Kinder Morgan Signs Up New Customers for Portion of NED Pipeline
Kinder Morgan continues to fight an uphill battle to get its Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline project accepted and approved. In March MDN noticed that Kinder had failed to sign up any new customers in the previous eight month period, with commitments remaining at 500,000 dekatherms per day, equivalent to 1/2 Bcf/d (see Kinder Morgan Fails to Sign Up New NED Customers in Last 8 Mos). In July the Kinder Morgan board committed to building the project–but in a scaled back form (see KM Board Approves Scaled-Back New England Pipeline for $3.3B). Most of the attention has been on the portion of the pipeline project that runs from Wright, NY to Dracut, MA–the section of the project Kinder calls “the Market Path.” Anti-fossil fuel nutters in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, where the new pipeline would run, have staged various protests and publicity campaigns. Not much has been said about the portion of the project that will run from northeastern Pennsylvania (Susquehanna County) to Wright, NY (in Schoharie County)–the section Kinder calls “the Supply Path.” That is, not much has been said until now. Kinder announced on Tuesday they’ve landed new/unnamed customers to ship natural gas along the Supply Path portion of NED. Indeed, they’ve signed up 627,000 dekatherms per day (roughly 2/3 of a Bcf/d) for the Supply Path portion of NED…
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Warren Resources, a small, independent exploration and production company has been headquartered in New York City–until now. Warren has ongoing drilling programs in California, Wyoming, and in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale. Warren’s Marcellus program is very small–they previously announced they would drill and complete two Marcellus wells in 2015. In July the company began a search for a new CEO, a process that continues (see 
If this doesn’t beat all: New York has banned fracking as potentially unsafe to the health and welfare of its citizens–but its citizens, particularly in New York City, are benefiting from fracked shale gas (from Pennsylvania) in a huge way. Electricity prices for the five boroughs of NYC have plummeted because of the abundant, cheap and clean-burning natural gas from PA’s Marcellus Shale, used in electric generating plants that serve Gotham. In fact, NYC’s electric rates are now at parity or falling below the electric rates in Washington, DC!…
Clam Bake! It’s time to wind down summer with some fun, and some learning, and to help support the ongoing effort to overturn the frack ban in New York State. The Joint Landowners Coalition of New York (JLCNY) and its education arm JLC United is hosting a Clam Bake this Sunday, September 13 in Vestal, NY from 1-6 pm. Come on out and support a great cause. Tickets are just 
Earlier this week a $2.85 million compressed natural gas (CNG) filling station was opened with a large crowd of people eager to begin using it. Nexus Natural Gas, a consortium of seven different companies, unveiled their first collaborative CNG fueling station aimed at cars, trucks, tractor-trailers and buses. The state got involved with a $570,000 grant–recognizing the benefits of using natural gas as a transportation fuel (burns cleaner, natural gas is a home-grown fuel). Local utility/pipeline companies are involved too–to deliver cheap, abundant and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas to the new fueling station. What’s that? Where’s this new CNG fueling station located–where crowds of natgas lovers congregated to celebrate? Would you believe, in New York State!…
Although anti-fossil fuel nutters in New York State have worked to oppose converting electric generating plants from burning coal to clean-burning natural gas (see 
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…
A very old and trite but true saying: Q: How do you know when a politician, like NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is lying? A: When he opens his mouth. Our illustrious man-child governor was in Syracuse yesterday to drop off a bag of money with $50 million, and an impertinent reporter had the gall to ask His Lordship about the secession rally held in Chenango County on Sunday (see 
Do #UpstateLivesMatter? Apparently not to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Upstaters are officially fed up with being told what they can and can’t do–through the prism of New York City liberal values. New York City gets its water supply from upstate and therefore believes upstate is nothing more than a serfdom–its residents exist at the pleasure and will (and direction) of their overlords in NYC. We are at the beck and call of downstate–here only to serve at their leisure. One way downstate is controlling upstate is Gov. Cuomo’s attempt to disarm the citizens of the state, denying them their Constitutional right to bear arms (no doubt afraid of that power) via the misnamed SAFE Act. Cuomo also told upstaters they can’t drill for natural gas under their own land–sentencing family farms to a life of poverty–in the name of environmental and “public health” protection. Upstaters have had enough of downstate interference and are pushing to have their counties either secede and join the great state of Pennsylvania, or divide the state into two autonomous districts, each with their own governor. It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. What started as a fringe movement is going mainstream, as evidenced by a rally held this past Sunday in Bainbridge, NY. The secede or divide movement has anti-frackers worried…
It is an issue that simply won’t go away. Frankly, we’ve thought (until now) that it was more or less a publicity stunt. Pro-drillers and pro-gun rights residents of New York State have, since Gov. Andrew Cuomo banned fracking last December, called for upstate counties to secede from New York and either form a new state, or join with Pennsylvania. On the surface it may sound silly, but did you know secession has happened in our country three times before? And one of those times was for land that used to be part of New York State? No, we didn’t know that bit of history either. This Sunday, August 30th, a rally will be held in the tiny village of Bainbridge (Chenango County), NY from 1-3 pm for Marcellus/Utica landowners, gun owners and other overtaxed and over-regulated NY residents to demonstrate their support for secession. This is a movement that is gaining momentum. It’s a serious movement. None other than the liberal USA Today files this very serious report…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, located in New York State, released a decision yesterday in a case known as Beardslee v. Inflection Energy, LLC (copy of the decision is embedded below) that may create problems for future shale drilling in New York State–should the existing statewide ban ever be lifted. Yesterday’s decision is good news for landowners in one sense–it officially upholds the right of Tioga County, NY landowners party to the lawsuit to be released from old leases made in pre-Marcellus days when landowners signed leases for $3 per acre. Those leases were signed before the words “Marcellus” or “Utica” meant anything other than municipalities in New York State. (Interesting factoid: both shale plays are named after the NY towns where they were first identified. Further interesting factoid: both Marcellus, NY and Utica, NY banned fracking before the statewide ban was official.) The Second Circuit upheld a previous decision which we first wrote about in 2012 (see 
Some more details about the brilliant move by some average farmers in Tioga County, NY who plan to use propane to frack a Utica Shale well, bypassing the existing ban on fracking in New York because the existing ban only disallows high volume water-based fracking…