Koch Brothers ‘Roll Out’ Nylon Pipeline Aimed at Shale Industry
An interesting development in the midstream (pipeline) business. Yesterday INVISTA, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, introduced a new nylon pipe aimed squarely at use in the oilfield–to flow both oil and natural gas (and NGLs). They call the new pipeline Raptor™ and claim it outperforms pipelines made of steel, composites and polyethylene. The maximum pressure the pipe can handle is 500 pounds per square inch (psi), which means it likely won’t be used for interstate pipelines. However, it’s perfect for local gathering pipelines because it’s quick and easy to install–saving time and money for drillers and midstream companies…
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The next round in so-called anti-drilling research into the “health impacts” from fracking have arrived in the form of a study about to be published in the National Institutes of Health journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Titled “Proximity to Natural Gas Wells and Reported Health Status: Results of a Household Survey in Washington County, Pennsylvania” (full copy embedded below), this latest salvo in the fracking wars is DOA. Why? The anti-drilling Heinz Endowments, led by Mamma Teresa Heinz-Kerry, the Schmidt Family Foundation, founded by former Google CEO (and big-time anti-driller) Eric Schmidt, and the Philadelphia-area Claneil Foundation, funder of many anti-drilling “studies” are the main sponsors of this latest “study” that tabulates self-reported ailments of skin rashes and coughing from 492 people (in 180 families) living in Washington County, PA. Guess what they found? If you read the USA Today headline, they found “People near ‘fracking’ wells report health woes,” to which we say, those who don’t live near fracking wells report health woes too! The study itself says this: “…these results should be viewed as hypothesis generating…proximity of natural gas wells may be (emphasis added) associated with the prevalence of health symptoms including dermal and respiratory 3 conditions in residents living near natural gas extraction activities. Further study of these associations, including the role of specific air and water exposures, is warranted.” That is, nothing conclusive was found from this small sample of 180 households in a single county. But let’s not let “nothing conclusive” get in the way of spinning yet another tall tale that fracking causes health problems. Crank up the media lie machine…
Hilcorp is having some bad luck in Mercer County, PA. Three weeks ago two storage tanks at a Hilcorp well pad caught fire and exploded–no one injured. Then, this past Saturday (three weeks later), a separator caught fire at a well pad. No big explosions this time–at least none that were heard. However, up to 20 homes had to be evacuated while the fire was extinguished. Once again, no injuries…
Once again the Marcellus is in the middle of what appears to be a Democrat vs. Republican fight–this time over who will control prime riverfront port facility property in the Delaware River in Philadelphia. Here is our understanding of the situation: the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA) is in talks to lease 200 acres at the Southport facility to Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES)–operator of the former Sunoco Inc. refinery in South Philadelphia–who would then turn around and find an operator for the terminal itself. PES wants to ship Marcellus Shale gas from the port facility location after piping it there from other parts of PA. But a bigtime Philly Democrat, John Brown Jr., president of Penn Warehousing and Distribution Inc. (a paper-import company) wants to lease the port facility for himself and the operations of his company. So Brown hired former State Senator Vincent J. Fumo (Democrat with a lot of influence) to pull strings and hose the deal developing between PRPA and PES…
On Sunday, August 31 at 5:45 pm, there was an earthquake in the vicinity of Weathersfield (Trumbull County), OH. However, no one felt it. The only way anyone knew there was a quake was because of monitoring by the U.S. Geological Survey. The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) is investigating whether or not two wastewater injection wells, operated by American Water Management Services (AWMS), was the cause of that low-level quake that no one felt. According to the ODNR, from an “abundance of caution” they asked AWMS to shut down operations at those two wells while they investigate, which has now been done…