Marathon Hints MarkWest Merger Plan May Include NGLs to Gulf
For years MarkWest Energy has been one of the most active midstream companies in the Marcellus/Utica region. MDN has often called MarkWest the premier midstream company in the northeast–with more pipelines and processing plants than any other company, except possibly the recently merged Williams/Access Midstream. Even though MarkWest has a huge portfolio of assets in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and continues to have a big and ambitious list of future projects, it wasn’t enough to stave off a takeover. Marathon Petroleum announced in July they are buying out MarkWest and adding it into their own operations (see Midstream Bombshell: MarkWest Sells Itself to Marathon Petroleum). It makes you wonder what the future holds for MarkWest and future midstream projects in the northeast. Wonder no more. Although he was light on specifics, Marathon Petroleum CEO Gary Heminger commented at an investors conference on Wednesday that the combined company is eyeing between $6-$9 billion of investment in new midstream projects…
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In an attempt to make it easier for natural gas-fired electric generating plants to buy gas only when they actually need it, Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline has just launched a new service called PowerServe(TM). The new service is specifically targeted to electric plants in New England. Traditionally, electric generating plants have shied away from signing long-term contracts for natural gas because of the peaks and valleys in power generation. During the dead of winter, they need a lot of natural gas. In the summer, they don’t need nearly as much. TGP’s new PowerServe service is meant to give them a way to grab only what they need, when they need it. Part of the PowerServe service will be tied to a pipeline not yet built–TGP’s Northeast Energy Direct pipeline that will cross parts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire…
In a shameless act of political pandering, the president of the Massachusetts State Senate, Stan Rosenberg (Democrat), ran his own version of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) scoping hearing. Such hearings, while meant to elicit useful information about where a pipeline should, and should not, run, usually devolve into freak shows by anti-drilling zealots who parade and preen before the cameras and microphones–making fools of themselves. We’ve seen it many times before. So Rosenberg, apparently not satisfied that there’s not a FERC hearing every week where anti-drilling zealots in Mass. can gripe and moan and complain, set up his own faux session. He “listened” to some 60 people complain about the proposed Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline. Stan says he’s going to hand deliver transcriptions of the entire sordid affair to FERC, personally…
Both Kinder Morgan and Spectra Energy are in a tough fight to build pipelines from the Marcellus into New England. One of the competing visions for how to get more natural gas to residents, businesses and electric generating plants that so desperately need natural gas is to import it through the Everett, MA LNG import terminal. That’s where GDF Suez, the American name for the French multinational electric utility company Engie, imports natural gas. We told you about GDF Suez’s self interested last year (see 
In June MDN updated you on Kinder Morgan’s plans to repurpose part of the existing Tennessee Gas Pipeline that currently runs south to north, reversing the flow to send natural gas liquids (NGLs) southward (see 
Kinder Morgan has just released a study that they commissioned (paid for), but researched by the independent ICF International. The study, titled “New England Energy Market Outlook: Demand for Natural Gas Capacity and Impact of the Northeast Energy Direct Project” (full copy below), finds that New Englanders would have saved $3.7 billion in wholesale electricity costs during the 2013-2014 ‘Polar Vortex’ winter had the proposed Northeast Energy Direct Project (NED) been in service at the time. The study also finds the additional gas capacity that NED would provide will generate $2.1 billion to $2.8 billion in annual savings going forward for New England electric consumers, under normal weather conditions. Plus there are many other benefits (aside from cost savings) from building NED, including lower air pollution throughout New England…
The NEXUS Gas Transmission pipeline, a $1.5-$2.0 billion natural gas pipeline that will carry Utica and Marcellus Shale gas spanning 11 counties in Ohio, 3 counties in Michigan, and eventually connect to the Dawn Energy Hub in Canada, has had to take some Ohio landowners to court simply to gain access to their property survey for potential routes. Sometimes county judges rule against NEXUS (see 
Midstream giant Williams and drilling giant Chesapeake Energy are cuddling a little bit closer in the Ohio Utica Shale. Williams announced today they have signed an agreement with Chesapeake to run gathering pipelines in a new area of the dry gas Utica for Chesapeake in return for signing a contract that binds Chessy to using Williams until 2035. Williams was already gathering natural gas for Chessy on 140,000 acres of Utica Shale land in Ohio. This agreement extends the time on that 140,000 acres by adding another 20 years, and adds another 50,000 acres to the mix…
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has buckled to pressure from politicians to schedule yet another scoping hearing in New Hampshire (the third such hearing in tiny NH, the 14th overall), and extend the period for public comments, for the Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project that would bring much-needed supplies of abundant, cheap and clean-burning Marcellus/Utica Shale gas to New England (see 
PennEast Pipeline, the $1 billion, 118-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern Pennsylvania (in Luzerne County) to southeastern PA and New Jersey (terminating in Mercer County, NJ), has just announced another $50,000 of community grants, bringing the grand total of such grants up to $240,000–so far. The organizations receiving the grants are eminently worthy–mostly fire departments and EMS departments located in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey…
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 for a pipeline project they call Northern Access 2016. The $451 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. We have a full description below for all of the new construction, modifications and add-ons that are part of the Access Northeast 2016 project. The pipeline, when complete, will flow Marcellus Shale natural gas from Pennsylvania northward to New York and on into Canada. Although NFG has bent backwards, forwards and has contorted itself into just about every yoga position there is to accommodate residents around Pendleton, nearby residents are still opposed to NFG building a new compressor station anywhere near them…
Last October MDN told you about an exciting project from Boardwalk Pipeline Partners’ Texas Gas Transmission pipeline that will reverse the flow from the Louisiana Gulf Coast all the way to Ohio (see