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Shell Adding Back 300 Workers a Week at Cracker Construction Site
Shell continues to ramp back up work being done at its mighty ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a shutdown of activity due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company has announced plans to add 300 employees back each week until they are back up to full compliment.
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We have some exclusive news to share about a northeast PA LNG plant project. In August 2018, New Fortress Energy announced plans to build at least one LNG liquefying plant in Wyalusing, PA (see 
A leftist anti-fossil group calling itself Protect PT, in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA, backed with big money from Big Green groups, has for years challenged Penn Township ordinances that allow Apex Energy and Huntley & Huntley (now Olympus Energy) to drill and operate shale wells. Protect PT has finally struck out, permanently, at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
A relatively short pipeline project to flow water from the Susquehanna River in Tunkhannock (Wyoming County), PA to a water impoundment about seven miles away, began construction in February 2019 (see 
In May 2016, a landowner in Wayne County, PA filed a lawsuit against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) asking a judge to declare that the DRBC does not have jurisdiction to prevent the construction of a natural gas well (see 
A tiny 2.1-mile pipeline looping project in western Massachusetts has been fought tooth and nail for over two years by anti-fossil fuel zealots. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the project, subsequently refused to “rehear” its decision, and now Big Green groups (with loads of money) have colluded to sue FERC in federal court in an attempt to emasculate the agency because it won’t consider mythical man-made global warming when approving projects like this one.
It becomes more obvious every day that the rank and file (even the leaders) of trade unions are breaking with their Democrat Party bosses over issues like insane taxes on natural gas. The divide is particularly acute in blue states like Pennsylvania, which voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and likely will again in 2020 because the Dems keep shooting themselves in the head with stupid taxes and regulations that kill jobs. The PA AFL-CIO issued a statement yesterday thanking the PA Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee, part of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, for listening to the union’s concerns about Gov. Wolf’s proposed carbon tax at a recent hearing.
Energy Transfer (ET), one of the largest midstream (pipeline) companies in the U.S., is making another major cut in its 2020 capital budget. The company released its first-quarter update yesterday indicating it will cut spending this year by “at least” another $400 million, with a potential extra $300-$400 million cut later in the year. So spending may dip by most of billion dollars extra during 2020.
New Fortress Energy, which focuses on producing, exporting, transporting, and importing (in other countries) LNG marches to the beat of a different drummer. The company recently issued its first-quarter 2020 update. On a conference call with analysts, New Fortress founder and CEO (and billionaire) Wed Edens said his company hasn’t applied for nor accepted any government money re the COVID-19 pandemic. They also haven’t laid anyone off. In fact, New Fortress boosted the salaries of frontline fuel workers by 50% for the months of April and May in recognition of the jobs they are doing and the risks they face during the pandemic.
LNG Limited (LNGL), based in Australia, has been working on a couple of North American LNG export projects over the past half-decade or more. One of them, Magnolia LNG, is located in Louisiana will potentially export M-U molecules. Magnolia has all of its permits and is ready to build–if someone has the money to build it. It won’t be LNGL. The company recently imploded and ended up in the hands of a bankruptcy administrator who is now selling off the assets.
The Trump Administration recently fixed a problem with the recently enacted CARES Act (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act) that will close an oversight preventing some oil and gas companies from using the program. Anti-fossil fuel haters who want to punish oil and gas companies are now hopping mad that Trump “bailed out” oil and gas companies.
One week ago the Texas Eastern Pipeline Company (TETCO) pipeline running through Kentucky exploded for the second time in a year (see 
Here’s an interesting aspect of the natural gas business you may not have heard about before (we hadn’t). As you may know, not all gas produced gets used immediately. Some gas gets stored, typically in underground caverns, and later extracted for use when needed. Buyers (like utility companies) contract with storage fields to park the gas they’ve purchased until they need it. What you may not know is that not 100% of the molecules that go in come back out again.
This is getting ridiculous. Does anyone really believe that a single pipeline project already built and now getting a redo could possibly have racked up 680 “violations” during construction work over the past five months? We certainly don’t believe it. Yet that’s what the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) alleges. Energy Transfer (ET), the builder and fixer of Revolution, has their own allegation: The DEP itself is “not in compliance with its own guidelines.” Who inspects the inspectors for compliance?