Converted Oil Pipeline Near Philly Extends Open Season for NatGas
Earlier this month we shared the exciting news that an old oil pipeline stretching from Northampton County, PA through Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties, terminating in Delaware County at Marcus Hook had been purchased by a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources will get converted to flow more Marcellus natural gas to the greater Philadelphia region (see Oil Pipeline Near Philly to be Converted to Flow Fracked NatGas). The project/pipeline has been named the Adelphia Gateway. On Nov. 2nd the project began an “open season”–a period of time when shippers can reserve capacity along the pipeline. Such contracts typically run for 10-20 years and guarantee the pipeline (which will invest millions) can recoup its investment and make a profit. The open season was scheduled to expire on Nov. 20th, but Adelphia has extended the open season to Dec. 8th. Adelphia says the extension was to allow for the Thanksgiving holiday. Typically such an extension means the project hasn’t secured enough business to be profitable. We don’t have a feel one way or the other for this project. Perhaps a number of people did take off for the Thanksgiving holiday and this will give Adelphia a chance to button up previously expressed interest. Signing on the dotted line means an office full of lawyers will need to review it first–and lawyers like their vacations…
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Sunoco Logistics Partners has had another “inadvertent return” (i.e. leak of drilling mud) while drilling underground in Delaware County, PA–in a Philly suburb. Every time it happens, no matter how little mud comes out of the ground (even less than a gallon), extremist antis jump up and down and declare an environmental holocaust. What makes this most recent episode different is that a sink hole has opened up near where the drilling mud and water came out of the ground. Not a good situation as the sink hole is not far from a home. The homeowner is not pleased. However, the homeowner is an anti, which makes it even worse. As soon as the mud came out of the ground and the hole appeared, the homeowner called in a swarm of other antis, supposedly to “document” the situation. They were really there to obstruct Sunoco workers who were trying to clean it up and prevent any further damage. Because the antis wouldn’t move their rear-ends out the way, Sunoco had to call in the police to move them. The anti homeowner got all hot-and-bothered that Sunoco had the nerve to call the cops on his anti buds. So far we’ve only found one mainstream media article about the episode, which is quite biased against Sunoco…
Exciting! We have a brand new pipeline project to tell you about–located in the Greater Philadelphia area. Although the project is new, the pipeline is old–already in the ground. Talen Energy, birthed in June 2015 from a combination between PPL Energy Supply and certain assets of Riverstone Holdings, is one of the largest competitive energy and power generation companies in North America. Talen’s core business is building and operating electric generating power plants. One of the assets Talen inherited in the merger is an 84-mile pipeline called the Interstate Energy Company which runs from Northampton County, PA through Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties, terminating in Delaware County at Marcus Hook. Talen announced yesterday they’ve sold the Interstate Energy Company (the pipeline) to Adelphia Gateway, a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources, for $189 million. The northern 34 miles of the pipeline was converted to flow natural gas back in 1996. The southern 50 miles currently flows oil, but Adelphia (NJ Resources) announced yesterday they will convert the oil portion of the pipeline to instead flow natural gas. The bottom line is that a wide swath of Greater Philly is about to get a new source of clean-burning, abundant fracked PA natural gas…
In May six anti-pipeline residents living near where the Mariner East 2 pipeline will pass asked the Middletown (Delaware County, PA) town council to reject the path of the pipeline near their property because it would, supposedly, pass closer than town code allows. The town council told the residents they’re out of luck–the town will not pursue any action to block Mariner East 2. Period. The residents, amped-up, agitated and funded by Big Green groups filed a lawsuit against the pipeline, to force it to conform with Middletown’s ordinance (see 
A group of lawless anarchists–people calling themselves “anti-capitalists” from the Philadelphia area, have admitted in a blog post that they engaged in illegal, criminal (we’d call it eco-terrorist) activities against construction equipment being used in Media (Delaware County), PA for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline project. The criminals, from the anti-American group Philly Anti-Capitalist, said they filled the fuel tanks of a flatbed truck and several excavators with sand and sugar–meant to ruin the engines. They even outline how to inflict maximum damage to the engines by removing the fuel filters. These idiots justify their criminal actions by saying, “Human-caused ecological collapse and mass extinction are upon us.” In other words, they’re loony tunes. Crazy. Driven to commit criminal acts because they’ve been brainwashed into believing mankind is poisoning Mom Earth by extracting and using fossil fuels. And brainwashed against liberty and freedom as personified in the United States. They are serious (and dangerous) nutjobs. We sincerely hope the FBI, Homeland Security and other police organizations hunt them down and jail them for destroying private property…
Rich, snobbish homeowners in an “upscale” Philadelphia suburb development are asking an appeals court to stop Sunoco Logistics from building the Mariner East 2 pipeline through the edge of their high-priced development because, they claim, the digging is disturbing the dirt (which is what digging does) and disturbing the dirt is causing lead and arsenic to become dislodged. The lead and arsenic are supposedly in the dirt as a result of pesticides used when the land was an apple orchard. The claim is flat out BS–Barbara Streisand. The Andover Homeowners Association in Thornbury Township (Delaware County) is the same group that a few weeks ago acted like five year-olds by intentionally stepping over a painted line put there to protect them from a ME2 construction zone (see 
Acting like 5-year olds who have been told not to do something, but defiantly do it anyway, several homeowners in a housing development in Delaware County who were specifically instructed not to interfere with clearing work for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline in a Philadelphia suburb. The homeowners intentionally crossed a clearly-marked line into the construction zone, putting themselves at risk. The homeowners, who object to the pipeline, wanted to “push the buttons” of the workers at the construction site. The workers promptly called the cops and of course, work could not commence while the police interviewed everyone to see what’s what. In the end, no arrests were made. The homeowners were on jointly-owned housing development property. Their lawyer told them they could enter the work area as long as they didn’t stop the work being done. One of the 
Looks like Middletown Township, in Delaware County, PA (Philadelphia suburb), has finally faced reality that the Mariner East 2 Pipeline is coming through town. To be fair, town council came to that conclusion last September when they voted to grant easements to Sunoco Logistics Partners to build Mariner East 2 across four parcels of public land (see 
School officials at a school district in Delaware County, PA (Philadelphia suburb) were, understandably, concerned about plans that would bring the Mariner East 2 pipeline “near” the school. What happens if, in the extremely unlikely event, the pipeline leaks? Or explodes? What kind of measure are in place to protect the kiddies? Sunoco Logistics personnel (builder of the ME2 project) along with emergency first responders met with Middletown school officials on March 31 in a private meeting–because emergency plans are confidential. Coming out of that meeting, the school district superintendent said he was “extraordinarily satisfied” with the plans and that they kids are safe with ME2 being located nearby. You don’t hear that often, because the media doesn’t typically report it…
A group of anti-fossil fuel nutters from the Philadelphia suburb of Middletown, PA (Delaware County) spent good money to buy themselves a report from an “independent” consultant that they say proves the Mariner East 2 Pipeline is too dangerous to build through their township. We don’t know how much the Middletown Coalition for Community Safety blew on the study, but we do know that Middletown Township is blowing $45,000 of taxpayer’s hard-earned money for a similar study (see 
Anti-drilling zealots are sometimes maddening, sometimes funny, and often just plain bizarre. As they are with their latest publicity attack (aided and abetted by PBS reporters) by claiming a couple of townships along the pipeline’s proposed route have ordinances in place that would potentially stop the pipeline in those locations “if only” those lazy, corrupt townships would just enforce the ordinances. That’s the upshot of the argument. One of the towns, Thornbury (Delaware County, a Philly suburb) has a requirement that the subdivision where the pipeline will run must maintain at least 40% of the land in the subdivision as “open space.” The antis claim the pipeline will use enough acreage to reduce the “open space” to below 40%. Ah, Mr. & Ms. Anti, did you know that the pipeline will run underground? And that pipelines lead to MORE permanent open spaces? Nice green fairways that are well-maintained? Lawyers from the usual radical suspects are getting ready to file lawsuits for “force” the townships to pay money defending against this latest inanity…
Pop the cork on the champagne bottle! Sunoco Logistics Partners has begun construction of the Mariner East 2–a $2.5 billion, 306-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. Last week the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) gave its final approval for the project (see 
Rabidly anti-drilling organizations like the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council (CAC) have been using the deep pockets of their contributors to stir up dissent against Sunoco’s Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline, particularly in towns in the Philly orbit (see