Spectra Energy 2Q16 – Access Northeast “Advancing Toward Execution”
It sure pays to be in the pipeline business. One of the biggest pipeline (i.e. midstream) companies in the U.S. is Spectra Energy. Spectra has a number of existing and planned pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica region. Yesterday Spectra released their second quarter 2016 update, reporting a net income of $305 million for the quarter. Spectra provided a handy list of the ~$6 billion in expansion projects they have under way. One of those projects is the Access Northeast project–representing half of that $6 billion. Access Northeast is the surviving winner of a contest between Spectra Energy and Kinder Morgan to pipe Marcellus and Utica Shale gas to New England and Canada–the “last man standing” when Kinder and their Northeast Energy Direct project bowed out of the race (see NED is Dead – Kinder Morgan Suspends $3.3B New England Pipeline). With respect to Spectra and their Access Northeast project, Spectra CEO Greg Ebel had said yesterday during an earnings conference call that Access Northeast is “advancing towards execution this year” after recently achieving a “number of noteworthy milestones.” That is indeed good news! Here’s yesterday’s 2Q16 update from Spectra, along with an excerpt about Access Northeast from the earnings call…
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MDN felt that the big news today was word from Spectra Energy that their Access Northeast pipeline project is making excellent progress (see Spectra Energy 2Q16 – Access Northeast “Advancing Toward Execution”). However, a bit of news coming from Spectra disclosed on yesterday’s earnings call comes in at a close second. You may recall there was an explosion and fire in Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern Transmission’s “Delmont Line 27” pipeline in May (see 
MDN spotted what we thought was an interesting article on the Seeking Alpha investors website about the existing pipeline bottleneck in Northeastern PA and what can be done about getting all of that gas to market. Pipeline delays out of NEPA, including the delayed Constitution Pipeline and projects currently underway but taking a long time, like the Atlantic Sunrise, are forcing producers like Cabot Oil & Gas, Southwestern Energy and Chesapeake Energy to look for other ways to move their abundant supplies of natgas out of the region. Eastbound routes out of NEPA are full, but westbound routes *may* be a possible solution–at least in the short-to-medium term. National Fuel Gas’s pipeline system has expanded recently to allow more gas to flow west. NFG has additional projects in the coming years to build on that capacity. Is it time to Go West, Young Molecule?…
We found this story amusing. A group of 40 anti-fossil fuel nutters met at the Towamensing Township fire hall Tuesday night to “hone their arguments and strategies on how to derail or at least delay construction” of the $1.2 billion PennEast Pipeline. Why is that amusing? Because if the media is reporting there were 40 there, that means there were really 20-25. And when you read the story, you get the distinct impression that a very small group of hardened anti-fossil fuelers move these meetings around–it’s the same small group–and that their movement to stop PennEast is dying. Rapidly. Here’s the latest evidence…
For 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 
MDN sent an email to our list of daily headline subscribers last week (below). This is a quick reminder that 
In July 2015 Williams filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the $130 million New York Bay Expansion project, which will flow Marcellus gas to 500,000 additional New York City residents by the 2017/2018 heating season (see 
Canadian driller and midstream company Epsilon Energy had a shareholder rebellion in 2013 and threw out the sitting board of directors (see 
We’re not sure how important (or not) this news is, but it’s certainly worth reporting. Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced it will “consider” a motion for an evidentiary hearing on PennEast Pipeline’s application about whether or not the pipeline is needed in New Jersey. Last month radicals at the Eastern Environmental Law Clinic (EELC) on behalf of enviro-Nazis at the New Jersey Conservation Foundation (NJ Conservation) and Stony Brook – Millstone Watershed Association (SBMWA), filed a motion requesting FERC conduct a hearing to assess whether there evidence of public need in New Jersey for the proposed PennEast Pipeline. Yesterday FERC said they’ll consider a hearing–FERC has not (yet) said it would actually conduct such a hearing. Here’s the news as sent to us from the radicals…
National Fuel Gas (NFG), the Buffalo-based utility giant with both a drilling subsidiary (Seneca Resources) and a midstream/pipeline subsidiary (Empire Pipeline) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in March 2015 for a pipeline project they call Northern Access 2016 (later renamed to simply Northern Access Project, dropping the “2016” part). The $455 million project includes building 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern Pennsylvania up to Erie County, NY. The project also calls for 3 miles of new pipeline further up, in Niagara County, along with a new compressor station in the Town of Pendleton (see 
In September 2014, PSEG (Public Service Enterprise Group) Power–New Jersey’s largest utility company–became the fifth company to become a partner in the much-needed PennEast Pipeline, the $1 billion pipeline project that would flow cheap, abundant and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from northeast Pennsylvania all the way to Trenton, New Jersey (see