Braskem America Building New Petchem Export Hub in Charleston, SC
Braskem America, the largest petrochemical company in Latin America (headquartered in Brazil), at one time wanted to build an ethane cracker plant near Parkersburg, WV. They gave up on that plan last July (see Braskem Gives Up on WV Cracker – Parkersburg Site for Sale). Braskem has major petrochemical operations in the U.S. The company has just announced it will build a new petrochemical global export hub in Charleston, S.C. The hub will export polypropylene. Some of the exports will come from Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
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The mighty Mariner East 2X (ME2X) pipeline project gets closer and closer to 100% completion, despite the efforts of anti-fossil fuelers to hassle and block the project. In a bit of news ignored by mainstream media, another 13-mile stretch of ME2X in southeastern PA between Chester and Delaware counties went online late last week.
MDN recently told you that EQT, the largest natural gas producer in the country, has shut-in roughly one-third of its regular natural gas production through the end of June (see 
In a transparent effort to buy local politicians and their votes against fracking, pipelines and for high carbon taxes, a California-based group linked to billionaire Tom Steyer has dumped almost $200,000 of “dark money” into Pennsylvania elections in the Delaware Valley (southeastern PA). Steyer is also attempting to buy candidates in Virginia, Nevada, Michigan, North Carolina and Oregon. In Chester County, Steyer is buying races for three radical Democrats in the upcoming primary…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (i.e. Cirus), located in California, has struck again. We previously told you about an Obamadroid judge in Montana who illegally blocked the use of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Nationwide Permit 12 for oil and natural gas pipelines (see 
On Wednesday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging whether or not the state Attorney General’s office has the right to use a consumer protection law to prosecute companies like Chesapeake Energy and Anadarko over royalty payment shenanigans. The law the AG’s office wants to use has never been used that way before. According to legal experts, drillers are very concerned if the AG’s office wins this one, as we reported last November (see 
For the past month and a half, MDN has brought you rig count data from Enverus (formerly Drillinginfo) each Friday. Last Friday we reported the count had hit a new modern-day low, but that the Marcellus had gained back one of the seven rigs lost over a previous three week period (see 
A new so-called “study” published in the journal Science of The Total Environment claims it has uncovered a link between fracking chemicals in farm water and a rare birth defect in horses. The researchers say this study “could” serve as a warning about fracking and human infant health. Is this it? Were we wrong for the past 11 years about the safety of fracking? Is this THE END?
Summit Midstream Partners, formed in 2009 and headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, operates natural gas, crude oil and produced water gathering (pipeline) systems in six unconventional resource basins, including the Marcellus and Utica. The company concentrates its time and money on four “core focus areas” including the Utica, the Williston (i.e. Bakken), the DJ Basin, and the Permian. The company announced yesterday it has completed the buyout of a subsidiary and merged it in. Hidden in the bowels of the press release we discovered Bob McNally, former (ousted) CEO of EQT Corporation, has joined the board of directors at Summit.
Two weeks ago MDN brought you the news that consulting powerhouse PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), which had been hired to liquidate the assets of Australian company LNG Limited (LNGL), had found a buyer for the Magnolia LNG export project for $2.25 million (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 790, a bill that restores sanity to regulations for conventional oil and gas drillers in the Keystone State. For years PA’s small, independent conventional oil and gas drillers have objected to the one-size-fits-all regulations concocted by the Gov. Tom Wolf Administration that applies the same regulations to them as to big shale drillers. The two types of drilling are apples and oranges. To make small conventional drillers jump through the same hoops as big shale drillers will bankrupt many of the smaller companies. SB 790 helps correct the situation.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the “lifeblood” of the global energy system is…investment. That is, money. Without investment, new sources of energy don’t appear. In 2016 IEA began to publish an annual report called World Energy Investment, in order to track spending on all forms of energy worldwide. Earlier this week IEA published its fifth annual version of the report. In the report, IEA says 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic, will mark the largest-ever collapse in global energy investment in history. IEA says the coming investment decline will impact oil the most.
David Blackmon, a senior contributor to the Forbes magazine website and 39-year veteran working for various oil companies including Burlington Resources, Shell, and El Paso Corporation, is one of our favorite experts to read on matters relating to the oil patch. He is a strong O&G supporter. So when we spotted a recent Forbes article Blackmon wrote titled, “Why The Brief Era Of American Energy Dominance Is Over,” that sure got our attention.