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DEP Permits for NWPA FM100 Pipeline – Marcellus Gas to Transco
In March we told you about National Fuel Gas Company’s (NFG) FM100 Project in northwestern Pennsylvania that will beef up and extend an existing pipeline network to flow an extra 330 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to Williams’ mighty Transco Pipeline (see NFG FM100 Pipe Project in NW PA to Feed Marcellus Gas to Transco). The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) published notices in last weekend’s PA Bulletin of their intent to issue permits for the project.
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It’s hard to miss the stories in oil and gas (even national) media: Company after company, in particular oilfield services companies, are predicting a big slowdown in drilling during the second half of 2019. Over the past few days OFS companies including Schlumberger, Halliburton, Patterson-UTI, Superior Energy Services, Helmerich & Payne, and RPC have all predicted a coming decline (crash?) in drilling in the near future. What about the Marcellus/Utica region? Does the coming slowdown affect us too?
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspaper has engaged in a months-long smear campaign to imply the shale industry in southwestern PA is guilty of causing a “cluster” of rare childhood cancers–even though there’s an old uranium dump in the same vicinity as those cancer clusters (see 
JKLM Energy, a Pennsylvania gas drilling company founded by Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula, is “temporarily halting” operation of its single drilling rig (in Potter County) due to the low price of natural gas.
A landowner in Pike County, PA called King Arthur Estates LP, challenged Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) over the amount of money they should receive to have a pipeline cross its land–and has won the right to use PA’s more generous laws on compensation rather than the federal government’s more stingy laws on “just” compensation. The decision sets a precedent for all PA landowners.
The City of Philadelphia owns the largest municipal-owned natural gas utility in the country, Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW). Philly sits not far from, and now benefits from, abundant, clean-burning natural gas deposits in the PA Marcellus. And yet there are those lunatic nutjobs who want Philadelphia to do what the city of Berkeley, California (which we call Beserkley) did and ban the use of natural gas in new buildings. Philly, to its shame, is conducting a “study” to figure out how to transition PGW away from selling natgas. The so-called study is being funded by Bloomberg, meaning it’s a shame from the start–not a true study but a propaganda piece.
Mainstream media, via a single Associated Press story, is reporting a decision by Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court yesterday is largely a “win” for the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection with respect to Chapter 78a regulations. The AP story de-emphasizes what we consider the larger story–that the drilling industry already won most of the case last year (see 
On Friday Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004, announced two deals that will net the company $634 million total. In the first deal, Range sold a 2% overriding royalty interest on 350,000 acres “in southwest Appalachia” for $600 million. In the second deal, Range sold ~20,000 non-producing acres in Armstrong County for $34 million ($1,700/acre).
A new Pennsylvania PIPE (Pipeline Investment Program) grant for $320,950 will help extend a natural gas delivery pipeline to the Keystone Cement Co. near Allentown, PA, which will allow the plant to replace coal with natural gas, used to manufacture cement. Total cost of the new pipeline project is over $2 million. The grant helps. According to the engineer working on the plan, it takes truck traffic off the roads and lowers costs to the plant.
In May 2016, a landowner in Wayne County, PA filed a lawsuit against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) asking a judge to declare that the DRBC does not have jurisdiction to prevent construction of a natural gas well (see 
A federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation meant to ban wastewater coming from unconventional (shale) wells from being disposed via municipal sewage treatment plants is about to go into effect in August. The new reg, which was first issued by the Obama EPA in 2016 (see 
It’s not every day you read an editorial in a prominent Pennsylvania newspaper lending a full-throated endorsement for PA’s impact fee over a so-called severance tax, but it just happened in Williamsport. The Sun-Gazette editorial board published a column pointing out the superiority of an impact fee (actually an impact tax) over a severance tax. They make some great points, pointing out the numbers speak for themselves…
Invenergy’s 1,480 megawatt, $1 billion Marcellus gas-fired electric plant, called the Lackawanna Energy Center (located near Scranton, PA), is now 100% done with construction. Yesterday the company celebrated the end of construction with a special ceremony and tour.
