Pipelines

Chesapeake Energy | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Processing Plants

Chesapeake Sells Mississippi Lime Midstream Operation for $300M
May 2, 2013

Yesterday, SemGroup Corporation announced it had signed an agreement with Chesapeake Energy to purchase all of the assets of Mid-America Midstream Gas Services (a Chessy subsidiary), which owns gas gathering pipelines and processing plants in the Mississippi Lime play. SemGroup is paying Chessy $300 million in cash.

Technically it’s not a Marcellus/Utica deal, but MDN is covering this story because…
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Energy Companies | Energy Services | Hilcorp Energy | Industrywide Issues | Mahoning County | NGLs | NiSource | Ohio | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Utica Shale

Location ID’d for Mahoning County, OH Cryo Processing Plant
May 1, 2013May 1, 2013

In December, MDN told you the name of a newly formed joint venture between drilling company Hilcorp and midstream company NiSource would be Hickory Bend. The new joint venture will build a wet gas (natural gas liquids) pipeline and processing plant somewhere in the Youngstown, OH area (see Mahoning Utica Pipeline/Processing Plant “Moving Forward”). At the time, no plans had been announced about where the pipeline or cryogenic gas processing plant will be located.

Although the jv is still mum on a pipeline route (they’re acquiring lease rights to build it), we do know where the processing plant will be built…
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Berks County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Inergy | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA | UGI Energy Services | WGL Holdings

Berks County Officials Think Commonwealth Pipeline Will Rise Again
May 1, 2013May 1, 2013

The Commonwealth Pipeline, a joint venture between Inergy, UGI and WGL Holdings, was suspended indefinitely just a few weeks ago (see PA’s Commonwealth Pipeline Project Suspended – Indefinitely). However, officials from Berks County, PA, in the southeastern part of the state and a county through which the Commonwealth Pipeline was slated to pass through, don’t buy it. They believe the project will come back to life and pass through their county, eventually…
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Crime | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines

Fired Pipeliner Sentenced to Year in Prison, Fined for Vandalism
April 29, 2013April 29, 2013

Henry Benton, a fired pipeline worker used a backhoe to intentionally damaged a buried pipeline in northern Lycoming County, PA on three separate occasions in June 2011. He recently plead guilty and has just been sentenced. Benton was ordered to pay $150,000 to the company installing the pipeline ($50K in damages from what he did). He’s also been sentenced to a year in prison:

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Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation

Feds Win Court Case for Pipeline Agency to Inspect NGL Plants
April 29, 2013April 29, 2013

A recent U.S. District Court case has decided that the U.S. Dept. of Transporation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has the right not only to inspect pipelines, but also natural gas liquids (NGL) plants as well. ONEOK Partners argued that PHMSA does not have the right to inspect the pipes and equipment inside NGL plant boundaries at its facility in Bushton, Kansas. However, the District Court said “yes they do.” And so just like that, a new law is born (forget about going through proper legislative channels) and the feds now have the right to inspect NGL plants when they want to…

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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Statewide NY | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

ShaleNavigator Expands Again: Adds New Areas to Online Mapping App
April 23, 2013April 23, 2013

Although technically not in the purview of MDN’s coverage, we want to alert you that MDN partner ShaleNavigator—the top-notch online mapping service that brings you those marvelous maps in the Marcellus and Utica Shale Databook—is expanding. ShaleNavigator founder Ed Camp has added the Collingwood and Antrim Shale plays in Michigan to his coverage.

Here’s Ed’s press release announcing the expansion of his excellent service:

Read More “ShaleNavigator Expands Again: Adds New Areas to Online Mapping App”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Schuyler County

NY Anti-Drilling Protesters Jailed After Refusing to Pay Fine
April 22, 2013April 22, 2013

Twelve protesters who suffer from what MDN calls FDS (Fracking Derangement Syndrome) were arrested in March for blocking the entrance to a legally operating facility near Watkins Glen, NY that will be used to store natural gas and propane in underground salt caverns (see NY Protesters Arrested for Blocking NatGas Storage Facility).

Three of the twelve have pleaded guilty and after refusing to pay a $375 fine were sentenced to 15 days in jail. They’ll get to have nice warm guest rooms in the clink in all likelihood heated by natural gas, and meals prepared by using natural gas. Do you think the irony will dawn on them as they sit there for two weeks? Nah, we didn’t think so either…

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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Education | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pike County | Pipelines

Pete Seeger Will Play for Fossil Fuel Haters Fest in PA
April 22, 2013April 22, 2013

Iconic folk singer and lefty activist Pete Seeger (now about 150 years old, a marvel to behold) will play a benefit concert for a group of fossil fuel-haters protesting the expansion of a natural gas pipeline in Pike County (northeast PA). They hate fossil fuels and the pipelines that deliver them—although hypocritically they use fossil fuels delivered by pipelines every single day.

Other helpful activities planned by the group: Brainwash school children with a “sustainable energy curriculum” at the Delaware Valley School District. What will they teach them? How wonderful it is to keep the thermostat set at 45 degrees? Every time your parents fire up the SUV for a run to Walmart they’re killing Mother Earth? (Be sure to rat out your parents to your greenie teacher, kiddies.) These are people with too much time on their hands…

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Inergy | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA | UGI Energy Services | WGL Holdings

PA’s Commonwealth Pipeline Project Suspended – Indefinitely
April 18, 2013June 10, 2013

In December, MDN told you that work on the 120-mile Commonwealth Pipeline, a Marcellus Shale pipeline running from Lycoming County to the Philadelphia area was “on hold” (see Commonwealth Pipeline for Marcellus Region on Hold). You can now change that to work has been “suspended” on the pipeline—indefinitely. Did the anti-drillers win this particular skirmish in the fracking wars?

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Accidents | Blue Ridge Mtn Res/Magnum Hunter | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Eureka Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Tyler County | West Virginia

Second Death from Flash Fire at WV Pipeline Station
April 17, 2013

A second man has now died from injuries received last Thursday in a flash fire at a “pig receiving station” along a Eureka Hunter pipeline near Wick (Tyler County), WV (see Flash Fire at Pipeline Station in WV Kills 1, Injures 3 Others for our original report and background details).

We mourn with the families of Raymond Miller and Bruce Phipps:
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Energy Services | Harrison County | Industrywide Issues | MarkWest Energy | NGLs | Ohio | Pipelines | Processing Plants

Good Progress on MarkWest’s Cadiz, OH Processing Plant
April 16, 2013April 16, 2013

MarkWest’s Cadiz, Ohio natural gas processing plant has been online since last year and currently separates handles 60 million cubic feet of gas per day (Mmcf/d), separating out gas liquids like ethane, propane, butane and pentane. MarkWest is busy building an expansion of the plant that, when done, will add an additional 125 Mmcf/d of capacity.

An update on MarkWest’s $1.8 billion infrastructure projects under way in Ohio this year:

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Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Processing Plants | Shell | Williams

Shell & Williams Tie the Knot on New Midstream JV for NW PA
April 12, 2013April 12, 2013

More pipelines for both dry and wet gas, and perhaps just as important, a new cryogenic gas processing plant is coming to northwestern PA courtesy of a brand new joint venture partnership between midstream giant Williams and exploration & production giant Shell. The new jv will service not only Shell (the first customer to be signed), but also other energy producers in the area. It will be aimed at both the Marcellus and Utica Shale in the region.

Here’s the announcement from the happy newlyweds:

Read More “Shell & Williams Tie the Knot on New Midstream JV for NW PA”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | UGI Energy Services | Wyoming County (PA)

Back to Kindergarten: UGI Explains NatGas Gate Stations
April 4, 2013April 4, 2013

Northeastern PA utility company UGI is in a strange position. Geographically the company and it’s natural gas distribution network sit in or near some of the richest deposits of natural gas known to exist in the United States—the Marcellus Shale. All UGI has to do is install some new pipelines here and there, and a compressor station here and there, to bring that low-cost gas to its customers. Currently the gas being delivered to households in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area mostly comes from the Gulf Coast! Why not use gas produced locally, which is far cheaper.

Why not? Because of dullards who oppose installing the new pipelines and compressor stations. Anything to do with natural gas has gotten so divisive and politically charged, that UGI now has to explain (“dumb it down”) to people why lowly gate stations (pipeline connectors) are safe:

Read More “Back to Kindergarten: UGI Explains NatGas Gate Stations”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Bradford County | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pike County | Pipelines | Regulation | Tennessee Gas Pipeline | Wayne County

Army Corps of Engineers Approves Pipeline in Delaware River Basin
April 2, 2013April 2, 2013

Good news for drillers, landowners and consumers who want to see more low-cost Marcellus Shale gas flowing to East Coast markets. On March 22, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers green lighted Tennessee Gas Company’s Northeast Upgrade pipeline project to cross wetlands (i.e. swamps), rivers and streams in the Delaware River watershed. Hooray! The Corps didn’t cave to eco-nut, anti-progress pressure.

The details on where the new extensions are being built:

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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lebanon County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Spectra Energy

Spectra to Expand Marcellus Pipeline in Lebanon, Other PA Locales
April 1, 2013April 1, 2013

Texas Eastern Transmission, a division of midstream giant Spectra Energy, plans to expand a natural gas pipeline in the Lebanon Valley (Lebanon County) area of Pennsylvania, as well as other PA counties, in order to transport more Marcellus Shale gas:
Read More “Spectra to Expand Marcellus Pipeline in Lebanon, Other PA Locales”
Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

NatGas Transmission Pipeline Construction Went *Down* in 2012??
March 27, 2013March 27, 2013

This is a weird one. According to an article on the Fuel Fix blog, in 2012 construction of new major natural gas transmission pipelines plummeted to its lowest rate since 1997. They base their analysis on a recent Energy Information Administration (EIA) report that tracks new pipeline construction.

With all of the new pipelines announced and started last year (many of them in the Marcellus and Utica), it sure seems strange, almost unbelievable, to us. Are these numbers accurate? Did EIA, an organization with a stellar reputation for accuracy, miss something? Here’s the article from Fuel Fix:

Read More “NatGas Transmission Pipeline Construction Went *Down* in 2012??”