2nd PA Toilet Paper Plant Converting from Coal to Gas-Fired Elec
In early 2013, the Proctor & Gamble manufacturing plant in Wyoming County (northeastern PA) began generating 100% of its own energy needs thanks to the Marcellus Shale beneath plant property (see PA P&G Plant: 100% Energy Self-Sufficient from Marcellus Gas). The plant, which manufactures Pampers and Luvs diapers and Charmin toilet tissue, uses a LOT of electricity and natural gas. They built their own gas-fired electric plant and began generating all of their own electricity–enough electricity to power 40,000 homes! Fast forward to today. P&G competitor Kimberly Clark has just announced that it too will build a gas-fired electric plant, in Delaware County (near Philadelphia), to power its plant that manufactures Scott 1000 toilet paper. What is it about toilet paper and gas? Kimberly Clark is getting a $6 million grant from PA toward the $150 million project. Make way for another new major customer for PA’s Marcellus fracked gas…
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An intriguing concept: What if you could generate your own electricity for your own home–without big, ugly solar panels plastered on your roof, or without an unsightly (and loud) wind mill stuck in your yard? What if all you need is a natural gas pipeline connected to your home. What’s that? You don’t want to contribute to man-made global warming by *burning* natural gas? No problem. This nifty little invention, called a fuel cell, uses natural gas in a *chemical* reaction to create electricity. These types of fuel cells have been around for a while, but what’s new is that they are now getting good enough to be commercially viable. Peoples Natural Gas, the largest natural gas distribution company in PA, providing natural gas service to approximately 700,000 customers in western PA, West Virginia, and Kentucky, has cut a deal with a Westmoreland County fuel-cell manufacturer to put 100 test systems in customer’s homes to create electricity at home. It’s an experiment. If all goes well, more will be deployed. Remember when cable companies first began offering internet access, then telephone access? Yeah, electric utilities and electric generators might want to look over their shoulder. They may get some serious competition! If natgas fuel cells ever take off for the residential market, demand for natural gas would be ginormous. Hence our interest. Is this technology anywhere near mainstream yet? No. But let’s keep a close eye on this potential new market for Marcellus/Utica gas. It may happen sooner than you think…
If you live in New York State, as MDN editor Jim Willis does, you often shake your head at the stupidity of our political leaders. Especially people like Gov. Andrew Cuomo. How could he, in good conscience, turn against natural gas and block pipelines, electric plants and fracking? Is he obtuse? Is he getting paid-off by someone? There has to be a reason for his obviously irrational behavior. What is that reason? We have, perhaps, a better understanding now. The radical left is well-organized–think Saul Alinksy, Obama and Hillary Clinton’s idol. Taking a chapter from Alinksy’s “Rules for Radicals” book, the green radicals in NY have organized themselves to pressure Cuomo. We’d call it highly organized and well-funded. The radicals have weekly meetings, plan strategy, and motivate groups of blind followers to show up and heckle Cuomo at public events. And guess what? Cuomo caves–every time. Like a house of cards. The radicals have found the magic formula to pressure Cuomo into doing their bidding. Andrew Cuomo is actually weak-willed. He’s a patsy for the green movement because he fears them, fears a public shaming by them. And so they have their way with him–every time. None other than a liberal Gannett reporter has outed Cuomo as a Big Green patsy…
You know, for years we’ve poked fun at green leftists, saying they were raised watching Captain Planet cartoons–and that’s what warped their brains. Little did we know how right we were in our jocularity! Captain Planet was a cartoon created and produced by Ted Turner & Barbara Pyle, airing from 1990-1996. Did you know that there’s now a foundation, endowed with big bucks, called The Captain Planet Foundation? No lie! It was set up in 2001, funded by Turner and other lefty whack jobs. This is what we’re up against folks. The Captain Planet cartoon, brainchild of radical leftist Democrat Ted Turner (Turner Broadcasting), intentionally brainwashed a generation of our children, planting kindergartenish, simpleton ideas into our children’s heads. Unfortunately some of our kids never grew up. Not intellectually. Some of them still harbor childish, immature ideas that corporations are out to “loot and plunder”–there’s a character in CP cartoons called Looten Plunder, no lie. Do you know how silly it looks to support a foundation based on a kid’s cartoon?…
In an act still befuddling for us, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice fired Commerce Secretary Woody Thrasher in June (see 
The Marcellus and Utica Shale layers in Southwestern Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia and eastern Ohio produce a boatload of NGLs–natural gas liquids. One company had the foresight to plan a strategy to separate, transport and sell those NGLs. That company was MarkWest Energy, now known as MPLX following a purchase by/merger into Marathon Petroleum. MarkWest’s plan is firing on all cylinders. The experts at RBN Energy have analyzed MarkWest’s initial strategy, now largely complete, and their long-term strategy, still in the works, to give us a great snapshot of how NGLs are moving from our region to Midwestern and Canadian markets…
This another one of those high finance thangs we don’t fully understand. Dominion Energy spent $4 billion to build their Cove Point LNG export facility in Lusby, Maryland. Somehow and somewhere they got money to build it–investors perhaps, or maybe Dominion had some cash tucked away under the corporate mattress. Dominion wants to get some of that debt off its books, so it has just structured a three-year loan with 20 lenders for $3 billion, reducing the company’s “parent level debt”–as opposed to child or subsidiary level debt. What it all means, if we’re understanding it correctly, is that Dominion is moving debt from the parent company’s balance sheet to the Cove Point subsidiary company’s balance sheet. Prior to this, Cove Point “owed” the money to Dominion itself (all in the family), and now, instead, the Cove Point subsidiary will owe that money to lenders directly. That’s our take. Hopefully it won’t take long for Cove Point to pay off the debt…
Houston-based Schlumberger (pronounced Shlum-Bur-Zhay) is the world’s largest oilfield services company. They’re the company a majority of exploration and production companies (drillers) call when they want a new well drilled. The #2 company on speed dial for drilling new wells is Halliburton, and they’re not even close in size to #1 Schlumberger. Here in the U.S., the #3 company on speed dial for drilling is Baker Hughes, still (for now) owned by GE. We mention all that because most folks recognize the names Halliburton and Baker Hughes, yet are often not familiar with the hard-to-pronounce Schlumberger. Even so, Schlumberger has a big presence in the Marcellus/Utica region. In a gesture of “giving back,” the company has just made a VERY generous grant of $14 million of its own proprietary software used for modeling and assessing risk associated with drilling new wells, to Youngstown State University. Most major E&Ps use Schlumberger’s software, even if they don’t use Schlumberger itself to do the actual drilling. While at first glance the gift of software may seem self-serving, it’s not. This gift means that students will be trained on the latest and greatest software that they will need to know, coming right out of college. It helps the kids gain a valuable skill, making them more employable once they hit the workforce…
As we reported yesterday, EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) got some excellent news–that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had lifted a stop-work order on the project (see 
Sometimes counties (and local towns) try to seize power that’s not theirs constitutionally. Particularly when they’re led by liberal Democrats who like to arbitrarily make up their own oil and gas regulations. Such is the case in Fayette County, WV. Most oil and gas regulation is done at the state level–it is a state function. Unless it’s a pipeline that crosses several states. Those projects are regulated at the federal level, to protect citizens in neighboring states from arbitrary and capricious actions (like those New York is engaged in). Counties don’t get to decide whether or not to allow an injection well, or a pipeline. Yet the lib Dems in Fayette believe they can make those decisions. And now, for the second time in two years, a federal court has slapped them down. Two time losers. In August 2017, Fayette County lost a federal court case to block injection wells in the county (see 
Earlier this week CrowdOut Capital announced they have arranged a private, non-bank loan for frack sand company Shale Support to fund “the acquisition of two sand mines, spanning over 1,000 acres that contain more than 100 million tons of recoverable high-grade frac sand, which are located near the prolific shale plays in the southeastern U.S.” No details on the amount of the loan nor the names/location of the sand mines were released. However, as we reported in early July, Shale Support announced a deal to buy two sand mines in Louisiana (see 
The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) continues to offer its popular 100% free training program (worth $3,500) for those interested in a career building pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica region. Starting salaries often exceed $40,000 per year, and a six-figure income is attainable for employees with time and experience. Companies supporting the GTI program have told GTI they anticipate hiring 1,100+ workers over the next two years. There’s no excuse! If you want a high-paying job, get the 4-week training and get yourself to work. Because of ongoing construction programs within the utility and pipeline industry, and because of aging workforce retirements, the M-U pipeline industry has an acute need for reliable gas pipeline workers. The next round of free training, limited to 20 students per section, begins on Sept. 24 at Belmont College in St. Clairsville, OH…
As we reported in March, Empire Pipeline, the midstream (pipeline) subsidiary of National Fuel Gas Company, filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build two new compressor stations along the Empire Pipeline–one in Tioga County, PA, the other in Ontario County, NY (see