PA DEP Slaps Shell with $700K Fine re Building Falcon Ethane Pipe
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has assessed a $670,000 fine plus extra “cost recovery” charges of nearly $30,000 against the Shell Pipeline Company for work done between 2019 and 2021 on Shell’s Falcon ethane pipeline project. The DEP says that a series of inspections showed “failure to comply” with this paperwork requirement and that paperwork requirement. There were a few instances of erosion into “waters of the commonwealth.” But in the end, the DEP acknowledges, “no visual aquatic impacts were observed.” No muddy water. No dead fishies. No dead salamanders. No dead nothing. In other words, the DEP fined Shell for nothing–no lasting impacts on the environment from the work done to construct the Falcon pipeline.
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In March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see 
Two days ago, MDN told you that the Apostle of LNG, Toby Rice (CEO of EQT), had convinced his buddies at Williams and TC Energy (two pipeline companies) to join him in his latest effort to push for more U.S. LNG exports (see 
Capital from private investors and banks is leaving (or rather, not entering) the Marcellus/Utica region and is, instead, heading to the Gulf Coast–in particular, capital investment is heading to the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana and East Texas. That was the observation of several speakers at the recent Hart Energy America’s Natural Gas conference. According to Kevin Little, senior vice president for natural gas at Macquarie Energy, the lack of pipelines and infrastructure in the M-U is not just keeping the gas in the region, the lack of pipelines is keeping investment (for more drilling) out. Here is the real tragedy: “U.S. LNG export capacity is primed to ramp up and the largest, most economic natural gas basin [the M-U] is left out of the action, unable to increase production to meet the higher demand.”
Last year the Bidenistas initiated a massive power grab to transfer the right of individual states to regulate local natural gas gathering pipelines to the federal government’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (see 
President Joe Biden has, on many occasions, stated that the U.S. would step up LNG exports to help our European friends (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and its Environmental Quality Board (EQB) rammed through (in a rush) a set of regulations to control volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and by extension methane, for conventional drilling sites throughout the site. The DEP has had SIX YEARS to get these regulations done, and has missed deadline after deadline. Now, with a Dec. 16 deadline approaching to finish up the regs or risk losing half a billion dollars in federal highway funds, the DEP is trying to bully the conventional drilling industry into accepting its onerous regulations with no comment period, no feedback, no nothing–under threat of risking half a billion dollars. It’s DEP blackmail, plain and simple. What will the conventional industry do? Take it lying down? Or fight?
ShalePro Energy Services, headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA but with five regional offices scattered across seven states (including offices in each of the three Marcellus/Utica states), announced it has just closed on a deal to acquire Tight Line Services, based in Hickory, PA (Washington County). Tight Line, which provides civil construction services to the natural gas industry, is the fifth company acquired by ShalePro. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Tight Line’s seven full-time employees, along with the company’s current CEO, have joined ShalePro.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an article yesterday to say that according to their data, the U.S. hit a new record high for natural gas production in 2021. As part of the article, EIA points out that the Marcellus/Utica region now accounts for nearly one-third of all U.S. dry natural gas production! The chart included with the article (below) shows gas production by source, including both the #1 source (Texas) and #2 source (Pennsylvania).
The American Petroleum Institute (API) yesterday released new analyses (see the 160-page report below) on the benefits of low-carbon hydrogen produced from natural gas. The study, commissioned by API and conducted by ICF, found that hydrogen produced from natural gas with carbon capture and produced from electricity and other energy sources (so-called “blue” hydrogen) could eliminate an additional 180 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on average per year through 2050 and save over $450 billion cumulatively through 2050 when hydrogen incentives are uniformly provided based on a per ton of GHG emissions reduced. API wants the world to know, hydrogen made from natural gas (as 95% of all hydrogen is), is the way to go.
EQT CEO Toby Rice has been and is on a mission to spread the gospel of LNG (see 
In just the past week, woke/leftist investment firm BlackRock (the largest investment firm in the world) has lost over $1 billion of investment money from two states: Louisiana (see 
The laughably misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is now law. Hopefully, a Republican takeover in Congress in November will mute some of the aspects of this terrible new law, but we’re not holding our breath. IRA is the law and we must now deal with it as such. While there is a mini-gold-rush mentality about the law and its $8 billion allocated for hydrogen projects, the overall aim of the IRA is to transition the entire economy of the United States away from using fossil energy to using so-called renewable energy by showering renewables with mountains of money. We predict here and now that the effort to convert America to renewables using the IRA will utterly and completely fail–for one main reason…
In a March 3rd Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) asked Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick this question: “Has anyone higher up in the [Biden] administration ever spoken to you in regards to somehow slow-walking or otherwise impeding or otherwise accentuating policy that would have the effect of impeding the development of natural gas pipelines?” Chairman Glick responded with an unambiguous “no.” Yet FERC refused to release records of communications and meetings with the White House to back up Glick’s statement. The Institute for Energy Research (IER) promptly filed a lawsuit (and nine others since) to probe the extent of the involvement of the Biden White House in reshaping FERC’s policies. FERC continues to stonewall the IER’s requests. What is FERC, and The White House, hiding?