US DOJ Demands Payments from GE re Unsold Water Biz
In July, GE Oil & Gas completed its merger/buyout of oilfield services giant Baker Hughes (see Baker Hughes and GE Complete Merger, World’s 1st Fullstream Co.). As is typical in these kinds of megamergers, governmental agencies that review the deal make the deal contingent on certain requirements. In the case of GE/Baker Hughes, the U.S. Dept. of Justice demanded GE sell its Water & Process Technologies business. GE agreed, and lined up a buyer (Suez, a French waste and water group). However, the deal has not happened (yet), and because there is a delay in making it happen due to “various administrative challenges,” the DOJ is demanding GE make DAILY payments–to the DOJ–as an “incentive” to get the deal done. The amount of the payments is unspecified. Where will all that money go? We don’t know, but we can certainly imagine. What do swamp-dwellers do with free money?…
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The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Tractor-trailer carrying Atlantic Sunrise pipe equipment collides with minivan in Lancaster County; Dominion close to starting up Cove Point LNG plant; Ohio River communities unite to leverage shale; the U.S. shale play to watch in 2018 (not the M-U); why we want fracking in Illinois; natgas market set to boom; EPA chief Pruitt directive sends “sue and settle” racket into death rattle; and more!
The Wall Street Journal is reporting rumors that the privately-held Ascent Resources, which targets the Utica Shale in Ohio, is shopping for bankers to help it with an initial public offering (IPO). Ascent reportedly is aiming for a stock market valuation of $3.5 billion. Ascent was formerly known as American Energy Partners (AEP), founded by Aubrey McClendon after he was unceremoniously dumped as CEO of Chesapeake Energy–the company he co-founded. AEP set up a number of subsidiary companies to target different shale plays. One of the largest was aimed squarely at the Ohio Utica (American Energy Partners–Utica LLC). That company later left the AEP fold, under pressure from investors, and became an independent company, renaming itself as Ascent Resources. Ascent, just like founder Aubrey, went on a money-raising binge after departing the AEP fold. In March 2016 Ascent floated 2.2 billion common units (think shares of stock) to raise $500 million (see 
As predicted earlier this week, yesterday the Pennsylvania House Finance Committee voted to approve a 3.2% severance tax on top of the existing 5%+ impact tax (see 
According to the energy experts at RBN Energy, ethane production in the Marcellus/Utica region will go from 470,000 barrels per day now to 800,000 barrels per day by 2022–a 70% increase. Ethane, which is sometimes up to 10% of the hydrocarbons coming out of Marcellus/Utica wells (from wet gas and oil wells), can be an important revenue stream. However, you have to have someplace to sell it. Right now, many Marcellus/Utica producers have to mix in the ethane with the methane stream in order to get rid of it. In other words, it costs them money. It’s a waste product. However, when the Shell cracker plant in Beaver County, PA and (possibly) the PTT Global cracker plant in Belmont County, OH go online, important new markets will open up. But even two huge crackers won’t be able to buy all of the available ethane. There are a slew of new cracker plants coming online in the Gulf Coast over the next five years that could use Marcellus/Utica ethane. But will they? The problem, as always, is pipelines. According to an analysis by RBN, the prospects for moving more of our ethane to the Gulf Coast do not look good…
EmberClear Corp. (and its parent Ember Partners) is a Canadian-based company that builds and operates natural gas-fired electric generation plants in North America. In 2015, EmberClear filed an application to build a new 488-megawatt natural gas-fired electric plant in Birdsboro, in Berks County, near Philadelphia (see 
In May MDN brought you the news that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had announced plans to construct a new “state-of-the-art, locally-sourced mini-power grid” that will connect to the statewide electric grid but will also be able to operate independently, to power the Empire State Plaza in Albany–a complex of buildings in downtown Albany housing much of New York State government (see 
Last week MDN brought you news about a relatively new company called American Energy Partners, Inc., based in Allentown, PA, and their subsidiary company Gilbert Oil & Gas (see 
Energy Solutions Consortium, aka the father and son team of Andrew and Matthew Dorn–have been trying to build a 750 megawatt natural gas-fired electric plant in Follansbee (Brooke County), WV for years. In fact, the Dorns have a number of gas-fired electric plant projects on the board for WV, and have since 2015 (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed House Bill (HB) 542 to try and finalize the three month plus late PA budget. This latest bill (see the summary below) uses mostly borrowing, against tobacco settlement money and small tax increases on online businesses and fireworks distributors to balance this year’s budget. The bill does NOT include a severance tax. Sounding like Johnny One-Note, PA Gov. Wolf immediately said any final deal must include a Marcellus-killing severance tax, or he won’t sign it. Some of the traitorous Republicans in the Senate still want to see a severance tax too (see 
Rover Pipeline has been served a violation from the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality claiming the company discharged polluted water from its drilling operations into a wetland. Which may sound familiar, because Rover was cited for fouling a wetland in Ohio with 2 million gallons of drilling mud back in April (see