TransCanada Launches Open Season to Lowball Marcellus/Utica Gas
You may recall that TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal 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 TransCanada Pipe Drops Price 42% to Compete with Marcellus/Utica). TransCanada dropped their pipeline price by 42% to lure drillers by (theoretically) making it less expensive to get gas from Western Canada, some 2,400 miles away, than from the Marcellus, just 400 miles away. But all is not butterflies and unicorns with the TransCanada plan. Drillers are balking at having to sign a 10-year agreement in order to get the favorable pricing (see TransCanada’s Plan to Lowball Marcellus/Utica Gas Delayed). The delay is no more. TransCanada has launched a binding (sign on the dotted line) open season for potential customers to sign up for the lowball plan. They have until Nov. 10th. Will it work? We notice that TransCanada has relaxed the 10-year commitment a little bit. Shippers can cancel their contracts after five years, IF they pay higher shipping fees for a final two years. So TransCanada went from 10 years to 7 years, with really low prices for the first five years. Is it enough?…
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We doubt many MDN readers buy Patagonia outdoor wear (appeals mainly to aging hippies). But just in case, we thought we’d pass along something we noticed. The store chain is making a push to sign up Democrat voters, which doesn’t surprise us. As part of their overt political activism, the Washington, D.C. Patagonia store also elected to bash the Dominion Atlantic Coast Pipeline project. We thing that deserves a call to boycott their stores and their brand…
On Monday we brought you the incredulous news that Democrats Sen. John Yudichak (Wilkes-Barre area) is once again pushing a Marcellus-killing severance tax, using a recent PA Supreme Court decision as the excuse (see 
Those willy pandas are on the prowl again. In August 2013, Moxie Energy of Vienna, VA sold the permits/rights to build a new Marcellus gas-powered electric generating plant in Bradford County, PA to Panda Power Funds of Dallas, TX (see 
We’ve kept an eye on several LNG export projects along the Eastern shore of Canada (most of them in Nova Scotia) for some time. Why? Because they’re a huge potential market for Marcellus and Utica Shale gas. One of those projects, in Nova Scotia, is the Goldboro LNG project from Pieridae Energy. In February, the U.S. Dept. of Energy approved the plant for exporting to non-free trade agreement counties, back in February (see 
This is so unusual, it qualifies as news: Supervisors in Buffalo Township (Butler County), PA have approved a new compressor station to be built by Mountain Gathering–a subsidiary of XTO Energy. The reason it’s news is for how the approval process was handled. Town residents who live near where the station will be built understandably had some concerns. Those concerns were aired. Town officials visited other compressor stations built by Mountain Gathering. They had XTO officials in to answer questions. There was no bleating and blatting, no parading in front of cameras and microphones, no “die-ins” and radical protests. Just deliberative, calm, adult discussions. And at the end of it, the supervisors voted to grant permission for the compressor station to get built. Unusual!…
In September the Ohio Supreme Court finally ruled on a series of cases involving the state’s Dormant Mineral Act, or DMA (see 
We have, as long as we’ve been writing the MDN website, warned that the federal Environmental Protection Agency, particularly under B.H. Obama, is an out-of-control, lawless, aggressive cancer on the country. The EPA has repeatedly attempted to UNCONSTITUTIONALLY control oil and gas drilling–something only state governments have the right to regulate. The EPA has repeatedly sought to influence (i.e. control) o&g development via other means–like expanding the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and Waters of the United States (WOTUS). The latest evidence of EPA’s illegal overreach comes with EPA’s bullying of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). EPA is telling FERC to get its head screwed on straight with respect to an approval for two Marcellus/Utica projects–Leach Xpress and Rayne Xpress Expansion projects. EPA says FERC is ignoring mythological man-made global warming bullcrap in their review of the projects, and EPA is demanding a meeting with the top brass at FERC to bully them into submission…
When lunatic man-made global warming Kool-Aid drinkers feel like they’re being ignored, some of them tip over into criminal behavior in a bid to get noticed. It’s not just criminal, it’s terrorism. Terrorists were arrested Tuesday when they cut padlocks and chains at five remote flow stations (four different states) and shut down five oil pipelines coming from Canada into the United States. The terrorists turned off the valves at those stations–creating a dangerous situation. It was a direct attack against the United States and our energy infrastructure–yet it’s being treated (in the media) as, “Look at these devilish imps and what they did, aren’t they cute?” There’s nothing cute about it. The stated reason for the terrorist action is to oppose the “catastrophe of global warming.” Anti-fossil fuel madness has fully metastasized in their rather small brains…
At last year’s Utica Summit III event held in Stark, OH, Tom Gellrich of consulting firm TopLine Analytics, a company that “closely follows ethane markets,” said he thinks the first ethane cracker to get built will be the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. He was right. Shell announced their official decision to move forward earlier this year. At that same event Gellrich said he thinks the Marcellus/Utica region will see three, possibly four, ethane crackers built (see 
In January, Invenergy announced their intention to build a natgas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County (see 
We hate to say “I told you so,” but we’ll say it anyway. If you live in New England, prepare yourself. You’re about to experience more price shocks for natural gas and electricity (4x more than the rest of the country, or higher). Why? Because you’re blocking new pipeline projects that would bring cheap, abundant, clean-burning natural gas to the region. The Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale sits a few hundred miles away–yet very little Marcellus gas is flowing to New England at this point. New England, more than any other region in the country, relies on natgas to power electric generating plants. Without extra supplies, especially in the winter months when natgas gets used for heating, electric generators are forced to pay obscenely high rates to stay in operation. Those obscenely high rates get passed along to ratepayers–businesses AND residences. Yet anti-fossil fuel wackos continue to try and stop new pipelines, sometimes criminally (see 
Yesterday MDN ran a story reporting that a landowner rebellion against post-production cost deductions from royalties is spreading beyond just Bradford County in northeastern Pennsylvania–to counties in southwestern PA (see