Technip, FMC Shareholders Approve Merger; Fat Lady Sings in Jan?
In May, U.S.-based oilfield services company FMC Technologies announced they will merge with their much larger quasi-competitor, France-based Technip, in an all-stock deal that will create a new company called TechnipFMC worth $13 billion (see FMC Technologies & Technip to Merge, Create $13B Oilfield Giant). FMC had/has some operations in the Marcellus/Utica, hence the merger has implications for our region. The Obama Dept. of Justice approved the deal in June (see FMC Technologies/Technip Merger Approved by Obama DOJ/FTC). Apparently it’s A.O.K. for a French company to buy an American company, but when one American company (Halliburton) wanted to buy another (Baker Hughes), that wasn’t OK with the Obamadroids (see Obama DOJ Kills Halliburton/Baker Hughes Merger, Deal “Terminated”). But we digress. The European Union, like the Obama DOJ, also gave its blessing on the deal. The shareholders for the two companies voted yesterday to consummate the marriage. The only thing left now is for the fat lady to sing, which appears will happen early in 2017 (likely January). The date of the official merger will be known on Dec. 21…
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In one final, breathtaking rejection of the rule of law and poke in the eye of those who support fossil fuels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, doing Lord Obama’s bidding, has rejected granting Energy Transfer (ET) an easement to complete the final leg of the Dakota Access Pipeline that crosses federal land. The out-of-state/paid protesters who have assembled at Standing Rock, ND were orgasmic with delight. Their euphoria, however, will be short-lived as ET expects the incoming Trump Administration to quickly reverse the policy and grant permission to complete the pipeline along its original route. Although this conflict is happening far outside the Marcellus/Utica, it is important for us nonetheless as this group of paid, out-of-state protesters, backed by Big Green money (using money from California billionaire and nut Tom Steyer, among others), has promised to leverage a win against the Keystone XL Pipeline and now the Dakota Access Pipeline by coming to the Marcellus/Utica in an attempt to defeat important pipeline projects in our region. Here’s the latest in the dust-up over the Dakota Access Pipeline…
The future site of a $5 billion petrochemical complex, including an ethane cracker, in Belmont County, OH is now cleared and essentially ready to begin building on. It has taken nearly a year, but the old R.E. Burger power plant that used to sit along the Ohio River is now just a memory. Belmont County officials say they expect PTT Global Chemical, the company that will build and operate the cracker, will make a final (positive) investment decision by the end of March–in just a few months’ time. Although the project began after Shell’s cracker project in Beaver County, PA, the PTT Global project in Belmont County has almost caught up with the Shell cracker project with respect to site readiness and building the actual buildings that will house the mighty cracker…
In 2014 Pennsylvania anti-drillers from a local chapter of the Izaak Walton League, a so-called conservation organization, attempted a smear job on the Marcellus Shale industry. They alleged that shale drillers were illegally dumping frack wastewater in an abandoned coal mine, the Clyde Mine, which sits near the Ten Mile Creek where the creek joins the Monongahela River. According to the smearmeisters, the illegally dumped wastewater was leaking out of the mine and into Ten Mile Creek (see 
Pipelines are the safest form of transportation on the planet–bar none. Everyone knows it. But anti-fossil fuel radicals attempt to lie about the safety of pipelines in an attempt to get projects canceled–a tactic in their war on fossil fuels. They know as well as anyone that pipelines are perfectly safe, so they lie about safety to try and stop projects. Like the $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline and the $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline–both critically important projects in the Marcellus/Utica. Note their language in opposing such projects. The aim is not to re-route the projects, but to kill them altogether. There is no reasoning with un-reasonable people like those who are members of the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, a small group of anti-fossil fuel radicals…
This post will not make anti-fossil fuel nutters happy. You know how antis have moaned and groaned at the prospect of allowing barges on the Ohio River to transport produced water–naturally-occurring salty water that comes out of the ground long after fracking operations are over. Antis complained so much that the Obama Administration politically prevented the Coast Guard from moving forward with a barging plan (see 
For some time we’ve followed the story of Range Resources and their (former) wastewater impoundments in Washington County, PA. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined Range a whopping $4.15 million for violations in September 2014 (see 
Over the past two months Panda Power Funds has brought online the first two built-from-scratch-to-use-Marcellus-gas electric plants, both in northeast Pennsylvania (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has just thrown a little cold water on two important pipeline upgrades to carry more Marcellus/Utica gas to southern markets. A final environmental impact statement (EIS) was due from FERC for both the Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress projects no later than April 28, 2017. FERC says that deadline is going to slip by three months due to reroutes and additional environment information requested. MDN has previously reported on Mountaineer XPress, which includes 165 miles of new pipeline with approximately 2.7 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of transportation capacity from existing and future points of receipt along or near the Columbia pipeline system–most of it located in West Virginia (see 
In March 2015, Dominion–a huge natural gas and electric utility as well as a midstream company–announced plans to build the State of Virginia’s (indeed the country’s) largest natural gas powered electric generating plant, in Greensville County, VA (see 
As MDN predicted, yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the NEXUS Pipeline project (see 
FERC (the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) is not happy with Energy Transfer and their Rover Pipeline. There are two major pipeline projects planned for Ohio: NEXUS and Rover. NEXUS got some FERC love today (see today’s lead story). Rover, on the other hand, is getting the cold shoulder from FERC, from a self-inflicted wound. Let us explain. As a reminder, Rover (an Energy Transfer project) is a $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada. The short version of what happened is that in May 2015 Rover purchased a house in Carroll County, OH, located near where the pipeline, and a compressor station for that pipeline, is due to run. Rover bought the house to use for offices for several Rover affiliate companies. After buying it, they determined it was “ill-suited for its intended purpose” and decided to demolish the house. Problem was/is, that house was under consideration to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. The house was not yet on the list of Historic Places, but was on a list of properties under consideration. Rover should have reported their decision to demolish the house to FERC but didn’t, which has Rover in hot water with FERC and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. Will Rover’s action kill the project? No. Will it slow down Rover and end up costing the company boatloads of money? Most likely, although Rover disputes that interpretation of events…
Statoil, based in Norway, is a big player in the West Virginia Marcellus Shale. Statoil paid property taxes to Brooke, Marshall, Ohio and Wetzel counties (all in WV) in 2015 and later found, during an audit/review, that they had overpaid those counties. They overpaid Brooke by $1.8 million, Ohio by $2.9 million, Wetzel by $1.6 million and Marshall by $342,000. The WV Tax Department argues that Statoil “acted negligently” and exercised “poor judgment” in not finding the mistake sooner. All four counties voted to deny Statoil’s request, so Statoil took them to court, asking the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals to hear the case. However, the Appeals court has just ruled that the cases are not “complex” and don’t require “special treatment,” so back to county court the cases will go…