Midstream Bombshell: MarkWest Sells Itself to Marathon Petroleum
While all eyes have been on the possible hostile takeover of midstream giant Williams by another midstream giant, Energy Transfer Equity (see Williams Continues to Resist ET Offer, Talks with Other Suitors), another midstream (i.e. pipeline company) merger was quietly being arranged that has rocked the midstream world. Yesterday MarkWest Energy, with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica–MDN would call it the premier midstream company in the northeast–announced it is selling itself to Marathon Petroleum Corp.’s midstream division MPLX, a master limited partnership or MLP. The “merger” (i.e. sale of MarkWest to Marathon) will create the fourth largest MLP in the United States–worth $21 billion in market capitalization. MarkWest is twice the size of MPLX, which makes this an interesting story and truly big news for the Marcellus/Utica…
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Time, once again, to haul out the tea leaves to see if there’s anything we can divine from an announcement yesterday by Shell that they’ve made a “final investment decision” (or FID) to move forward with a multi-billion dollar project to build a new deep-water offshore drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. What in the world does that have to do with the Marcellus/Utica? Good question! Let us read the tea leaves and connect some dots for you…
MDN invites you to join us in attending RBN Energy’s “State of the Energy Markets” one-day event in New York City on July 23. Before you hurry to say “yes,” a few caveats. It costs money (a lot of it). It’s aimed at executives working in the industry, as well as traders and investors. If that describes you (and we know that many of you read MDN), you may be interested in attending. We guarantee it will be a great event. Rusty Braziel & company will provide an overview of the key issues facing natural gas, NGLs and the crude oil market. They will explain how the markets for those three commodities interact and affect each other. They will also take a look at prices, where they may be heading, and how infrastructure affects price. If you are really “into energy” as we are, this is a must attend event. Details are below, along with a link to register…
While most Pennsylvania supply chain businesses are hanging tough during the current down cycle in drilling–the downturn has claimed at least one potential project in the Keystone State. It was with much fanfare and great hope in March 2013 that Marcellus GTL of Gilberton, Schuylkill County, announced it would build its first Clean Energy Center in Blair County, PA. The “gas to liquids” (GTL) project would cost $200 million to build and would convert PA Marcellus Shale gas into 84,000 gallons per day of regular gasoline and propane to be marketed locally as transportation fuel and for heating uses (see