Pipelines

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    Susan Sarandon Supports Anti-Pipeline Movement in Massachusetts

    What do Hollywood celebrities do to boost a sagging career? Celebrities who were once “A” list but have sunk to “B” and “C” list status? Celebrities like Mark Ruffalo and Susan Sarandon found notoriety in supporting the anti-fracking movement. But the problem with “success” when it comes to anti-fracking (a la New York’s ban), is that once you’ve won, what do you do then? You see, antis like Ruffalo and Sarandon always need another bogyman–another “cause” to inject (a) notoriety, and (b) meaning into their otherwise meaningless lives. Like a junkie who needs another fix, these people need to be in the news, their face and name plastered everywhere, or they don’t think anyone “loves” them anymore. It’s a shame what depths they sink to, really. At least Sarandon has talent–Ruffalo has no talent. Sarandon (or more properly, her agent) has (surprise!) found a new cause to promote–time to prop up that sagging career. Sarandon has thrown in her lot with the crazies opposing the Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project–the massive $5 billion expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline system from Pennsylvania into New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and back into Massachusetts where it will end near Boston. Sarandon recently issued a statement through the Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, whose director, Leigh Youngblood, has been at the forefront of opposing any new pipelines in the Bay State…
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    ScottMadden Report: Getting Marcellus/Utica Gas to Market

    ScottMadden, Inc., a top energy consulting firm, recently released the latest edition of their twice-per-year report called The Energy Industry Update. The current report, titled “Strange Brew: Adapting to Changing Fundamentals” (full copy below), offers insights into major events and emerging trends in the energy industry. This particular edition takes a close look at the natural gas industry–in particular how ever-increasing gas resources can find adequate infrastructure to make their way to market. We really like this report, for a couple of reasons. First, it gives you the wider context. Natural gas (and oil) doesn’t exist on its own. It is part of a complex tapestry of energy options and needs to be viewed that way. This report helps contextualize natural gas–helps you see the natgas puzzle piece in the larger energy puzzle. Second, we like the deep dive they do on natural gas. Not so long ago the estimates were that with shale gas in the U.S.–particularly in the Marcellus/Utica–we have a “100 year supply” of natural gas. Now? That number has risen to 140 years of supply. And it keeps growing. The report looks at rig counts and well productivity, pipelines that are (or will) move gas from the northeast to other markets, regulations and more. Take time to read it!…
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    Will Pilgrim Pipeline be Allowed to Settle in the NY World?

    Pilgrim Pipeline Holdings is developing an East Coast pipeline to carry refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and jet and aviation fuel northbound from Linden, New Jersey to Albany, New York (178 miles). In addition, a second pipeline will carry crude oil from Albany south to NJ and other locations. Two pipelines, side by side, liquids flowing through them in different directions. Pilgrim (how apropos this announcement comes at Thanksgiving) has just filed an official application with the Thruway Authority. Their plan is to lay 79% of the pipeline within the Thruway right of way. No, technically this is not a Marcellus/Utica story–although some of the crude they plan to flow from Albany to NJ refineries may indeed come from the Marcellus/Utica. It’s a pipeline for fossil fuels and that will surely bring the crazies right out of the woodwork, which is why we bring you this story…
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    Spectra Energy Files Formal FERC Application for NEXUS Pipeline

    Pop the cork on the champagne bottle! Last Friday Spectra Energy and its partners filed their full, formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to get the federal agency’s approval for the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline project. The NEXUS is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. It is a critically needed pipeline to move Utica and Marcellus Shale gas from an over-saturated market in the northeast to markets in the Midwest and Canada. Below is the official good news press release from Spectra Energy announcing the filing…
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    Kinder Morgan Files Formal FERC Application for NED Pipeline

    Friday was a big day for pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica. Spectra Energy filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline (see our companion story today). In addition, Kinder Morgan filed their formal application with FERC to build the massive $5 billion expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline system from Pennsylvania into New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and back into Massachusetts where it will end near Boston–called the Northeast Energy Direct (NED) project. All pipeline projects face irrational opposition, but the NED project faces some of the fiercest opposition, including an anti-fossil fuel crusade against NED by the Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (see Anti-Drilling MA Attorney General: We Don’t Need No Pipelines). The battle is about to reach fevered pitch now that Kinder Morgan has filed the official application…
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    OH Grange Issues New Study, Supports NEXUS & Rover Pipelines

    The people who are most affected by pipelines being built across their property are farmers–that’s a fact. Farmers often have questions and concerns when a new pipeline project is proposed that will cross their land, rightfully so. They’re cautious, they’re careful, they have a vested interest in preserving their land. So it’s big news that the Ohio State Grange, part of the nation’s oldest national agricultural advocacy group, has endorsed both the Rover and NEXUS pipelines in the Buckeye State. Energy Transfer’s Rover is a big, $4.2 billion, 711-mile new pipeline project from the Midwest Hub near Defiance, OH to Livingston County, MI, connecting with the Vector pipeline. Spectra Energy’s NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline project is a $2 billion pipeline that will carry Utica/Marcellus gas through OH, MI, and eventually connect to the Dawn Energy Hub in Canada. The Grange’s support of these two projects is a big deal. As part of their announcement, the Ohio Grange released a new report titled, “Natural Gas Pipeline Infrastructure and Its Impact on Michigan and Ohio Agriculture” (full copy below) which finds, among other things, that there is no SAFER way to transport natural gas than by underground pipeline…
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    Lebanon County Antis Want Public (Spectacle) Mtg or No Mtg at All

    The demands of anti-drillers in Lebanon County, PA are illustrative of their true motivations. Two different anti groups–Lebanon Pipeline Awareness and Concerned Citizens of Lebanon County–are demanding Lebanon County commissioners have an open public meeting with two pipeline companies. The two pipeline companies are Williams (Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline) and Sunoco Logistics Partners (Mariner East 1 & 2 pipelines). If the meeting is not open and public, so these nutters can pummel representatives of the companies in public and have it broadcast everywhere–they want no meeting at all. Williams and Sunoco had agreed to non-public meetings that INCLUDE members of these two groups–to answer their questions. But the pipeline companies, and the county commissioners, don’t want a circus. That means no cameras/media, and the meeting is not open so it can be packed by large numbers of antis. The companies are willing to sit down and talk like adults and answer questions and address concerns–like adults. But that’s not what Lebanon Pipeline Awareness nor Concerned Citizens of Lebanon County really want. They want to behave like petulant children throwing a temper tantrum for everyone to witness. Evidence: Instead of taking the private meeting, they (the antis) want no meeting at all…
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    Noble Energy Cancels Midstream IPO, Couldn’t Raise $237M

    That didn’t take long. Last week driller Noble Energy launched an initial public offering (IPO) for a new midstream subsidiary. They hoped to raise $237-$262 million by offering 12.5 million shares at $19-$21 per share (actually “units”). We didn’t bother reporting it at the time because the new midstream company would own and operate a pipeline system in the DJ (Denver-Julesburg) Basin in Colorado. However, what makes the IPO news now for the entire shale industry at large, including the Marcellus/Utica, is that the company has stumbled–pulling the IPO because of lack of interest/low offers for units, which may portend a similar fate for other midstream IPOs in other shale plays…
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    Herding Cats: DEP Sec. Quigley Unhappy with Pipeline Task Force

    The thin-skinned Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), John Quigley, showed his irritation yesterday with his own hand-picked 48 members of the Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force (see PA Gov Wolf Packs Pipeline Task Force with His Own Minions). Last week Quigley released a 355-page draft report supposedly compiled by the Task Force that will govern how rural gathering pipelines will be regulated (see PA Gathering Pipeline Draft “Recommendations” from Wolf Task Force). However, it seems the Task Force may not have authored the document after all. It appears to us that Quigley wants Task Force members to rubber stamp *his* proposed recommendations (i.e. regulations). At yesterday’s meeting, some Task Force members took issue with portions of the draft document, which had Mr. Quigley in a grumpy mood. Adding to Quigley’s grumpy mood was THE Delaware Riverkeeper herself, Maya van Rossum, who had to be escorted out of the meeting by Capitol police…
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    Wrath of Kann: PA Anti’s Disorderly Conduct Conviction Overturned

    Kimberly Kann, a resident of Conestoga Township in Lancaster County, PA, decided she would break the rules at a town meeting this past April. The meeting was to discuss so-called home rule and the role it should play in the town with respect to regulating pipelines, like the planned Atlantic Coast Pipeline project from Williams. The ground rules for the meeting were simple: ASK QUESTIONS ONLY. Kann decided she would use it as a public forum to pontificate and rail against pipelines. She wouldn’t ask questions and was repeatedly warned–so when she wouldn’t shut up, they arrested her and threw her out of the meeting (see Wrath of Kann: Lancaster Anti-Driller Arrested/Ejected from Mtg). In July she was found guilty as charged (see Wrath of Kann: Lancaster Anti-Driller Guilty of Disorderly Conduct). Kann should have paid her $325 fine/court costs and ended it–but she kept fighting. It eventually would cost her $3,000 in legal fees, but Kann, like the character played by Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II, has had the last laugh. In a hollow victory, Kann got her conviction overturned by a Lancaster County judge…
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    Coordinated Attack? MassPLAN Uses Riverkeeper Pipeline Delay Tactic

    In what appears to be a coordinated attack on new natural gas pipelines, the Massachusetts Pipe-Line Awareness Network (MassPLAN) is using the same delay tactic to slow down Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project running from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts as was pioneered by THE Delaware Riverkeeper to slow down the PennEast Pipeline project running from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Last month MDN exposed Riverkeeper’s sleazy strategy of encouraging thousands to sign up as “intervenors” with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)–even running “intervenor training” to show them how to do it (see Delaware Riverkeeper Scams FERC in Review of PennEast Pipeline). MassPLAN is using a chapter from Riverkeeper and has asked FERC to extend the time allowed to sign up as intervenors, so they can jam pack as many crazies as possible onto the intervenor roster…
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    Anti-Drilling MA Attorney General: We Don’t Need No Pipelines

    Is it us, or does it seem like all Democrat politicians have dictatorial aspirations? Obama clearly does. If he doesn’t like what the Constitution says, he just makes up his own Executive Orders–Constitution be damned. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is the same–just strip away the Constitutional property rights of everyone in his state by instituting an illegal frack ban. New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, is the same. He’s abusing his office in an elaborate government shake down of fossil fuel companies like Exxon Mobil–rubbing his hands together at the thought of forcing them to pay him billions. Here’s another prominent Dem to add to the list: Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. She’s appointed herself an expert on whether or not New England needs new natural gas pipelines to carry Marcellus Shale gas to the region. Yes, we know–an Attorney General should have nothing to do with such a decision–but that’s life in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. Healey doesn’t care a whit about the free market or capitalism–she personally wants to control every aspect of the lives of New Englanders. But Dems like Healey know that unless you’re Obama with a group of gutless Republicans in Congress who won’t hold you accountable, you can’t get away with just ruling by fiat. You have to convince (i.e. hoodwink) people. So Healey has to go to the trouble of making things up. Here’s her latest: She just released a “study” to say New England’s electric supply over the next 15 years will be just fine without new natgas supplies to power electric plants–so long as everyone keeps their thermostats turned down to 50 degrees in the winter and layers up with three or four sweaters (that’s always the Dem solution). The study (full copy below) is, of course, a joke. It was created by a group of people with glaring conflicts of interest…
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    Dominion Investing $10.1B, Creating 20K New Jobs in VA Next 5 Yrs

    It’s a shame to have to prove to people what should be self-evident–that building new natural gas electric plants and natural gas pipelines will bring both new jobs and inject billions into a state’s economy–but that’s what you sometimes have to do. You have to prove it to counteract the negative drumbeat from radical anti-drillers and leftist mainstream media. So Dominion, a huge utility/pipeline company operating in 14 states including the Marcellus/Utica region, commissioned a study that looks at how many jobs and how much money will be pumped into the State of Virginia over the next five years if all of the pipeline and electric plant projects they have on the books happen. The study (full copy below) finds Dominion is set to invest $10.1 billion and create nearly 12,000 jobs over the next five years in the Old Dominion. A sizable portion of the new projects and jobs are tied to natural gas…
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    Fall 2015 List of Shale-Related Infra Projects in OH – $33.7B!

    We’re excited to share with you an update to a report we LOVE. The sharp researchers at law firm Bricker & Eckler produce a twice yearly called “Shale Economic Development Overview.” It is a list of projects details, by county in Ohio, of those projects started or planned because of shale drilling. The Spring 2015 edition is embedded below. The first edition of this list was published in October 2013 and showed projects worth $12.2 billion. In October 2014 that number had risen to a staggering $21.5 billion. In the Spring 2015 edition, the total rose to $28 billion. This new edition for Fall 2015 shows a total investment in Ohio’s economy of a staggering $33.7 billion! The fact that investments in Ohio continue to increase is a testament to the fact that although drilling has greatly slowed, the midstream (pipelines and processing plants) have not…
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    Time to Support EQT Mountain Valley & Equitrans Pipelines @ FERC

    It’s time for you, pro-drilling supporters, to weigh in and make comments to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on your support for two important pipeline projects: EQT’s Mountain Valley Pipeline and EQT’s Equitrans Expansion project. The Mountain Valley Pipeline project is a new $3.5 billion natural gas pipeline running 301 miles (down from 330 miles) from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA, connecting to the existing Equitrans pipeline along the way (see Mountain Valley Pipeline Files FERC Appl, Now Just Matter of Time). Mountain Valley will flow 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natgas and is projected to be built and in-service around the fourth quarter of 2018. The Equitrans Project will upgrade compressor stations, add approximately eight miles of pipeline connectors to upgrade capacity on the Equitrans Pipeline from southewestern PA into WV. The $100 million project, when completed, will expand capacity on the Equitrans pipeline by 600 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d). The Equitrans project is also due to be completed in 4Q18. Here’s the details for how you can show your support for these two important projects. But hurry, you only have until Nov. 26 to provide your comments/show support…
    Read More “Time to Support EQT Mountain Valley & Equitrans Pipelines @ FERC”

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    Radical Bishop Finds Religion in Protesting Algonquin Pipeline

    It grieves us when we see someone misuse religion as an excuse to promote–or oppose–a purely political ideology. Such is the case with a retired Episcopal bishop from Westchester County, NY who claims a higher power blesses his opposition to expanding a natural gas pipeline that will bring carbon-lowering, clean burning natural gas to millions of people in the northeast. The bishop is really nothing more than just another 60s hippie radical trading on the good name of the church. Bishop George Packard, previously arrested for being an Occupy Wall Street anti-capitalist protester, was recently arrested for illegally blocking access to a construction site where Spectra Energy workers are working on the Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) project to expand capacity of the Algonquin Gas Transmission natural gas pipeline to flow more Marcellus/Utica gas to northeast markets. Apparently Bishop Packard feels that God would have him block cheap, clean burning gas, lowering the bills for millions of people and making their lives here on earth a little better. What explains this apparent defection from loving God to loving political ideology instead?…
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