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M-U Projects Dominate Top 25 Engineering Construction Projects
Each year Engineering News-Record (ENR) magazine publishes a list of its Top 25 construction projects that began to be built during the previous 12 months. ENR has just released the list for new starts in 2016, and as we looked over the list, we couldn’t help but notice that of the top 25–each project of which had to be worth at least $140 million to get on the list–many of the projects are related to Marcellus/Utica Shale and would not exist without abundant, cheap shale gas. Here is the list of the Top 25 projects begun last year in the states of Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia…
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It’s always breathtaking, and disturbing, when a small group of individuals decide to take away the Constitutional property rights of their fellow citizens. We always wonder, is this how it started in 1920s Germany? The Augusta County (VA) Board of Supervisors voted 6 to 1 Wednesday night to illegally take away the property rights of every citizen in the county by enacting a total ban on fracking in the county. Is there any shale in the county to frack? No idea, but we doubt it. To be fair, the first county in Virginia to become lawless in this regard was King George County, last summer (see 
A group of radical, waaaaaaay left Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to President Trump on Wednesday requesting that Trump appoint new members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission post haste. Get ‘er done–now. The ring leader of the House Dems sending the letter is Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III. Wait a minute. Democrats hate FERC because FERC is “nothing more than a tool of big oil and gas” and a “rubber stamp” approving pipeline projects. Why would Kennedy and his merry band of Lib Dems want Trump to appoint three new Republican members of the Commission? When you figure out the answer to that one, please share it with us–because this makes zero sense to us…
You may recall that TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal last year to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see 
There’s always a few holdouts, no matter how hard you try to be reasonable. We’re talking about landowners who refuse to negotiate in good faith with pipeline companies. Earlier this month amidst a flurry of activity, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) handed Williams a final final final approval for its Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project–a $3 billion, 198-mile pipeline running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County (see 
BREAKING NEWS, BREAKING NEWS: Anadarko well pad site leaks wastewater and kills 165 salamanders. Funeral services are being arranged. This would almost be funny, if it wasn’t real. No, not funeral services for salamanders (although it’s not beyond believable in this day and age). In 2014 Anadarko drilled a shale well in Lycoming County, PA. In February 2015, a storage tank at the well pad–used to temporarily store produced water coming from the well (wastewater storage happens at ALL shale well sites)–either experienced a leaky valve, or was overfilled, depending on whom you ask. About 1,000 gallons of produced water leaked out of the tank and subsequently out of containment and into a drainage ditch (i.e. “unnamed tributary”) and found its way into a local creek, killing 165 (or 169, depending on the source) salamanders. And now (no lie), the Environmental Crimes Unit of the PA Attorney General’s office is hauling Anadarko and their contractor into court, charging them with environmental crimes. A PA Fish and Boat Commission biologist estimates the dead salamanders were worth $6,156–or ~$37 each. Careful where you step! If you step on a salamander in PA and accidentally kill it, the state will charge you $37 and somebody from the AG’s office will pay you a visit. It can get expensive walking along a creek in PA….
We’ve known for the past couple of years that Sunoco Logistics Partners, owner and builder of the Mariner pipeline projects, wanted to build not one, but two Mariner East 2 pipelines–ME2 and ME2X. We wrote about their hope to build two pipelines back in June 2015 (see 
About 150 individuals masquerading as “organizations” have sent a letter to the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) requesting the DEC add an extra couple of months to a comment period for National Fuel Gas Company’s Northern Access 2016 pipeline project. A few weeks ago the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the long-delayed project (see 
Two days ago MDN brought you Shell’s very first LNG Outlook report, which says demand for LNG around the globe will increase by a very brisk 4-5% per year from now until 2030 (see 
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and their just-issued Annual Energy Outlook 2017, the United States will become a net exporter of natural gas beginning in 2018. A big reason for the change from being a net importer to net exporter is shale gas (of course). A further big reason why is almost solely due to one company: Cheniere Energy, and their Sabine Pass LNG export facility in southern Louisiana. However, joining Cheniere soon will be the Cove Point, Maryland LNG export facility, now nearing completion. When Cove Point gets rockin’ and rollin’ along with Cheniere, the U.S. will become a net exporter…
Naysayers and peak oil & gas theorists always ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room when they make their pessimistic predictions that “any day now” oil and gas production from shale will decline into oblivion. The 800 pound gorilla? Shale drillers keep getting better at what they do. Technology is changing. Techniques change. And drillers get more out of the holes they drill today than they did last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. Across all American shale plays, wells in January 2017 produced an average of three times more gas and oil than they did in January 2014. Let us put that another way: Today’s wells are producing 300% more than wells drilled just three years ago! Here’s another startling fact: the shale play with the most improvement in production is the Utica. Wells in the Utica are producing, on average, 4.2 times (420%) more today than they did three years ago…
As politicians and analysts begin to dig into one of the centerpieces of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed 2017 budget–a 6.5% severance tax on Marcellus/Utica drilling–new details begin to emerge. Like this: Most lease contracts contain a provision that says any taxes paid, including severance taxes, are a post-production expense and deducted from landowner royalties. So if Wolf’s severance tax were to pass, the people paying it will be landowners. That’s $200 million or so coming out of farmers’ pockets. Wolf & co. knew that situation would not earn them any votes, so they include a provision in the budget disallowing severance taxes to be deducted from royalties. Overturning existing contracts is illegal and sure to be challenged in court, but if somehow that provision gets upheld and the tax passes, it’s easy to predict Marcellus drilling will mostly cease. Wolf’s proposed 6.5% severance tax would put the state at, or near the top of, all states in severance tax rates. Some of the biggest drillers in the state have recently leased acreage in other plays and have no problem with shutting down new drilling in the Marcellus, moving on to other plays where the economics make more sense. Let’s assume the tax passes and drillers sue to remove the clause about severance tax deductions not being allowed, and win. Landowners then fund the severance tax out of their pockets (the drillers are the “bad guys” and Wolf says “don’t look at me”). Now let’s assume the tax passes and drillers sue to remove the clause about severance tax deductions and lose. Drillers simply walk away from PA. Either way, the Wolf severance tax proposal is a hot, stinking mess…
This is one of those stories that illustrates so beautifully how liberals always operate: all talk, no action. Form a committee, say lots of things, bluster, argue, look like you’re addressing a really important issue–and then do nothing. In this case that’s a good thing! We’re talking about the pomp and circumstance surrounding then newly-minted Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and his so-called Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force. In May 2015, Wolf and his underling Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary John Quigley (who has since been fired) created a “Task Force on Pipeline Infrastructure Development” (see 
For some reason Duke University seems to have a fascination with the Marcellus Shale and seeks to denigrate it with fake research reports. Of course there’s big money in research grants, which is why Duke keeps issuing bogus studies. In fact, last year Duke was exposed for doctoring research data in a scheme to grab $200 million in grant money (see 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy has just released a full report of LNG (liquefied natural gas) imports and exports for all of 2016. The history books will look back at 2016 as the year when the world of LNG changed. Although it seemed like it took forever, in February 2016 Cheniere Energy shipped its first LNG export cargo from its Sabine Pass facility in southern Louisiana (see Cheniere Finally Ships First Sabine Pass LNG Export – to Brazil //marcellusdrilling.com/2016/02/cheniere-finally-ships-first-sabine-pass-lng-export-to-brazil/). From February through the end of December, Sabine Pass, which (we believe) included some Marcellus/Utica gas, exported an astounding 60 cargoes of LNG, moving nearly 184 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of American-made natural gas to other countries. Prices ranged from $3.72 to $6.21 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). Cheniere (and others) are just getting started! Below is the full report from the DOE Office of Fossil Energy…