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PA DEP Holds its First CPP “Listening Session”

Frazier Crane I'm ListeningOn Tuesday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection held it’s first “listening session” to consider which creative ways they will cut the economic throat of the state by attempting to comply with nonsensical carbon standards set by our Dear Leader, Barack H. Obama, via his so-called Clean Power Plan (see PA Anti-Fossil Fuel Groups Praise Wolf/Quigley for Supporting CPP). The master of ceremonies for the three-hour event was none other than the PennFuture Secretary of the DEP himself, John Quigley, who said Obama’s nutty standards are “ambitious, but achievable.” Most of the 27 speakers were a stacked deck–there to support the CPP standards. There were, however, a few voices of common sense and reason among the blithering idiots…
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Marcellus/Utica Ethane Will Flow to 6 Crackers Being Built in SW

bird in the handWhile two, possibly three, major ethane cracker plant projects are being considered for the Marcellus/Utica region, there are six ethane crackers currently being built in the Gulf Coast region. The kicker? Marcellus and Utica Shale ethane will feed some of, perhaps portions for all of, those six cracker plants. It’s a shame, really. We could be reaping the rewards of a massive influx of jobs and investment not only by building an ethane cracker, but with the satellite businesses that will locate around it. Instead, much of that investment and those jobs are slipping away to the Gulf via NGL pipelines…
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Sunoco Logistics Planning Propane Cracker Plant for Marcus Hook Site

who knewAn interesting article in the Philadelphia Inquirer provides some of the history, and an update, for the Marcus Hook refinery in the Philly area. You may recall that Sunoco Logistics Partners purchased the refinery and is in the process of turning it into an NGL export facility–to send ethane, propane and other NGLs to locations along the U.S. coastline and internationally to Europe. What you may not know (what we sure didn’t know) is that Sunoco LP hopes to one day build a propane cracker at the site–a facility that will convert propane into propylene, the raw material used to make plastics. Who knew?! This would be yet another cracker plant that would compete, in a small way, with the proposed Shell cracker plant planned for the Pittsburgh area…
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Major Victory for PA Landowners/Drillers in Lycoming County Case

court gavelA major defeat for Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling groups, including THE Delaware Riverkeeper, was just handed down by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court in a Lycoming County zoning case. In Gorsline v. Board of Supervisors of Fairfield Township, anti-drilling neighbors, including Brian and Dawn Gorsline, Paul and Michele Batkowski and others (collectively “Gorsline”) sued to stop a conditional use permit granted by Fairfield Township to allow Inflection Energy to construct a well pad on the property of Donald and Eleanor Shaheen. The case was weak, but the lowest court in the PA court system–the Court of Common Pleas (i.e. county court)–said the ninny nanny neighbors had a right to strip away the Shaheen’s property rights to allow drilling on their own property. The PA Commonwealth Court obliterated the faulty reasoning of the lower court and has, significantly, redefined how courts should interpret the results of the Act 13 zoning lawsuit that allows local municipalities the right to restrict shale drilling. The Commonwealth Court decision (full copy below) has kicked the legal legs out from under those seeking to use an amicus brief filed by THE Delaware Riverkeeper in the Act 13 case…
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PA Drillers Warn Article 78 Reg Changes Will Cost Jobs/Investment

job lossesPennsylvania’s shale drilling industry is pushing back against the last minute changes made to PA’s oil and gas regulations commonly known as Article 78. In April the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) turned up the heat on newly-elected Gov. Tom Wolf and PennFuture Dept. of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley with a scorching hot letter (see PIOGA Turns Up the Heat on Wolf/Quigley Over TAB/Article 78). The Marcellus Shale Coalition has joined PIOGA in criticizing the proposed changes to Article 78. MDN has spoken to one drilling company, Cabot Oil & Gas, and confirmed that the new rules proposed by Quigley’s out-of-control DEP will increase the cost to drill by $1-$1.5 million per well by creating senseless rules that don’t safeguard either workers or the environment…
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PA Anti-Fossil Fuel Groups Praise Wolf/Quigley for Supporting CPP

Frazier Crane I'm ListeningA group of hard-left environmentalist groups dedicated to the irrational idea of eliminating the use of all fossil fuels because they believe in the myth of man-made global warming are giving high praise to America’s most liberal governor, Tom Wolf, and Wolf deputy John Quigley (the PennFuture Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection) for hosting a series of “listening” sessions in 14 PA locations. The sessions are meant to gather comment and support for draconian cuts in coal and natural gas-burning electric plants as part of Barack Hussein Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP). Yesterday a group of these nutters held a press conference (listen below) to praise Wolf/Quigley and to encourage the nutty faithful to turn out in force to support the equivalent of PA cutting it’s own economic throat. The organizations supporting the CPP and PA’s self immolation in the name of global warming include: Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), PennFuture, Clean Air Council, Moms’ Clean Air Force, Penn Environment, NextGen Climate America, Conservation Voters of PA, Clean Water Action, Voces Verdes, the Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Audubon Pennsylvania. Please be sure you NEVER send any of them a dime…
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Latest Cabot Oil & Gas PowerPoint Presentation w/MDN Commentary

simply the bestCabot Oil & Gas is one of the stellar success stories of the Marcellus Shale. They drill in a single northeastern Pennsylvania county–Susquehanna County (near where MDN is located). From that single county Cabot produces 1.7-1.8 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of natural gas. If you want to know how to “do it right” with shale drilling in the Marcellus–you watch Cabot. The company participated in the Barclays CEO Energy/Power Conference 2015 last week in New York City. We grabbed a copy of their PowerPoint presentation from that event and include it below, along with some of the insights we glean from reviewing the presentation…
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Sunoco LP Launches Open Season for Second Mariner East 2 Pipeline

open seasonSunoco Logistics Partners, which owns the Mariner series of pipelines (East, West and South), has just launched a new binding open season–time when drillers and other shippers can sign up for capacity–for an expansion of the planned Mariner East 2 project. In April 2014 MDN brought you the news that Sunoco LP had completed an open season for Mariner East 2 and had enough customers to move forward with the project (see Sunoco Logistics Will Build $2.5B Mariner East 2 Pipeline). In June we told you about Sunoco LP’s plans to build two new Mariner East 2 pipelines, side by side, if they can get enough customers (see Mariner East 2 Giving Birth to Twin Pipelines). Our interpretation is that this new open season, launched last week, is to sign up customers for the second Mariner East 2 pipeline…
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PA Dems Get Nervous that Republicans Won’t Cave on Severance Tax

nervousPennsylvania Democrats are finally waking up and beginning to get nervous that state Republicans might actually not cave on a Marcellus-killing severance tax after all. How do we know? One of the Democrat public relations outlets–the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette–penned an “editorial” calling for a stopgap, short-term budget. PA’s Gov. Tom Wolf, who has been crowned the most liberal governor in America by the non-partisan website InsideGov (see PA Gov Tom “Severance Tax” Wolf: America’s Most Liberal Governor), obstinately refuses to let go of his plan to soak Marcellus drillers to give their hard-earned money away to teachers unions. Republicans, which hold majorities in both the PA House and Senate, aren’t caving. They refuse to enact an industry-killing severance tax. That’s a problem for the neophyte and frankly in-over-his-head Wolf…
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PA Landowners Can’t Cancel Lease for Delayed Payments

sign leasePennsylvania landowners Andrew and Sally Dewing signed a 10-year lease for 493 acres of land in Bradford County, PA with Central Appalachian Petroleum in April 2001. The lease was later sold to a consortium including Abarta Oil & Gas Co., Talisman Energy USA and Range Resources. The terms of the lease require rent payments of $5 per acre per year ($2,465) for each year when their property has not be drilled on or under. After not receiving payments on time in 2010, the Dewings served the drillers notice of nonpayment. Eventually the three partners figured out who was supposed to pay and made the payment–but because the payment was late (more than 60 days late), the Dewings claimed the lease was terminated under the original terms of the lease. To make a long story short, Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled last Friday that no, the terms of the lease do not allow the Dewings to get out of the lease because the payment was late…
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Grant Twp, PA Calls DEP “Chicken $h*t” re Injection Well Permit

potty mouthGrant Township in Indiana County, PA has a problem: They’ve hired a potty mouth lawyer to represent them who has a HUGE conflict of interest. Grant’s town attorney is also the lawyer for (and executive director of) the litigious and extreme left-wing group Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), a group committed to ending the use of fossil fuels. We’ve written plenty about the antics of the CELDF, including their lawsuit on behalf of an ecosystem (see It Speaks! An “Ecosystem” has Filed to Join a Lawsuit in PA). CELDF/Grant Twp. attorney Thomas Linzey is calling the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) “chicken shit” for their decision to delay a decision on whether to grant a permit for an non-controversial injection well in the township…
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EQT Looks to Drill on Abandoned Golf Course in Pittsburgh Suburb

for vs againstIs Marcellus drilling about to come to a suburb of Pittsburgh? It appears the answer to that is a resounding, “Yes!” EQT, according to a landman that works for the company, plans to put a mega drill pad with up to 14 wells on an abandoned golf course in the eastern burbs of Allegheny County. EQT has approached neighbors surrounding the property, attempting to sign them to leases. Predictably, some of the neighbors are for it, and some are against it…
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Ineos Gets Ready to Begin Ethane Exports from Marcus Hook, PA

Ineos Shale Gas for Manufacturing
Click image for larger version

As MDN told you in June, exporting of Marcellus/Utica ethane from the Marcus Hook facility near Philadelphia will become a reality later this year when Ineos Olefins & Polymers, one of Europe’s largest petrochemical companies, begins loading two Large Gas Carriers (LGCs) with ethane bound for Norway and Scotland (see Marcellus/Utica Ethane to be Exported to Europe Starting This Year). We get an update on that €600 million ($671 million) Ineos export project from the Financial Times, along with a very interesting tidbit we’ve not heard before: ethane from Marcus Hook will also head to an ethane-powered electric generating plant in Panama…
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Phila. Gas Works: Will Take 45 Years to Upgrade Unsafe Pipelines

tortoiseNatural gas customers in Philadelphia could have had all of the outdated and unsafe pipes belonging to the aging Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) pipeline network replaced within 5-10 years, paid for by UIL Holdings Corporation, a Connecticut-based gas and electric utility holding company that offered to buy PGW in a deal brokered by Democrat Mayor Michael Nutter. But the corrupt Philadelphia City Council torpedoed the deal (see Philly City Council Kills the Phila. Gas Works $1.86B Deal). Now PGW ratepayers are going to see an increase–instead of a decrease–in their utility rates in order to “speed up” the pace of replacing unsafe natural gas pipes throughout the city. What does “speed up” mean for a government-owned utility?…
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PA “Independent” Fiscal Office Dem Tool in Severance Tax Debate

we fight dirtyPennsylvania’s Democrats continue to fight dirty in the budget battle–in their losing effort to pile big taxes on a single industry, the Marcellus Shale industry. The latest in the dirty war they’re waging: the extremely partisan Democrat-controlled so-called Independent Fiscal Office (yes, a PA state government office funded by taxpayers) has issued a report to sycophantic media outlets (but not the general public via its website) to forecast a decrease in Marcellus Shale impact fee revenue for 2015…
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