First Step in KM’s 1,000 Mile Y-Grade Pipeline Journey
We have a lot of information to boil down and convey regarding what was once called Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) “Y-Grade Pipeline”–a natural gas liquids (NLG) pipeline some 1,000 miles long that will stretch from Pennsylvania to Texas (see our 2013 article for background: Kinder Morgan/MarkWest Proposed NGL Pipeline Gets a Nickname, Map). The Y-Grade Pipeline is now called the Utica Marcellus Texas Pipeline Project (UMTP). TGP has a series of 6 parallel pipelines that currently run from Louisiana to western Pennsylvania–carrying natural gas from the Gulf Coast to the northeast (and to points in between, running through Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio). The northeast and southeast doesn’t need that much gas from the Gulf given the enormous production coming from the Marcellus/Utica. The plan is to “abandon” some of the lengths of those pipelines and repurpose the “abandoned” pipelines, reversing the flow and instead of flowing natgas, flowing NGLs from the northeast to the Gulf–eventually (with a new pipeline) from LA into TX. That is the plan for UMTP. Kinder Morgan, owner of TGP, recently filed official paperwork with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to “abandon” certain sections and beef up the remaining pipelines with new compressor stations. We have the full details, including details about four new compressor stations to be built in Ohio…
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GreenHunter Resources continues to aggressively push back against the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) with respect to barging brine from shale wells. Yesterday was the latest flare-up in the war of words between GreenHunter and the USCG. Once again GreenHunter COO Kirk Trosclair said the way they read the rules, they have permission under existing 1987 rules to barge it. And once again the USCG said no you don’t–not until we say you do. The latest twist is that the USCG says that brine might have high levels of radioactivity and so now the Dept. of Homeland Security is reviewing the whole matter. Which is a neat way of corrupting the issue–just claim there’s a national security issue and that shuts it all down. Still, GreenHunter is committed to begin barge shipments this year. However, we also learned yesterday that those shipments will not originate at GreenHunter’s proposed facility near Wheeling, WV…
We hate to rain on Belmont County, OH’s parade, but we have to point out their celebration over the announcement about a potential ethane cracker plant announced on Wednesday may be a bit premature (see 
As we told you Tuesday, Ohio is now squarely in the ethane cracker race (see 
Last October MDN told you about the rumor that a pair of companies from Thailand and Japan were partnering with the aim of building an ethane cracker plant in the Marcellus/Utica region (see 
Earlier this week we had some fun telling you about Hilcorp’s request to drill under a quarter of an acre of a cemetery in Columbiana County, OH (see 
Very good news for the Ohio Utica Shale industry: RINO Gov. John Kasich’s plan to raise the severance tax is dead–at least for this year. Yesterday Ohio legislators stripped out a proposed tax hike from the state’s budget bill. We’re still not out of the woods yet as far as a tax increase down the road. Legislators decided to set up a “study committee” made up of both House and Senate members to consider a severance tax increase in the future. This is the third year in a row Kasich has tried and failed to raise the severance tax. Perhaps sensing yet another defeat on the tax issue, last month Kasich made a not-so-subtle threat that if the drilling industry doesn’t accept his 6.5% severance tax now, a ballot initiative may just pop up out of thin air to enact a higher severance tax–and that imitative would probably be for 10% or more (see