Judge Hears Arguments For/Against Broome Virtual Pipe, Delay Stays
Yesterday both sides were in court in Broome County, NY to put forward their best arguments for why a natural gas transfer station (i.e. virtual pipeline) project in the Town of Fenton, near Binghamton, should (or should not) get built. We’ve covered this story from the beginning–because we like virtual pipelines which get natural gas to customers who aren’t blessed to live near a pipeline, and because we live about 10 miles from the proposed site. NG Advantage wants to build a virtual pipeline operation in a suburb of Binghamton. The location NG picked, after considering up to six other locations in the region, was selected because of it’s proximity to major highways, proximity to the Millennium Pipeline, and availability of high-power electric lines. A virtual pipeline is nothing more than a compressor plant (series of compressor plants) that grabs gas from a pipeline, in this case the Millennium, and compresses it and loads it onto special tractor trailers that then deliver the gas to industrial customers like manufacturing plants, hospitals, and even small regional gas distribution systems servicing residential homes. The location NG selected, in the Town of Fenton (within spitting distance of residential communities Hillcrest and Port Dickinson) was approved by the Town of Fenton after a detailed review. The area NG selected is zoned industrial and is, in fact, a former dump site. However, residents from nearby neighborhoods in Hillcrest and Port Dick were not aware of the project (so they claim) and when construction began to clear the dump site, and residents learned what was going to be built at the site, some of them demanded court action to oppose it. Two court cases have been filed and a local judge has temporarily stopped construction at the site. Yesterday that judge heard arguments for and against. NG Advantage CEO Rico Biasetti was encouraged by the judges questions…
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Good news if you’re a welder, or interested in a welding career, and you live in southwestern Pennsylvania. Shell needs you. Shell is in the process of building a massive, $6 billion ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA (northwest of Pittsburgh). Cracker plants have lots of pipes that need to be welded as the plant goes up. While these jobs are not long-term, as in “the rest of you career,” they’re long enough, likely lasting several years. Steamfitters Local 449 is right now recruiting new apprentices, offering a free 17-week apprentice training program. Local 449 is holding an open house this Saturday…
For some time now, MDN has had its eye on Mexico. No, not for a vacation (although that would be sweet), but because of the natural gas market, which is undergoing a dramatic change. Mexico passed landmark energy sector structural reform in 2013 and 2014, freeing up Mexico’s oil and gas markets from strict government control. The reforms abolished the state monopolies administered by state-owned companies Pemex and the Federal Electricity Commission with the aim of creating competitive markets in the oil and gas industry AND in the power industry. Why? To attract private investment with the ultimate aim of dramatically improving Mexico’s energy markets. While renewable energy grabbed much of the attention in mainstream media, the core of the energy reform effort lies in the expansion of Mexico’s natural gas market. Not only is power generation heavily focused on increasing capacity through gas-fired combined cycle power plants, but also consumption by industrial users is expected to rise at a steady pace in the coming decades. Mexico is going through a rapid expansion of its natural gas pipeline infrastructure–with a number of projects either under construction or planned. This expansion has opened numerous opportunities for the private sector, with more on the way. So how does Mexico affect the Marcellus/Utica? (1) Some of our gas may end up flowing across the border–eventually. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but there are pipeline projects that already are, or soon will, carry our gas to the Gulf Coast. From there, it’s a short trip over the border. Mexico may become an important future market for our gas. (2) Even if our gas never flows across the border, gas from Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma will. As that gas goes south, it doesn’t go north to compete with Marcellus/Utica gas and opens up more markets for our gas in the Midwest and South. (3) As more American gas flows south–from whichever source–prices at the Henry Hub (and everywhere else, including the Marcellus/Utica) will go higher. It’s simple economics: less supply, same demand, equal higher prices. Mexico’s natgas market bears watching, and watching closely. How can you keep track of it? The same way we do. NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) recently introduced a news service that tracks what’s happening in the Mexico natgas market–and for the next few months you can get it for FREE…
A recent ruling from Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals has the potential to affect conventional and unconventional (shale) leases. As with most legal rulings, this one is a bit complex. We’ll do our best to summarize. In Ohio, most oil and gas leases have both a primary term and a secondary term. The primary term is that period of time a driller has to locate and drill for oil or gas–typically five years. The secondary term is that period of time (which can last for decades) under which oil and gas is produced from the well. In most lease contracts, as long as the well is producing in “paying quantities” the lease remains in effect. But when the well does not produce in paying quantities, the lease is terminated and the landowner can seek a new lease. Of course, the definition of “paying quantities” is key. In a previous case, the Ohio Supreme Court defined paying quantities. However, the recent Seventh District Court case, Paulus v. Beck Energy Corp., added to, or should we say “refined” the definition provided by the Supreme Court by providing guidance on what items may be considered when determining paying quantities and lack of production in Ohio…
As MDN has previously reported, Mountaineer XPress Pipeline includes 165 miles of new pipeline with approximately 2.7 billion cubic feet (Bcf) per day of transportation capacity from existing and future points of receipt along or near the Columbia pipeline system–most of it located in West Virginia (see 
For the past few years, MDN has tracked the progress of an LNG export plant planned for the eastern shore of Nova Scotia, the Bear Head LNG project (
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: NY politicians don’t let facts on fracking stand in way of ignorance; rig count rises in OH Utica; class-action lawsuit against Range Resources over wages; Atlantic Coast Pipeline debated at WV DEP hearing; WV Northern Panhandle needs more roads for natgas growth; Weymouth, Mass. compressor station badly needed; Pioneer gets more gas than expected from Permian; scientists use big data in hunt for oil/gas; Japan’s LNG imports expected to drop in 2 years; and more!
In March, MDN told you about a small group of radical protesters who established a protest “camp” on a private farm along the path of the Williams $3 billion, 198-mile Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline in Lancaster County, PA (see 
There’s an app for that! Williams is launching an app (for smartphones) latter this month to connect Williams contractors with local businesses–to ensure as much of the work (and supplies) as possible is sourced from local businesses for the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. This is a great sign that Williams believes they are about to receive final permits from the foot-dragging Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to begin work. In August, Williams will launch WillShop Local, a digital application designed to connect local businesses with contractors and construction crews working in the project area. The app is not for local businesses but for the contractors and workers working on the pipeline to locate local suppliers. So how do you, as a local business, get listed on the app? Glad you asked! Just 
CONSOL Energy released its second quarter 2017 update yesterday, along with a conference call to discuss results in 2Q17 and what’s ahead for the rest of 2017 and even a hint of what’s coming in 2018. Perhaps the biggest news coming from yesterday is that CONSOL had problems with two well pads in the Ohio Utica during last quarter–problems which slowed them down and resulted in a rare decrease in natural gas production year over year. CONSOL production was down 7% due to problems with drilling out frack plugs at two well pads in Monroe County, OH. According to CONSOL COO Tim Dugan, they were “one-time” events and unusual. Dugan said, more or less, CONSOL is experimenting and hey, sometimes the experiments go wrong. But the “operational improvements” the company has made by experimenting have far outweighed any temporary problems like those in Monroe County. CONSOL will spend more and drill more in 2017 than previously forecast–spending $620-$645 million to drill 34 wells this year (which works out to close to $19 million/well on the high end). In 2018, CONSOL will add a third drilling rig, although they’re not yet saying where it will get deployed (PA Marcellus or OH Utica). Here’s the latest from a company that will soon split in two (coal and gas) and rename itself…
Rover is Energy Transfer’s $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada. On April 13, Rover workers experienced an “inadvertent return” of “horizontal directional drilling fluid”. That is, they sprung a leak and spilled nearly 2 million gallons of drilling fluid (see 
Last Friday MDN told you about two Democrat backbenchers trying to make trouble for Energy Transfer (via Rover Pipeline), as well as make trouble for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see 
MDN has highlighted Capstone Turbine Corporation, a California company that manufactures small electric-generating plants that run on natural gas, several times in the past. Our most recent story (in February) shared the news that Capstone had sold three more of their “microturbines” to midstreamers in the Marcellus Shale play (see 
Yesterday the American Petroleum Institute (API) released a new study showing that the natural gas and oil industry supported 10.3 million U.S. jobs and added $1.3 trillion to the nation’s economy in 2015. The study, “Impacts of the Natural Gas and Oil Industry on the US Economy in 2015” (full copy below) found that jobs supported by the o&g industry increased by half a million since 2011, and showed that all 50 states, whether producing or non-producing, continued to benefit from the o&g industry. The study was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and commissioned by API. Yes, it’s an industry-funded study. But hey, if we don’t do the research and toot our own horn, you can be sure anti-fossil fuelers won’t do it for us! This is solid, no-nonsense (and real) economic research. We thought it would be interesting to look at the impact of the o&g industry in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia–the only three states producing Marcellus and Utica Shale gas and oil. Yes, each of those states still has a thriving conventional o&g industry as well and conventional numbers are part of the study–but let’s be honest. The unconventional (shale) sector dwarfs production of the conventional sector. When you look at o&g’s impact in our region, you find that it created 322,600 jobs in PA, 262,800 jobs in OH, and 70,900 jobs in WV. Value added (economic impact) for each state was: $44.4 billion in PA, $37.9 billion in OH, and $8 billion in WV. Add them all together and you get roughly 656,000 jobs and $90 billion of economic contribution in 2015. From one industry–oil and gas. WE LOVE FOSSIL FUELS!…
Many times MDN has opined, as we cover the news about pipeline projects, that landowners need to realize they can’t just act like children stomping their feet and refuse to deal with pipeline companies–and expect the companies to give up and go away. Doesn’t happen. However, if landowners behave like rational adults and talk to pipeline companies–“Hey, don’t run it here through my best hay field but over there, through that field”–they stand a much better chance of a positive outcome. Landowners need to be respectful, open, honest, firm, but above all, talk to pipeline companies when they come calling. And when they do, they almost always get a much better result than they otherwise would have. We spotted an article written by a law firm operating in Ohio that takes the approach we’ve advocated. Sitterley, Vandervoort & Davis writes, “While the knee-jerk reaction may be to fight, to make it as difficult as you can for the pipeline company, employing a “take-no-prisoners” attitude that is aggressive may not be the best decision.” Well said. Sometimes a more firm approach is warranted–we’re not saying you have to fold like a cheap suit. What we are saying is that there’s a time and place for being nice, and maybe later, not so nice. Kindness works best…