Small Amount of NatGas Flowing to Freeport LNG Once Again
Here’s a story that slipped by us last week. Small amounts of natural gas–roughly 22 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day)–are once again flowing into the closed Freeport LNG export facility. Freeport is the second-largest LNG export terminal in the U.S., located near Galveston, Texas. The facility experienced an explosion and fire in early June, knocking 2 Bcf/d offline (see Explosion Rocks Freeport LNG Export Plant – Offline for 3 Weeks). Last week Freeport said the facility will likely be completely offline until at least October (see Freeport LNG Says 2 Bcf/d Export Plant Offline Until October). So why, a day or two after that, was 22 MMcf/d of gas flowing into the facility?
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In October 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) finally, after months of dithering, approved TC Energy to begin construction on its Louisiana XPress project to beef up flows along the existing Columbia pipeline system by an additional 850 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) by adding three new compressor stations and expanding a fourth compressor in Louisiana (see 
In April, a group of nearly 200 protesters from some 60 different wacko anti-fossil fuel groups (an average of 3 1/3 person per “group”) turned out to protest a tiny 5-mile pipeline proposed in the Springfield, Massachusetts area (see 
We were excited to see a Reuters article with the headline, “U.S. pipeline companies eye nat gas infrastructure for growth.” Cool. More pipelines means more opportunity to sell product. And maybe it means there’s a change in attitude coming to allow more pipelines, right? Wrong–at least for the Marcellus/Utica. The article (below) does talk about some of the largest pipeline companies in the U.S., including Kinder Morgan, refocusing on LNG and exports. However, as the article points out, anywhere outside of Texas and possibly Louisiana, *nobody* is planning new pipeline projects. Why? Due to extreme resistance from the left and the current administration in Washington, D.C.
New England’s gas supply is precarious and has been for years. The region eliminated all of its coal-fired power plants and now relies on natural gas-fired power plants for much of its electricity generation (and oil when the natgas runs low). Yet the region and its governors, along with New York’s governors, block any and all new natural gas pipeline projects from the Pennsylvania Marcellus just a few hundred miles away. New England wants and needs the gas, yet they block the mechanism that will deliver it. Just another day in a socialist paradise. So what happens is predictable: When there is a supply disruption or a tick up in demand (like a cold winter), and supplies run short, prices go through the roof. Looking ahead to December and January, the NYMEX futures contracts are doing that right now, with prices exceeding a whopping $40/MMBtu.
Increasingly ours is a world run by computers. Even in-the-ground pipelines are monitored and controlled by computers. The ransomware attack last year against Colonial Pipeline, a pipeline that flows a significant amount of refined products (gasoline and diesel fuel) from the Gulf Coast where it’s refined as far north as New Jersey, was a wake-up call for all pipelines. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) heard the call and responded. Last July, the TSA issued an initial “security directive” requiring pipelines, including natural gas pipelines, to do certain things to protect themselves and the public they serve (see 
There is a very dangerous thing happening across the country. If you happen to have an opinion, a viewpoint, that’s different from the socialist left–and if you want to express that opinion in social media, via paid ads, etc., the left wants it shut down, calling it “dangerous.” You see, the socialist left can’t compete in the marketplace of free and open ideas and tolerance. Leftists are the most intolerant among us. Case in point: the group Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future (founded in 2010) promotes information about the useful role of natural gas and the pipelines that flow it–and those ads target (among others) black and Latino voters. The ads are effective, so the socialist left is attempting to shut them down–kill free speech.
Pipeline giant Kinder Morgan (KM) issued its second quarter update and held a conference call on Wednesday with analysts. Kinder’s upper management had some VERY interesting things to say about LNG and how LNG is driving Kinder’s expansion plans in the coming years. Here’s a fascinating statistic we didn’t know before reading comments by Kinder’s muckety mucks: Roughly half of all the natural gas delivered to the U.S.’s LNG export plants is delivered via Kinder Morgan pipelines.
A few weeks ago, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (the D.C. Circuit) sided with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and NEXUS Pipeline against Big Green and the City of Oberlin, OH, in a case that challenged FERC’s right to approve NEXUS based on the pipeline exporting some of its natgas across the Canadian border (see 
This is a truly brilliant move on the part of Toby Rice and those who run and manage EQT Corporation–the country’s largest natural gas producer. As you likely know (if you’re a reader of MDN), Rice has become the Apostle of Natural Gas and LNG, promoting natgas as THE solution to global warming (see 
Gulfport Energy has successfully wiggled out of legally-signed and binding long-term contracts with multiple pipeline companies, including deals that move Marcellus/Utica gas through the Rover and Rockies Express (REX) pipelines. In 2020 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told Gulfport a very loud NO in breaking those contracts (see 
Baker Hughes, one of the biggest oilfield services companies on the planet, issued its second quarter earnings update yesterday. The company reported a net loss of $839 million during 2Q, but more than half that number is due to a write-off of its oilfield services business in Russia. What caught our attention was not the company’s financial performance, but the words of its top leaders in describing the near- and long-term future for natural gas. Baker Hughes is VERY bullish on natural gas and natural gas infrastructure (including LNG and pipelines).
We spotted a story that, while not uncommon, has us scratching our head. The story is about yet another company in the oil and gas industry touting its conversion to electricity as a way to improve the climate and the company’s own ESG credibility. In this case, the company manufactures, fabricates, rents, sells, and maintains natural gas compression technology for oil and natural gas upstream providers and midstream facilities. Does the following strike you as odd?…
Given the record of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with blocking new natural gas pipeline projects (and harassing already-built pipelines), Congressional Republicans are questioning the role FERC should play in approving hydrogen pipelines. The U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing yesterday, and Republican Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming expressed concerns that FERC may use blending hydrogen with natgas in pipelines as an excuse to impose new restrictions on existing natgas pipelines.