Delaware Court Strikes Down Williams Poison Pill Provision
Talk about closing the barn door after the horse is gone! In March 2020 midstream (pipeline) giant Williams issued a press release to say they had just swallowed a poison pill (see Williams Swallows Poison Pill to Prevent Company Takeover). The “limited duration stockholder rights agreement” was set to expire a year later, March 20th of this year. A Delaware court last week struck down the poison pill measure, less than a month before its expiration. Big whup–it’s already done its job.
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Apparently, the staff who run the day-to-day business of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is incompetent and can’t defend itself. Every time they are challenged in court, they run crying to mommy and daddy (Teresa Heinz Kerry at the Heinz Endowments and Shawn McCaney at the William Penn Foundation), which in turns launders money (i.e. hires lawyers) through the Delaware Riverkeeper to help bail the DRBC out of legal trouble. A federal judge (appointed by swamp-dweller George W. Bush) ruled last week to allow Riverkeeper (Heinz & Wm. Penn) to “intervene” (become a party to) a lawsuit launched by Pennsylvania Senate Republicans against the DRBC over the organization’s illegal taking of property rights by banning fracking in the river basin.
On Friday Pennsylvania state legislators held two different remote/video hearings about the future of energy and fossil fuels in the state. Radical leftists who have taken over the Democrat Party are alarmed that the House Democratic Caucus, which lists climate change as a top priority, dedicated more than half of a two-hour hearing on “21st Century Energy Jobs” to speakers extolling the virtues of natural gas and coal. In our new woke, cancel culture where free speech is dead and any idea that doesn’t agree with the left is verboten, this just isn’t acceptable (so say the wokers)!
It’s kind of hard to consider the City of Pittsburgh as the “energy capital of the Northeast” when its mayor and now its namesake institution of higher learning are both virulent anti-fossil fuelers. University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) trustees on Friday agreed to continue phasing out fossil fuel investments in the school’s $4.3 billion endowment and become completely divested from fossil fuels by 2035 (14 years from now). That’s not fast enough for the petulant, childish kids whose parents pay their steep tuition bills at Pitt. The spoiled kids want the university to divest NOW, darnit (feet stomping on the floor)…
Well, what do you know? Donald Trump’s National Economic Council Director, Larry Kudlow, was absolutely right. We’re beginning to see a V-shaped recovery. Kudlow predicted the economy would bounce right back after the pandemic subsided. S&P Global Platts is showing there is a dramatic V-shaped recovery happening with natural gas production right now.
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), a quasi-governmental organization composed of four states (NY, PA, DE, NJ) plus the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, voted yesterday to permanently ban fracking within the boundaries of the DRBC’s jurisdiction, which includes Wayne and Pike counties in Pennsylvania where there is abundant Marcellus Shale deposits. But don’t despair. The DRBC is in the midst of two legal challenges and one (or both) is sure to win, reversing the illegal action taken yesterday. Chin up! The sun will rise again.
Remember the statement, uttered by then-candidate Joe Biden as he stood in Bucks County, PA (which sits in the Delaware River Basin) when he emphatically promised PA residents and union workers, “I’m not banning fracking in Pennsylvania or anywhere else!”? It took him slightly less than five weeks to break that promise. Yesterday the Biden administration, in the form of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (which is an Executive Branch agency) abstained and then voiced moral support for the DRBC’s vote to ban fracking in the Delaware River Basin. That action bans fracking in two northeastern PA counties where there are frackable shale deposits (see today’s lead story). FIVE WEEKS. Still happy you voted for lyin’ Biden?
Some good news to share on this Friday. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has given National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) the green light to begin construction on its FM100 pipeline project. The FM100 Project will beef up and extend an existing pipeline network in northwestern Pennsylvania to flow an extra 330 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to Williams’ mighty Transco Pipeline (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is sticking its sticky fingers into the pocket of Energy Transfer/Sunoco one more time, and this time drawing out nearly half a million dollars to pay for a series of small spills of nontoxic drilling mud in Snitz Creek in Lebanon County. It isn’t the first time the DEP has fined ET for Mariner East 2 (ME2) work. We’ve lost track of how many millions of dollars ET/Sunoco has paid in various fines–some of it legit, some of it (in our opinion), not legit.
Last fall Mountaineer NGL Storage, a $500 million project in Monroe County, OH to build underground storage for ethane and other NGLs, asked Ohio regulators to cancel a key permit for the project (see 
Yesterday, CNX Resources, Bettis Brothers, and The Bus Stops Here Foundation announced a partnership intended to bring greater awareness and access to opportunities in the natural gas industry to disadvantaged urban and rural communities in the Pittsburgh region. Does the Bettis name ring any bells? It should. Pittsburgh-based IntegrServ, a trucking company partly owned by former Pittsburgh Steeler Jerome Bettis, filed a federal lawsuit last summer against EQT claiming discrimination against his company (a minority-owned company) after EQT canceled a contract worth some $66 million (see 
Another week, another rig count to share with you. As we often point out, rig counts go up and down each week, so it’s good not to get too wrapped up in the “up one week down the next” narrative. After the rig count crashed to historic, all-time lows last year (due to the pandemic and price war from Russia and Saudi Arabia), we began to report more frequently on the rig count. It has become an early indicator for the pace of our country’s economic recovery.
On Monday of this week we reported about natural gas withdrawals from underground storage for the week ending Feb. 12, which were the twelfth largest on record since 2010 and the biggest one-week withdrawal in the past two years (see 
In December MDN brought you the news that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is proposing and seeking comments on changes to the state’s Chapter 105 (water obstructions and encroachments) permit (see 
More than six years ago a group of landowners in Wayne County, Illinois sued the state for its refusal to grant permits to drill and frack in the New Albany Shale deposit. Over the years the case morphed and the plaintiff became Next Energy, LLC, which acquired the leases to explore and develop the shale under the landowners’ property. The huge news is that the U.S. Supreme Court has taken an active interest in the case and is demanding the Illinois Attorney General file a response to the case–a key indicator the Supremes are leaning toward hearing the case.
Cheniere Energy operates two huge LNG export facilities–one in Sabine Pass, Louisiana, the other in Corpus Christi, Texas. Cheniere is the #1 LNG exporter in the U.S. Yesterday the company issued its fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 update. The company said it secured over 4 million tonnes of LNG supply deals during 4Q20. While the company took a hit with canceled cargoes during the pandemic, Cheniere expects 2021 to rebound and be a banner year. Why do we care? Because a significant quantity of Marcellus/Utica gas flows to the Cheniere facilities for export.