Industrywide Issues

  • | | |

    Bear Head LNG Export Plant: Bad News & Good News

    Bear Paw Pipeline mapFor some time now we’ve been tracking progress with an LNG export plant planned for the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, the Bear Head LNG project. Of all the Canadian LNG export projects that will export Marcellus gas, Bear Head seems to have the most momentum. The project has received most (if not all) of the necessary permits it needs to proceed. The most recent regulatory hurdle was a greenhouse gas approval from Nova Scotia, issued in July (see Bear Head LNG Gets GHG Plan Approval from Nova Scotia). However, there are a few troubling signs. The already-small parent company, LNG Limited, laid off 13 workers in July (see Bear Head LNG Parent Lays off 13 People, “LNG…difficult market”). We have two updates for you. Another key player has left LNG Limited–the founder of the company. That’s the bad news. The good news is that a new 62.5 kilometer (~39 mile) pipeline has been approved to connect Bear Head LNG to the Maritimes and Northeast Pipeline–the pipeline that will carry Marcellus gas from south to north, once the pipeline reverses its flow. So today it’s a bad news/good news day for Bear Head…
    Read More “Bear Head LNG Export Plant: Bad News & Good News”

  • | | |

    PA Releases 2015 Oil & Gas Annual Report (Very Cool)

    cool stuffYesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued what we believe is the first-ever Oil and Gas Annual Report, covering last year (2015). We’ve never seen one of these reports before (full copy below). [UPDATE: MDN subscriber Michele W. wrote to tell us the DEP has been producing annual o&g reports since 2013. Thanks Michele!] Our hat is off to the DEP. This is an EXCELLENT report! It’s chock full of very cool graphs and tables and useful information–in particular about the unconventional (shale) drilling industry in the state, but also about the conventional oil and gas industry in PA. At a very high level, we learn that total production of natural gas in PA for 2015 was 4.6 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), versus 4.05 Tcf in 2014–and that’s with less drilling! Most of the production came from the Marcellus Shale layer, but the Utica and Point Pleasant formations are showing a noticeable uptick in production. Among the many charts and graphs is a table showing the Top 25 producers of natgas in the state (see our separate post today on that); the number of shale and conventional well permits issued, by year; number of permits issued by county in 2015 (and a table with the Top 5 counties); number of wells drilled by year for both shale and conventional; number of wells drilled by county in 2015; the list goes on! Take time to read through this fascinating report about the most productive natural gas shale play in the second highest-producing natgas state in the country…
    Read More “PA Releases 2015 Oil & Gas Annual Report (Very Cool)”

  • | | |

    PA’s Top 25 Natural Gas Producers in 2015

    Top 25Below is a chart from the just-released 2015 Oil and Gas Annual Report for Pennsylvania, from the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The report is full of great charts and graphs and useful details about both the shale and conventional drilling industry in the state (see today’s lead story, PA Releases 2015 Oil & Gas Annual Report (Very Cool)). It’s hard for us to select a favorite chart/graph from the report, there’s so many of them! However, the table below is on the short list. It is a table showing the Top 25 natural gas producers, along with the amount of natgas produced, for 2015. It may or may not surprise you to learn that the #1 natgas producer in PA for 2015 was….Chesapeake Energy! It certainly didn’t surprise us to see the company in the #2 slot–Cabot Oil & Gas. Here’s the full table…
    Read More “PA’s Top 25 Natural Gas Producers in 2015”

  • | | |

    Video: DEP Acting Sec McDonnell Wants to Recycle Article 78 Regs

    Comin Around Again - EditedStateImpact Pennsylvania is populated with partisan hacks who pretend to be reporters. One of them is Marie Cusick (who has a degree in political science, not journalism). We’ve often pointed out the extreme left-tilting political bias in StateImpact’s “articles” (i.e. propaganda). What really galls is that taxpayers help fund it, since StateImpact is a project of the Public Broadcasting Service. We hate having our tax money fund such skewed reporting. But we digress. Yesterday Marie Cusick did an interview with the Acting Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Pat McDonnell. You may recall that Pat’s predecessor, John Quigley, was fired for colluding with Big Green groups and using a private email address to do it (see Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired). Quigley, formerly from the anti-drilling PennFuture organization, was a rigid ideologue with a thin skin–someone who didn’t like his extreme views being challenged. Pat McDonnell, on the other hand, has been with the DEP on-and-off for the past 20 years. He’s a lifer. And it appears he’s not nearly as rigid as Quigley was. Cusick sat McDonnell down for a brief interview (watch it below). Among her questions: What about conventional Article 78 drilling regs? Is it back to the drawing board? According to McDonnell, the answer to that is “no.” He plans to dust off the rebuffed Article 78 drilling regs developed over the past five years and try to get a form of them palatable enough for the drilling industry to swallow…
    Read More “Video: DEP Acting Sec McDonnell Wants to Recycle Article 78 Regs”

  • | | | | | | |

    Comprehensive List of Laws Coming at Marcellus/Utica in PA-OH-WV

    nortonrosefulbrightThe legal beagles at global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright have done us all a huge favor. Researchers have just issued a quarterly legislative action update for the second quarter of 2016 looking at previously laws acted upon, and new laws introduced, affecting the oil and gas industry in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The “Quarterly legislative action update: Marcellus and Utica shale region” (full copy below) begins with a quick listing by state for existing or new laws introduced, with descriptions for each bill/law. This is, in one place, pretty much everything you need to know about what new laws (i.e. regulations) are coming down the pike that will affect the Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling industry…
    Read More “Comprehensive List of Laws Coming at Marcellus/Utica in PA-OH-WV”

  • | | | |

    REV LNG Building Small-Scale LNG Facility Near Towanda, PA

    Yellow, green and red semi-trailer trucks stand side-by-side at a rest area in North America.

    We’ve unearthed what we think is a neat story about a company we’ve written about before: REV LNG. Through his work with Shale Daily, MDN editor Jim Willis has had the pleasure of working with, and learning about, the unique technology REV LNG has developed. The company is one of the very few in the United States that buys, transports and sets up “mobile filling stations” (at drill pad sites) so drillers can use liquefied natural gas (LNG) to power their equipment. REV LNG’s uniqueness is that it’s a turn-key service. Customers just pay a “per gallon” fee to fill it up, and REV LNG takes care of the rest. REV LNG was one of the winners of the Shale Gas Innovation Contest in 2013, taking home $25,000 to help spread their technology (see Envelope Please: Winners of Shale Gas Innovation Contest are…). REV LNG is putting the money to good use. REV LNG is using that money plus an $800,000 technology innovation award from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Alternative Fuels Incentive Grant Program to build a small-scale LNG facility near Towanda (Bradford County), PA, with possible plans to build another such facility in Potter County. The LNG produced by REV LNG will be used not only in the drilling industry, but also to power LNG truck fleets…
    Read More “REV LNG Building Small-Scale LNG Facility Near Towanda, PA”

  • | | | | | | | | |

    NGL Exports Driving Pipeline Projects in OH & PA

    Mariner East 2
    Mariner East 2 – click for larger version

    NGLs (natural gas liquids, including ethane, propane and butane) are changing the midstream game in Ohio. We spotted a story in the Youngstown Business Journal that talks about shipping NGLs out of the Marcellus/Utica region–exporting them to other markets both domestic and international. A fascinating part of the article is an interview with Sunoco Logistics Partners about their Mariner East 1 and 2 projects and what Sunoco LP has planned…
    Read More “NGL Exports Driving Pipeline Projects in OH & PA”

  • | | | |

    Cold Feet? Japan Wants to Swap Cove Point LNG for Asian LNG

    Let's Make a DealIn April 2013, Dominion signed Japan and India to a deal to accept 100% of the LNG output that will come from their Cove Point, Maryland LNG export facility (see Dominion’s Cove Point LNG Facility Achieves Important Milestones). Cove Point is by now close to half built, since it was 24% complete in March and 38% complete in June (see Dominion Cove Point LNG Now 38% Built, Rapid Progress Continues). The closer it gets to completion, the more the Japanese are getting cold feet. Don’t worry, they can’t wiggle out of the contract. But they’re concerned that it will take 20 days to ship a cargo of LNG from Cove Point to Japan, when they could get gas in half that time from other sources. So the Japanese are playing “Let’s Make a Deal,” looking for partners willing to swap Cove Point cargos for Asian cargos of LNG. Here’s what the Japanese are proposing…
    Read More “Cold Feet? Japan Wants to Swap Cove Point LNG for Asian LNG”

  • | | |

    Signs of Life in Canadian Goldboro LNG Export Project

    Goldboro LNGWe’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. The most recent news we had was when the U.S. Dept. of Energy approved the plant for exporting to non-free trade agreement counties, back in February (see Goldboro LNG Project Gets Final DOE Approval – Good for Marcellus). That is, until today. Honeywell has announced it was selected to provide the Goldboro project with automation and safety systems and serve as the integrated main automation contractor. That is, we see signs of life in this project!…
    Read More “Signs of Life in Canadian Goldboro LNG Export Project”

  • | | | | | |

    Big News: FERC Grants Final EIS for ET Rover Pipeline

    ET Rover Pipeline map
    ET Rover Pipeline map – click for larger version

    In June the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) handed Energy Transfer’s proposed Rover pipeline project, 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, a big red light (see FERC Tells Rover, Leach XPress Pipes to Redesign Routes in SE OH). FERC told Rover and another pipeline project, Leach XPress, which will run from Marshall County, WV through Ohio to Leach, KY, that where their two projects meet something different would have to be worked out. Shortly thereafter the two projects being developed by different companies became best friends (see Rover, Leach XPress Pipelines Become BFFs to Fix FERC Objection). Apparently that fix helped clear the path and FERC, last Friday, issued a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) favorable to ET Rover. About the only left now is for a final approval to be issued by FERC for the project, which is now pretty much a foregone conclusion…
    Read More “Big News: FERC Grants Final EIS for ET Rover Pipeline”

  • | | | |

    Penn State Eats Crow: No Link Between Fracking & Earthquakes

    eat crowIn May MDN highlighted news that Penn State University had set up a seismic monitoring system throughout Pennsylvania to track earthquakes in the Keystone State (see Penn State Claims Link Between Fracking & Earthquakes, Without Research). We pointed out at the time that researchers had jumped the gun by theorizing fracking may be the cause for some of the earthquakes. At the time they said: “We have not done enough analysis of the data to make any conclusions yet, but there is a correlation spatially and temporally between the fracking and the earthquakes.” In other words, “We haven’t actually done the research, but we’re going to say there’s a connection between fracking and earthquakes–because we feel like it.” Now that they’ve done some of the research, those same Penn State researchers have changed their tune. What they say in a recently issued report is this: “The report found no correlation between the seismic events during that period and Marcellus Shale fracking or gas injection wells.” Sounds to us like they’re eating crow…
    Read More “Penn State Eats Crow: No Link Between Fracking & Earthquakes”

  • | | | | | |

    PennEast Pipeline Responds to Sierra Club’s “Tittelations”

    PennEast Pipeline Route Map
    PennEast Pipeline Route Map – click for larger version

    Jeff Tittel, director of the radical, fringe New Jersey Sierra Club, tried to “Tittelate” green wackos in New Jersey and Pennsylvania to oppose the much-needed, completely safe Penn East Pipeline with a recent column (full of lies) published in the Easton (PA) Express-Times. Why mainstream newspapers continue to publish outright lies is beyond us–but that’s the day and age we live in. So it fell to Penn East to publish a response to Tittel’s column, to set the record straight…
    Read More “PennEast Pipeline Responds to Sierra Club’s “Tittelations””

  • | |

    NextEra Energy Sells Philly NatGas Power Plant to Starwood

    Marcus Hook Energy Center
    Marcus Hook Energy Center

    Here’s something you don’t see often: one energy company selling their natural gas-fired electric generating plants to another energy company. NextEra Energy announced last Friday they are selling their 790-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle Marcus Hook Energy Center and the 50-MW simple-cycle Marcus Hook 50 Energy Center (both in Marcus Hook, on the outskirts of Philadelphia) to Starwood Energy Group Global, an energy infrastructure investment firm. The price tag is a cool $760 million. NextEra’s CEO Armando Pimentel uttered an gobbledygook statement about how it fits their long-term plans to divest the Marcus Hook plant (gives them money to spend on other things). Here’s the press release from Starwood…
    Read More “NextEra Energy Sells Philly NatGas Power Plant to Starwood”

  • | |

    What if Government Banned All Fossil Fuels?

    Xiuhtezcatl Marinez
    Xiuhtezcatl Marinez

    Ever hear of Xiuhtezcatl Martinez? No, we hadn’t either. He’s a 16-year old “hip-hop artist” (i.e. rapper) who is frankly about as stupid as they come. He’s a “cute” guy (androgynous) who wears his hair long and the teeny boppers all swoon over him. So that makes him an instant expert on the evils of fossil fuels–someone the Natural Resources Defense Council cites as an expert. This would be falling-down funny, if it weren’t so tragic. Martinez (or if you prefer, his unpronounceable first name, Xiuhtezcatl), is on a mission to dump the use of all fossil fuels within 10 years. Sounds like something Sandra Steingraber would say (actually, we’ve heard her mutter similar wacko statements). Let’s play a “what if?” game. What if the U.S. government, under a President Hillary Clinton, actually attempted to force our country (via illegal Executive Orders) to dump the use of all fossil fuels and change over to using so-called alternative forms of energy, like solar, wind, etc. What would happen? For one thing, you can kiss products like aspirin, toothpaste, sunglasses, shoes, tires, shag rugs, and tennis balls goodbye. And that’s just the beginning of what would happen if spoiled rotten children like Xiuhtezcatl get their way…
    Read More “What if Government Banned All Fossil Fuels?”

  • | | | | |

    Today is Last Day to Contact PA DEP re Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline

    please helpMDN sent an email to our list of daily headline subscribers last week (below). This is a quick reminder that today is the last day to show your support for the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project, being built by Williams, to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection. How? Just click this link and fill out the brief form to add your name to a letter being sent to the DEP. It will take you less than 60 seconds. It’s a small thing you can do to help this project get built–and to beat back the anti-fossil fuel naysayers. Please do it right now, as soon as you read this. Here’s the original letter we sent last week…
    Read More “Today is Last Day to Contact PA DEP re Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline”

  • | | | | | |

    RE Burger Smoke Stack Demolished Today, Prep for OH Cracker Plant

    RE Burger Plant
    RE Burger Plant – click for larger version

    The next chapter in the quest to build a $5.7 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH takes place today. Part of the chosen site for PTT Global Chemical’s cracker plant is the 130-acre site where the R.E. Burger Plant, a coal-fired electric generating plant owned by Ohio utility company FirstEnergy, is located. Today is the day that the plant’s 854-foot concrete smoke stack will get demolished. By the time you read this, it will already be on the ground. Local media is calling the site “historical” and a “landmark.” We’d call it an eyesore. Bring on the cracker! NOTE: We found a dramatic video of the smoke stack and nearby buildings coming down–give it a watch!…
    Read More “RE Burger Smoke Stack Demolished Today, Prep for OH Cracker Plant”