Panama & Suez Canals Fall Out of Favor for LNG Exports to Asia
LNG (liquefied natural gas) that is exported from the U.S. to Asia takes one of three routes to get there. One route is via the Panama Canal, crossing into the Pacific Ocean and on from there. Another is via the Atlantic Ocean to the Suez Canal and from there via the Red Sea, which connects to the Indian Ocean. The third way is sailing through the Atlantic Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa. In the past, both the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal were the preferred routes, shaving weeks from the journey. However, given recent events, the dynamic has completely changed. Now, the preferred route is the longest route — around the Cape of Good Hope.
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In 2020, Congress mandated a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to assess the U.S. Coast Guard’s ability, methods, and role in conducting the certificate of compliance (COC) program for the foreign-flag tanker ships known as liquefied gas carriers (LGCs) and to consider the need for statutory reforms. The National Academies released its report yesterday with recommendations for how the Coast Guard can and should update its LNG carrier certification program.
Nearly a year ago, MDN brought you the news that the federal EPA had issued a permit to G2 STEM LLC based in Fairfax, Virginia, to build a Class IID oil and gas wastewater underground injection well in Young Township, Jefferson County, PA (see
We have been tracking and reporting on the drama surrounding Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry ( Belmont County), Ohio, located close to the Ohio River (
One of the aspects of the Austin Master Services (AMS) story (from Ohio) that captures people’s attention is that the frack waste at the facility contains drill cuttings, some of it with a low level of radioactivity. The headline-grabbing media touts that aspect of the story, overplaying just how “radioactive” it actually is. “OMG! If that stuff gets into the Ohio River, it’s an ecological disaster!” That sort of thing. While the percent threat to public health from AMS’ stored drill cuttings is not zero, it’s also not 100. We need a little balance added to the discussion. Just how much of a threat is the waste in the AMS facility?
Yeah, the bottom pretty much fell out of the rig count last week, both nationally and for the Marcellus/Utica region. We’re hitting new lows with both counts. For the M-U, Pennsylvania stayed the same with 21 active rigs, but Ohio lost one rig, and West Virginia lost two rigs last week, for a net loss of three — 37 active rigs across the region, the lowest in more than a year. The national rig count hit 600 last week, the lowest it has reached since January 2022. Ugh.
The left constantly spins false media narratives as a form of psychological operation (psyops) to discourage those of us who support the fossil fuel industry. Our good friend Tom Shepstone, who writes the
Back in the summer of 2020, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by an Ohio rights owner called TERA, an organization that owns the royalty rights for a number of leases with wells in Belmont County, OH, drilled by different producers, suing the producers for drilling into the Point Pleasant shale layer when the lease only mentions the Utica layer (see
The merger of EQT Corporation and Equitrans Midstream into a single company took one giant leap forward on Wednesday when the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Antitrust Act waiting period expired. In November 2018, under intense pressure from activist investors, EQT split itself into two companies: EQT Corporation and Equitrans Midstream (see
In case you weren’t aware, there’s an important political race happening in Pennsylvania for the U.S. Senate. In fact, the race’s outcome will likely determine whether or not the Senate remains hostage to radical Democrat control or flips to common sense Republican control. The Democrat running for the seat is Bob Casey, an entrenched D.C. swamp dweller seeking his third 6-year term. Bob Casey has voted with Joe Biden 98.5% of the time (
We’ve had more than a few MDN readers pass along links from recent mainstream media stories about the treasure trove of lithium available “beneath Pennsylvania” in the state’s brine (shale wastewater) production. Which makes us a little bit crazy and amuses us at the same time because we’ve been reporting on this story since 2019! In October 2019, Eureka Resources, which operates three frack wastewater treatment facilities in the Marcellus Shale (and is building a fourth facility in Dimock, PA), began extracting lithium from Marcellus wastewater at one of its plants in Bradford County, PA (see
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