come Online in 2022 – More Coming Attractions

Our friends at NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) are running an excellent series providing expert forecasts for the global natural gas and oil markets in 2022. The latest installment interviews several experts about the prospects for the Marcellus/Utica. With the Shell ethane cracker plant coming online sometime this year, the prospects for NGL sales in the M-U have picked up. Also in the discussion: capping Pennsylvania’s orphaned wells, drilling in the Wayne National Forest, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline coming online.
Continue reading

| | | | |

M-U NGL Cryogenic Plant in Southeast Ohio Getting an Upgrade

BCCK Holding Company (BCCK) has been granted a contract to upgrade a cryogenic gas processing plant in the Marcellus/Utica, in southeastern Ohio. The name of the customer was not disclosed but we’re guessing it is MarkWest Energy (now MPLX). BCCK says it has developed a simple and effective modification to improve the existing cryogenic plant design and equipment with the aim of increasing propane recovery.
Continue reading

| |

What Will Winter and 2022 Bring for NGL Production & Prices?

According to the experts at RBN Energy, “If there was ever a year that proves NGLs march to the beat of a different drummer, 2021 was it.” Production of NGLs went *up* during the pandemic, not down. Prices have been up, down, and all around. Like all oil and gas markets (markets of any kind, really), there is no one, specific factor or reason why NGL production and prices are doing what they are doing. It is a complex soup of factors that affect the NGL market–a market that’s increasingly vital for Marcellus/Utica producers.
Continue reading