Would Antis Oppose Pipelines If They Flowed Beer Instead of Gas?
Antis have lots of excuses for why they don’t want pipelines built. Digging trenches will cause erosion. Drilling mud may get spilled into ecologically sensitive areas, like swamps (i.e. wetlands). Landowners are “forced” to accept easements on their property and can’t build things over top of where a pipeline runs. But mostly, it’s because of what’s inside the pipeline that antis get their knickers in a twist. They irrationally hate fossil fuels–and pipelines flow fossil fuels (natural gas, gas liquids, oil, etc.) through them. And that runs counter to the gospel of renewable energy. But what if you replaced natural gas with, oh, chocolate? Or what about replacing it with beer? Yeah, that’s the ticket! What if there were a pipeline flowing beer instead of natural gas. Would antis still oppose it? You no longer have wonder. There IS such a pipeline–in Belgium. Plenty of antis inhabit Belgium. When it came time to build a new bottling plant some two miles from the Half Moon brewery, there was a problem: How to get the beer to the bottling plant. So Half Moon built a pipeline–under the streets of Bruges, a World Heritage Site full of historical sites. Yep, right underneath–and not a single protest…
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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: Marcellus/Utica rig count stays near 2017 high; NY towns say NO to wind farms; WNF fracking helps fund OH schools; Philly refinery works threaten to strike over cut benefits; tale of two counties–Susquehanna & Broome; MI antis fearmongering re Rover Pipe; frac sand saves railroads; oil bull has turned bear; and more!
So-called “activist investor” (i.e. corporate raider) Jana Partners, in league with the Cohen family (Atlas Energy) has started a proxy fight and is trying to block EQT’s takover/merger with Rice Energy. Jana is the same company that recently helped Amazon buy Whole Foods. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday (embedded below), Jana disclosed the company has purchased ~5% of EQT’s stock and is launching an effort to block EQT’s proposed buyout of Rice Energy (see 
Although a final investment decision (FID) is still months away, Thailand-based PTT Global Chemical decided spending $13.8 million to buy 168 acres at the proposed site for a second Appalachia ethane cracker, in Belmont County, OH, would be a good investment. Which they have now done. The deal, which closed in June, is just now coming to light. PTT bought the land for the site from FirstEnergy Corporation. The deal was recorded at the Belmont County Courthouse on June 14. This is yet another sign that PTT will make a positive FID later this year. Even though PTT just bought the land, work was previously done on the site to clear it and get it ready for construction, as we reported in December (see 
In a story about PA’s “moribund” drilling industry beginning to turn around, the AP notes some news that we think it pretty significant. For the first six months of 2017, PA shale drillers have drilled 397 shale wells. That’s more than twice the number they drilled in the first six months of 2016. There are now 20 additional drilling rigs active in the Marcellus, and fracking crews are in “short supply.” This is all great news for the PA Marcellus, something to celebrate on the day after July 4th…
As MDN reported in June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court of Appeals, in a sharply divided 3-2 decision, sided with virulent anti-drilling group Pennsylvania Environmental Defense Foundation against the state in saying that any royalties generated from drilling on state-owned land MUST be used solely for conservation and the environment (see 
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wisely move to begin the process of rolling back Obama-era regulations on methane, designed to regulate the oil and gas industry, last month (see 
Keane Group is a Texas-based oilfield services company that provides fracking, wireline and top-hole air drilling services to oil and gas companies in the Marcellus/Utica as well as several other major basins. In January 2016, Keane announced they were buying out Canadian-based Trican Well Service for $247 million (see 
Here’s a fact: Fossil fuels have provided more than 80% of total U.S. energy consumption for more than 100 years. Here’s another fact: Fossil fuels provided 81% of America’s energy consumption in 2016–last year. What about all those precious so-called renewables? They provided a little over 10% of our energy needs. However, don’t confuse “renewables” with “solar and wind,” because renewables also include biomass and hydro. If you look only at wind and solar, they provided around 2.5-3% of our overall energy needs last year. When some crackpot claims we could just flip a switch and begin using all renewables anytime before the next 100 years, you know they’re delusional. Ain’t, gonna, happen. You read it here first…
The natural gas market in the United States is big and complex, with a lot of moving parts. When MDN editor Jim Willis began working in the market full-time in 2012, he learned from some of the best in the business–the people at Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI). There’s a whole lot more to our wonderful market than just drilling wells for natural gas, the “upstream” part of the business. There’s also pipelines, processing plants and compressor stations–the “midstream”; and petrochemical plants, LNG exports and other end users, the “downstream.” Perhaps one the key lessons Jim learned early on in working with NGI is ours is a market driven solely by price. And not just one price! Yes, the Henry Hub in South Louisiana is the most quoted price point in the world when it comes to natgas. Indeed, it forms the basis price against which all other trading points are measured. But Jim learned early on there isn’t just one price for natural gas, there are many (hundreds!) of prices for natural gas, because natural gas is traded at hundreds of different locations along pipelines, all around the country. When Jim was being taught about the markets and prices and why and where drillers decide to drill, driven by price, one of the key resources used to teach Jim was the NGI Map of Shale & Resource Plays in North America. It was a revelation that made a lasting impression when Jim’s tutors walked him over to the NGI map hanging on the wall and pointed out all of the different shale plays, pipelines, and trading points along those pipelines. Suddenly, the complex world of natgas with its many moving parts snapped into place. It was now understandable. NGI’s wall map is the tool that did that for Jim. Perhaps it can do the same for you…
MDN has extensively covered the story of a family in Huntingdon County, PA radicalized by the Big Green movement into opposing the Mariner East 2 pipeline across their property. The Gerhart family, with the assistance of what Sunoco Logistics Partners calls “eco-terrorists,” have pledged to illegally block construction of the pipeline. So a few weeks ago Sunoco asked a Huntingdon County judge to grant an injunction against the Gerharts AND the interloping eco-terrorists–to have them forcibly removed if they attempt to stop construction which is about to begin (see 
A liberal Democrat County from the Washtenaw County, Mich. Board of Commissioners, someone who obviously ignores the rule of law, has pledged to break the law in her misguided attempt to stop Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline project from coming through her county. Lib Dems often like to pick and choose which laws they will obey and which they’ll ignore, so we’re not surprised by the mouthy reaction from Commissioner Michelle Deatrick, D-Superior Township. She’s like many other radical anti-fossil fuelers. Michelle is an Al Gore fan and has apparently overdosed on trailers for Gore’s forthcoming Inconvenient Truth Part Deux fictional flick, called “Truth to Power,” because that’s the exact phase she used at a recent board meeting. Here’s what mouthy Michelle had to say…