Marcellus Drilling News

Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Lackawanna County | Pennsylvania | Regulation

DEP Grants Air Permit for 2nd Gas-Fired Elec Plant Near Scranton
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

The largest (so far) Marcellus Shale-gas fired electric plant in Pennsylvania is currently under construction in Lackawanna County, PA (near Scranton). The Lackawanna Energy Center, being built in Jessup by Invenergy, will produce 1,480 megawatts of electricity. However, there is a second, smaller Marcellus-fired electric plant also in the works. Last October, MDN brought you the news that Archbald Energy Partners, a collaboration between Canada-based EmberClear Corp. and New Jersey-based DCO Energy, wants to build a plant in Archbald, PA (again, near Scranton) that will produce 485 megawatts of electricity (see 2nd NatGas Electric Plant Proposed for Lackawanna County, PA). The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced yesterday they have issued an air quality permit for the Archbald project. This is an important step in the process of building the plant. Although more permits will be needed, we’d say the major hurdles have now been crossed. Below is the DEP announcement, a copy of the full air quality permit issued (68 pages), and responses to comments from members of the community who complained about the project…
Read More “DEP Grants Air Permit for 2nd Gas-Fired Elec Plant Near Scranton”
Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Tioga County (PA)

DEP Appeals $4.5M Wastewater Leak Fine Against EQT to Supremes
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

There’s a reason hospitals and court rooms are frequently the settings for soap operas on TV–there’s always so much drama surrounding medicine and the law–the latter of which is our focus today. In January MDN reported what seemed like the final chapter in a long, drawn-out case between Marcellus driller EQT and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). In October 2014, the DEP fined EQT a whopping $4.53 million for a leaky wastewater impoundment in Tioga County, PA (see PA DEP Levies Biggest Fine Ever, $4.5M Against EQT). While EQT did not say there wasn’t a problem with leaks at the site, they did say the way the DEP calculated the fine is unreasonable and arbitrary. In fact, EQT says the DEP levied the fine and took EQT to court because a few weeks prior EQT had sued the DEP over a different matter–that is, sour grapes. EQT appealed the fine and the case all the way to the PA Supreme Court. In December 2015, the high court handed EQT a “procedural victory” by saying EQT has a point about the manner in which the DEP is calculating the fine (see PA Supreme Court Gives EQT “Procedural Victory” in $4.5M Fine Case). The Supreme Court sent the case back to a lower court, PA Commonwealth Court, for follow up work, and in January 2017, a three-judge panel ruled that the method the DEP currently uses to assess fines–by how many days pollution lingers, instead of by how many days the initial release of pollution lasted–is not legal nor common sense (see EQT Wins Court Case Against PA DEP re $4.5M Wastewater Leak Fine). The judges said such a method in fining, “would result in potentially limitless continuing violations.” Under the old way of calculating fines, the DEP was considering upping the fine on EQT to an insane $157 million. Calculating it under the new way will mean a fine of around $120,000. We thought with that ruling it was all done and dusted. Not so. The soap opera continued when the DEP appealed the Commonwealth Court panel’s ruling back up to the PA Supreme Court where the Supremes will consider it all over again. When you read the “friend of the court” brief just filed by those supporting the DEP in their case, it’s a Who’s Who of Big Green organizations and virulent anti-drillers–which tells you all you need to know about which side is in the right in the case of EQT v DEP… Read More “DEP Appeals $4.5M Wastewater Leak Fine Against EQT to Supremes”
Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide OH

Turns Out OEPA & Columbus Dispatch Were Lying – Rover NOT Fined
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

Early last week MDN brought you the news that Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline project has been fined by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) for $431,000 for “18 incidents involving mud spills from drilling, stormwater pollution and open burning at Rover pipeline construction sites have been reported between late March and Monday” (see Ohio EPA Slaps Rover Pipe with $431K Fine for Spills, Other Issues). Based on OEPA’s report to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC then told Rover to stop any new horizontal drilling underground (see FERC Slaps Rover Pipeline with Stop Drilling Order). But at the end of last week, a spokeswoman for Energy Transfer told the ace reporters at Natural Gas Intelligence that Rover has NOT been fined by the OEPA (see ET Disputes Ohio EPA Action on Rover, Says there Is No $431K Fine), which led us to say in our opening: “Somebody somewhere isn’t telling the truth.” We now know who didn’t tell the truth: the OEPA and the Columbus Dispatch… Read More “Turns Out OEPA & Columbus Dispatch Were Lying – Rover NOT Fined”
Accidents | Delaware County (PA) | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Sunoco Logistics

ME2 Drilling Leaks 575 Gal of Bentonite Mud into Delco Creek
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

Sand bags placed to contain a leak of bentonite clay into Chester Creek. Credit: Middletown Coalition for Community Safety

When pipeline companies lay a pipeline–they dig a trench. But what happens when you come to a road, or a river, or a creek or another structure where you can’t just dig a trench? For those places, you drill horizontally underground–kind of like what shale drillers do. When drilling horizontally underground, the drill bit gets hot and needs to be cooled, so drilling “mud” is piped in to cool the bit as it chews away. Drilling mud for pipelines is, essentially, bentonite–a nontoxic clay. Bentonite is used to make shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste and kitty litter. You’ve probably already used a product today that contains bentonite. Sometimes when drilling, the bentonite mud leaks out–traveling along cracks in the rock. It’s called an “inadvertent return” in the business. We call it a leak. Fortunately, bentonite can leak all day long and it doesn’t pollute anything. However, if enough of it leaks into a river, stream, or wetland (i.e. swamp), it can smother aquatic life. Poor little critters can’t breathe. And that’s not good. Such leaks are what have slowed down progress on building the Rover Pipeline in Ohio–where one such incident leaked 2 million gallons of drilling mud (see Rover Pipeline Accident Spills ~2M Gal. Drilling Mud in OH Swamp). A leak of 575 gallons of drilling mud into a creek is hardly worth mentioning, but it recently happened when Sunoco Logistics was drilling horizontally under the Chester Creek in Delaware County (near Philadelphia) for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project. According to the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, not a single fish was killed in the leak… Read More “ME2 Drilling Leaks 575 Gal of Bentonite Mud into Delco Creek”
Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Westmoreland County

Murrysville, PA Drilling Ordinance – Anatomy of a Compromise
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

Westmoreland County, PA – click for larger version

Pennsylvania State regulations require a “setback” of 500 feet from the bore hole of an oil or gas well when it’s drilled. That means there can be no habitable structures (house, school, barn, etc.) within 500 feet of where the hole gets drilled. Last fall in Murrysville Township (Westmoreland County), the town council proposed a 1,000 foot setback–doubling the state requirement. Such a setback would eliminate much of any future drilling planned in the town. Public hearings were held and the Marcellus industry let it be known a lawsuit will follow if the town persists in such a restrictive setback ordinance. After much toing and froing, Murrysville Town Council approved a new ordinance on May 3–with a 750 foot setback from the edge of the well pad (not from the bore hole). It’s still quite restrictive, but apparently acceptable to the industry. Only one town council member (out of seven) voted against the new ordinance–an anti-driller… Read More “Murrysville, PA Drilling Ordinance – Anatomy of a Compromise”
Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Wayne County

Time to Tear Down the DRBC’s Iron Curtain in Pennsylvania
May 16, 2017June 15, 2017

Wikipedia: “The Iron Curtain was the name for the boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. A term symbolizing the efforts by the Soviet Union to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and non-Soviet-controlled areas. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were the countries that were connected to or influenced by the Soviet Union.” There is an “economic Iron Curtain” in Wayne County, PA–a curtain imposed by the Delaware River Basin Commission, or DRBC (equivalent to the Soviet Union in our metaphor). The DRBC refuses to allow shale well drilling and fracking in the Delaware River Basin, while next door in the Susquehanna River Basin such activity has been going great guns for years. As we previously reported, one brave landowner in Wayne County is fighting, in court, to rip down the DRBC Iron Curtain (see Wayne Co. Landowner Welcomes Decision in Dismissed DRBC Lawsuit). Here’s an update on efforts to defeat the Evil Empire… Read More “Time to Tear Down the DRBC’s Iron Curtain in Pennsylvania”
Energy Services | Huntingdon County (PA) | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA | Sunoco Logistics

Huntingdon Family Lawsuit Against ME2 Pipeline Fails, Game Over
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

You may recall our story about the daughter of a Huntingdon County, PA landowner, radicalized by Big Green groups (as evidenced by her association with well known protesters previously arrested), who took to a tree on her mom’s property in order to illegally stop crews working on tree clearing for the Mariner East 2 pipeline (see PA Anti Literally Goes Up a Tree to Stop Mariner East 2 Pipeline). It ultimately didn’t matter, because Sunoco came back and cut down the few trees they need to cut anyway (see Sunoco Tricks Radicalized Protester – Returns and Cuts More Trees). In December, the up-a-tree girl and her mom, with lawyers and backing by Big Green money, launched a final “hail Mary” pass by appealing a case to the PA Commonwealth Court, asking the court to stop the ME2 project by claiming it doesn’t have the right to use eminent domain (see Desperate Antis Try One Last Legal Maneuver to Stop Mariner East 2). Like so many other “hail Mary” desperation passes, this one never found the arms of a receiver. Yesterday the court turned down the appeal… Read More “Huntingdon Family Lawsuit Against ME2 Pipeline Fails, Game Over”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | PennEast Pipeline | Pipelines

Dem Candidate for NJ Gov Opposes PennEast, After He $upported It
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

Phil Murphy

There is a primary and general election later this year for the office of governor in New Jersey. Democrats are crawling all over themselves to try and win the nomination. All of them have made the PennEast Pipeline a campaign issue by opposing it (“I hate it”…”No, I hate it more!”). It is an appeal to the unhinged, radical environmental movement in the state–a movement that seems to have much more power than its size suggests it should. In what we find rather amusing (and disgusting, at the same time), the leading Democrat candidate, Phil Murphy, previously invested in the companies that are behind the PennEast Pipeline project. Now he says he opposes the pipeline… Read More “Dem Candidate for NJ Gov Opposes PennEast, After He $upported It”
Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

2017 Shale Gas Innovation Contest Winners Share $60K in Prizes
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

Envelope please! (No, this is not Warren Beatty, we have the correct envelope!) Each year the Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation & Commercialization Center (SGICC) runs a contest and awards a $20,000 prize to three companies ($60,000 purse) for the “best shale energy-oriented innovations, new product ideas, or service concepts that are either in the development stage or recently launched” in the Marcellus Shale. This year’s winners were recently announced: Frontier Natural Resources, Inc. won for commercializing the first small scale LNG facility in Pennsylvania, using natural gas from an adjacent gathering and compression facility. PetroMar Technologies, Inc. won for commercializing FracView™, a low-cost borehole imaging tool that takes high resolution pictures, even through drilling mud. And Sensor Networks, Inc. won for its product line of permanently installed battery powered ultrasonic sensors, providing remote, wireless data collection of critical pipe infrastructure wall thickness. Here’s the deets… Read More “2017 Shale Gas Innovation Contest Winners Share $60K in Prizes”
Best of the Rest

Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017May 16, 2017

The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Utica Shale adds another rig, Marcellus remains steady; heavy equipment apprentices train in PA; Cheniere offers $1 billion in notes; 3 important deadlines in Trump energy plan; concerns about reliability of natgas for electric generation overblown; OPEC needs to cut more; Mexico increasing US imports of natgas; and more! Read More “Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Tue, May 16, 2017”
Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Virginia

VA Landowner Uses State Police to Eject Pipeline Surveyors
May 15, 2017May 15, 2017

Increasingly landowners (and anti-fossil fuelers, sometimes one and the same) are attempting to employ the use of local law enforcement to prohibit pipeline companies from surveying their land–especially in Virginia. Survey crews for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA, have the right under Virginia State law to enter a property without the property owner’s permission to survey–as long as they have sent a prior notice to the landowner with target dates of when they will be on location. However, some landowners (very small percentage) don’t want the pipeline and don’t want surveyors on their property–and have had their lawyers tell them so. When surveyors recently turned up on one property, the landowners called the State Police. The State Police (as well as local police) have a stated policy that they do not interfere with non-criminal matters. And surveying a property legally is not a criminal matter. However, the troopers came out and had a quick talk with the surveyors. The troopers did not eject the surveyors per se, but soon after the troopers left the surveyors did too. This is troublesome and problematic. Did the troopers put undue pressure on the surveyors to leave? Should the troopers have come to the property at all? Does the landowner have culpability in calling the cops for a non-criminal matter, wasting the troopers’ time?… Read More “VA Landowner Uses State Police to Eject Pipeline Surveyors”
Commodity Price | Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide OH

Why Rover Pipe is a Big Deal & How it Affects Natl NatGas Prices
May 15, 2017May 15, 2017

As MDN began reporting last week, Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline, a $4 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, has quickly become a soap opera. MDN brought you the news that Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline project has been fined by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) for $431,000 for “18 incidents involving mud spills from drilling, stormwater pollution and open burning at Rover pipeline construction sites have been reported between late March and Monday” (see Ohio EPA Slaps Rover Pipe with $431K Fine for Spills, Other Issues). Based on OEPA’s report to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC then told Rover to stop any new horizontal drilling underground (see FERC Slaps Rover Pipeline with Stop Drilling Order). And last Friday, we told you that Energy Transfer is claiming they’ve not been fined by the OEPA (see ET Disputes Ohio EPA Action on Rover, Says there Is No $431K Fine). Oy vey! Gas traders have taken notice of this unfolding drama, and the news surrounding Rover has actually moved the price of gas up. Which seems somewhat incredulous. You mean, a single pipeline has the power to make the national price of natural gas go up or down? How can that be?! Here’s a statistic you don’t often read: Rover Pipeline, when it’s fully functional, will move 14% of all the gas produced in the Marcellus/Utica (using today’s production numbers). That is an incredible statistic–and it has the power to move the price of natural gas–up or down… Read More “Why Rover Pipe is a Big Deal & How it Affects Natl NatGas Prices”
Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | NEXUS Pipeline | Ohio | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide OH

CORNballs Strike Again, File Lawsuit to Stop NEXUS Pipeline
May 15, 2017May 15, 2017

A group of landowners in Ohio calling themselves the Coalition to Reroute Nexus (CORN), whom we affectionately call CORNballs, have filed a lawsuit in court against the NEXUS pipeline project. Not to actually reroute NEXUS, but to kill it. To stop it. The landowners are asking a federal court to block the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) from allowing the project to proceed–which of course is not going to happen–and to legally bar the NEXUS Gas Transmission project from building the pipeline. Which has been the aim of the CORNballs from the beginning–contrary to the party line that they just want it rerouted around them. The CORNballs seem to be in league with antis in the City of Green, OH, who recently voted to give $100,000 of taxpayer money to high-priced Cleveland lawyers to try and stop NEXUS (see Green, OH Paying Lawyers $100K to Fund Stop NEXUS Crusade). Green also gave CORN $10,000, which no doubt is helping fund CORN’s legal effort to stop NEXUS… Read More “CORNballs Strike Again, File Lawsuit to Stop NEXUS Pipeline”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Crime | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Lancaster County | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA | Transco | Williams

PA State Senator Introducing Law to Send Protesters Cleanup Bill
May 15, 2017May 15, 2017

Here’s a story we LOVE! As we previously reported, anti-fossil fuel “protesters” (i.e. paid thugs) in North Dakota, there to try and stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from being completed (which didn’t work), left a major mess behind when they finally moved on (see Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters Turn Violent; Coming Here Next?). The protesters, supposedly there to protect Mom Earth, left behind massive piles of garbage which, with the spring floods, threatened the local environment they were supposedly there to protect. State and local governments ended up paying millions of dollars to clean up the filth left behind to avoid an environmental catastrophe. As we’ve also reported, a number of times, anti-fossil fuel zealots from Lancaster County, PA are attempting to lure the same group of paid rabble-rousers to peaceful Lancaster County to reenact the same destruction–in a bid to stop the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project (see PA Anti Hopes to Bring Standing Rock Disaster to Lancaster County). Earlier this month a local state senator from Lancaster, Scott Martin, convened a closed-door meeting to help local law enforcement and first responders prepare for the coming lawlessness of the protesters (see Lancaster Forum to Focus on Handling Anarchists in Pipeline Protest). Now Sen. Martin is set to introduce legislation that will give the bill for any cleanup of a large protest camp–to the protesters! That’s right, if they want to “assemble peaceably” and speak their minds–go right ahead. But if you create a massive dump like you created in North Dakota, this time you (the nutty protesters) are going to pay to clean it up. LOVE IT!… Read More “PA State Senator Introducing Law to Send Protesters Cleanup Bill”
Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation

Slight Delay: New Date for FERC Approval of Atlantic Coast Pipe
May 15, 2017May 15, 2017

There has been a slight delay from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in the approval process for Dominion’s $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline–a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. On Friday, FERC issued an official update to Dominion to say that instead of issuing a final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on June 30, 2017, as previously promised, the agency will now provide the final EIS on July 21, 2017–three weeks later. The final EIS is an important step in the process–perhaps THE most important step. When/if FERC issues a positive EIS that finds a project will not cause undue environmental harm, it’s usually all over. Yes, other steps are involved, but a final approval is then a foregone conclusion. So IF the final EIS is delivered on July 21, a 90-day clock begins ticking. FERC will then have until Oct. 19 to deliver their final final final approval of the project…
Read More “Slight Delay: New Date for FERC Approval of Atlantic Coast Pipe”
Industrywide Issues | Lancaster County | Maryland | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide MD | Statewide PA

Delmarva Pipeline Expansion Gets Positive FERC Enviro Review
May 15, 2017May 15, 2017

Click for larger version

In July 2016 MDN told you about a smallish, but important pipeline project in the Delmarva Peninsula area, which includes most of Delaware and portions of Maryland and Virginia. Eastern Shore Natural Gas’ 2017 System Expansion project will bring new sources of natgas from an interconnection Eastern Shore has with the mighty TETCo (Texas Eastern Company) pipeline near Philadelphia (see PA/MD/DE Pipeline Project Heats Up with Open House Mtgs This Week). Although Eastern Shore, a subsidiary of Chesapeake Utilities Corporation, ran a non-binding open season in 2015, and although they pre-filed for the expansion project in May 2016, they didn’t file a full, official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) until January of this year (see Eastern Shore Files with FERC to Expand Delmarva Pipeline). The project includes 22.7 miles of new looping pipeline (laid next to existing pipeline) in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware; a 16.9-mile extension to a pipeline in Sussex County, DE; and upgrades to compressor and valve stations. Chesapeake Utilities, the parent company, calls the project the single largest such expansion in Eastern Shore’s history, a project that will bump up gas delivery volumes by 25%. Good news: FERC has just released the initial Environmental Assessment (EA). View the full 295-page document below. Interested parties now have until June 12 to comment on the EA, after which FERC will evaluate those comments and issue a final EA…
Read More “Delmarva Pipeline Expansion Gets Positive FERC Enviro Review”