Industrywide Issues 615 - Marcellus Drilling News

Will New York City Begin to Import Russian LNG Like Boston?

January 22, 2019January 22, 2019

We’re following up on a post we made last Thursday about a coming moratorium on new customer hookups for natural gas in Westchester and New York City (see Moratorium on New NatGas Customers Coming in NYC Area). We now have more specifics: beginning March 15 of this year, Consolidated Edison is putting the moratorium in place.
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

New Government Study Helps Frackers Become More Profitable

January 22, 2019January 22, 2019

Branching into densely spaced hydraulic cracks is essential for effective gas or oil extraction from shale.

Can math help us be better frackers? Researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory certainly think so. Researchers have developed a new mathematical model that better predicts previously hidden fractures, that can potentially boost efficiencies and profits in natural gas production.
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FERC OK’s Mountaineer XPress Pipe to Start Up in WV

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019

In December, Columbia Pipeline asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to start up an additional section of its Mountaineer XPress Pipeline in West Virginia (see Columbia Asks FERC to Start Up 2/3rds of Mountaineer XPress Pipe). The good news is that on Wednesday, FERC said yes.
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PA PUC Affirms Decision to Reject ME 1&2 Pipe Shutdown Request

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) yesterday upheld an administrative law judge’s December decision against an “emergency” request by pipeline opponents to shut down both Mariner East 1 and 2 by claiming they are unsafe and need to be stopped. Can we FINALLY put this to rest and move on? ME1 and ME2 are both now online. There’s no going back.
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Taxation

RINO PA Sen. Tomlinson Introducing 5% Severance Tax Bill

January 18, 2019January 20, 2019

We expect liberal Democrats like the far-left PA Gov. Tom Wolf to keep harping on a Marcellus-killing severance tax on natgas production in PA, even though the state already taxes production via an impact fee (i.e. tax). That’s what lib Dems do! They take money from economic producers and give it away to economic parasites who vote them into office–like teachers’ unions. But we don’t expect Republicans to sponsor such dumb initiatives.
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Ambridge Water Authority Changes Tune re Shell Ethane Pipeline

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019

Shell has calmed the troubled Ambridge waters–that is, the Ambridge Water Authority waters. Shell hit a snag with plans to build its Falcon Ethane Pipeline when the Ambridge Water Authority claimed construction of the pipeline under several streams feeding the Ambridge reservoir would endanger the drinking water for 30,000 people (see Ambridge Water Authority Strongly Opposes Shell Ethane Pipe Route).
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Crime | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues

4 Protesters Arrested in CT for Blocking Gas-Fired Turbine Shipment

January 18, 2019January 18, 2019

Honest to God, we want to know, how do people get this stupid? Four adult men–three so-called farmers and one 38-year-old egghead student–chained themselves to a fossil fuel-belching farm tractor in the middle of a busy road in Connecticut to block a shipment of turbines on the way to a new natgas-fired electric plant under construction…in order to protest fossil fuels.
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Was PA Supreme Court Right to Tax Strippers? PIOGA Pushes Back

January 17, 2019March 8, 2019

Did the Pennsylvania Supreme Court err in its judgment declaring so-called “stripper wells” can be taxed under the 2012 Act 13 law, slapped with an impact fee assessment, if those wells produce more than 90 thousand cubic feet per day (Mcf/d) of gas in a single month (see PA Supreme Court Rules Strippers Not Exempt from Impact Fee)? We have a different take on the high court’s decision than others.
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County DA’s ME2 Pipe Criminal Probe Evidence: Instagram Post

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019

Chester County DA Tom Hogan, conducting a sham criminal investigation of ME2 Pipeline

Since when did calling a woman on Instagram a “retard” and a “c–t” become a crime? Sure, the language is crude and offensive. But a crime?! A pipeline worker in the Philly area used that language responding (in exasperation) to an anti, and his comments appear to be all the evidence Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan has so far in his “criminal” probe of Mariner East 2 pipeline.
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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines

3 Important Marcellus/Utica Pipeline Cases Up for Review @ SCOTUS

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019

Three important pipeline lawsuits are under consideration at the U.S. Supreme Court, waiting for the court’s decision on whether or not to hear them. One of the three, involving an appeal of whether or not Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) should have the right to use federal eminent domain laws, gets reviewed tomorrow.
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Franklin County, Va. Approves MVP Gate Station Permit

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019

Despite setbacks from Big Green groups launching a blizzard of lawsuits and regulatory challenges, Equitrans’ (EQT Midstream) 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is now 70% built (see Shocker: Mountain Valley Pipeline Now 70% Built, Online by 4Q19). The project continues to see positive momentum, the latest example coming from Franklin County, Va.
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Industrywide Issues | New York | New York County | Pipelines | Westchester County

Moratorium on New NatGas Customers Coming in NYC Area

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019

Consolidated Edison (Con Ed) and National Grid–both large utilities that operate in New York City and its suburbs–are warning that unless new natural gas pipelines are built to the NYC region, they will slap a moratorium on hooking up any new natgas customers. Andrew Cuomo’s chickens are now coming home to roost.
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Landowner Group Sues NY State to Allow Propane Fracking

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019

This news is a bit dated, but still interesting and is new for us: Last October a group of landowners in Tioga County, NY filed a lawsuit to force the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to quit dragging its feet and set a date to consider the groups application to allow LPG (liquefied petroleum gas, i.e. propane) fracking for a shale well.
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Antero “Nuisance” Lawsuit Heard by WV Supreme Court Temp Judges

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019

Three years ago lawsuits filed by some 200 West Virginia residents against Antero Resources were combined into a class action lawsuit (see More People Pile on Antero, Seek to Join Mass “Nuisance” Lawsuit). The lawsuits are called “nuisance” lawsuits because, according to the plantiffs, Antero is a nuisance to them–truck traffic, noise, lights at night, etc.
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Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania

PA’s Largest NatGas-Fired Electric Plant Officially Online

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019

Lackawanna Energy Center (click for larger version)

Invenergy blasted out a press release yesterday to announce that their 1,480 megawatt, $1 billion Marcellus gas-fired electric plant, called the Lackawanna Energy Center (located near Scranton, PA) is now fully, 100%, online.
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Delayed ME2 Pipeline Cost PA a $675M Plastics Plant + 1K Lost Jobs

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019

Braskem USA, headquartered in Philadelphia had a decision to make in 2016: Locate a new polypropylene plant in their own backyard, at the Marcus Hook refinery site on the outskirts of Philly–or locate it in Texas. They picked Texas because not enough NGLs (propane) were flowing to Marcus Hook due to delays (caused by Big Green lawsuits) in the Mariner East 2 pipeline.
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