WVU Researcher Says Marcellus/Utica Needs an Ethane Storage Hub
Forget about a cracker plant in West Virginia. Well, not really–just put it on the back burner for the moment. A researcher from West Virginia University says what the Mountain State and indeed all of Appalachia really needs is ethane storage. Specifically, an ethane storage hub. According to Brian Anderson, director of West Virginia University’s Energy Institute, without ethane storage (and pipelines) the Marcellus/Utica region risks seeing its abundant ethane leave the area, mostly heading to the Gulf Coast. Why is that bad? Because if we can keep ethane in the area, we will attract manufacturers to the region who want to use the results of that ethane–ethylene, the raw material in plastics. Our region can realize a bonanza in manufacturing jobs and investments–if we can store and use the ethane here, at home…
Read More “WVU Researcher Says Marcellus/Utica Needs an Ethane Storage Hub”
Bloomberg analysts do a deep dive into pipeline projects in the northeast in a recent article. The article contains an update on 17 planned pipeline projects in the northeast (see the full list detailing each project below). The reporter interviews Marty Durbin, executive director of market development at the American Petroleum Institute (API), and MDN friend Scott Kurkoski, chair of the energy group at the Binghamton law firm Levene, Gouldin & Thompson. Here’s what they have to say about the future of pipeline projects in New York State…
We wonder if the anti-pipeline/anti-fossil fuel zealots in Lebanon County, PA are trying to kill members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by boring them to death. The local antis–a small yet vociferous group of nattering nabobs–have hounded the Lebanon County Board of Commissioners into sending along a 1,000-page tome to FERC listing their concerns with two pipeline projects. Along with the bore-you-to-death document, the Commissioners have included a letter requesting FERC extend the comment period on the Atlantic Sunrise Project by an extra 30 days. Which sounds reasonable–except at the end of that 30 days the antis will ask for another extension, then another, and another. That’s the strategy. If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with, well, you know what…
In March MDN reported that Canadian midstream giant TransCanada wants a bigger piece of the Marcellus/Utica pipeline pie and has decided to buy Columbia Pipeline Group for $10 billion (see 
Three cheers for Williams. Hip hip horray! Williams announced yesterday a two-pronged legal challenge against New York State and its decision to deny stream crossing permits for the federally-approved Constitution Pipeline project (see 
The Constitution Pipleine from northeastern Pennsylvania into east-central New York State is not the only pipeline project to get delayed. It is one of five highly important projects for drillers in the Marcellus/Utica region that are either delayed–or even canceled. What are the other four projects? Read on…
A general warning and heads-up on the newest/latest attack in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Well, maybe it’s not all that new–it’s been going on for a few years–but the intensity and pace of the attacks have picked up. We’re talking about the argument being made by anti fossil-fuelers that FERC doesn’t, by law, consider all pipelines when it evaluates a single pipeline–i.e. “cumulative effects.” For example, if three different pipeline requests for the same region are filed with FERC, FERC does not have the authority to decide only one of the three is really “needed” and that building all three would be “overbuilding.” FERC evaluates them one by one and (properly so) and lets the free market (i.e. capitalism) decide which one(s) will get built. FERC is not in the business of Communistic command-and-control decisions over private companies. FERC’s concern is that a given, single pipeline project doesn’t harm the environment and shows a need. Period. Antis, detecting an opportunity, want to force FERC, either by social pressure or by the courts, to take into consideration larger regional concerns–and even mythical global warming concerns–before making decisions. Here’s the latest example, from Virginia…