Japanese Co Buys 1/3 of Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant in SEPA
Speaking of Pennsylvania Marcellus gas-fired projects, here’s an update on a power plant we first told you about last October, coming to the Philadelphia area (see New NatGas-Fired Electric Plant Coming Near Philadelphia). In 2015, EmberClear filed an application to build a new 488-megawatt natural gas-fired electric plant in Birdsboro (Berks County). The new plant is called Birdsboro Power and requires various approvals before it can be built. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is involved. PJM Interconnection is involved. And the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection is involved. All three have issued various permits and edicts in connection with the project. EmberClear plans to begin construction in 2018, with an in-service date of June 2019. As often happens with these projects, which cost big bucks to build, the Birdsboro plant has just taken on a major investor/joint owner, from Japan. Sojitz Corporation has just purchased one-third of the project for an undisclosed sum. Below is a bit more about Sojitz, and the latest details about the Birdsboro project…
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Isn’t it refreshing when those who oppose something, like fracking, or pipelines, are just honest about their true “heart of hearts” motivation? We’ve made the case for years that charlatans like Josh Fox (of Gasland infamy) attempt to manipulate public opinion through the use of lies–like “fracking pollutes water” and “pipelines explode.” They attempt to smear fundamentally safe practices like fracking through the use of innuendo, supposition and lies. What is their true motivation? They oppose fossil fuels. They believe, in a rather kindergartenish way, that solar and wind and so-called renewable energy sources are superior–and if you don’t want to pay the high price of those sources, well, they want to FORCE you to accept it. But we’re not Stalinist Russia–yet. They can’t just enforce their will on the public. So they have to convince enough of the public to believe their lies that politicians will follow suit and pass laws to strip away more of our freedoms (see 
The ax is about to swing at the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While we don’t wish ill on anyone, and especially we don’t like to see people out of a job, this is one time when it’s necessary and LONG overdue. The EPA is populated with many career employees who lean far to the left–and it’s about time they were gone. An internal EPA memo has turned up (full copy below) that outlines plans to downside the agency from 15,000 employees to around 11,500–about a 23% reduction. The bold move has many career Democrats at the agency in “shock” and in “dread” over the prospect of losing their jobs. But in typical fashion, these Dems are not just going to wilt away. Their union plans to fight to keep the jobs and to keep the leftist Obama environmental agenda alive in the Trump Administration. Good luck with that. Remember what happened to the air traffic controllers’ union in the Reagan Administration?…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Energy analysts call Maryland frack ban “symbolic”; are Atlantic Sunrise opponents just bullies; Vermont Supreme Court considering gas pipeline case; Trump’s failure to appoint FERC posts is hurting key pipeline projects; US energy consumption went up in 2016, even as coal generation went down; Qatar makes bold move to reassert grip on natgas market; Total opens 1st natgas fueling station in France–where they’ve banned fracking; China now top buyer of US crude; and more!
Metaphorically speaking–Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s finger was on the trigger of a loaded pistol, pointed at the head of the once-great State of Maryland. And now, Hogan pulled the trigger, assassinating any hope of new jobs, new wealth for some of the state’s poorest people (farmers and landowners in western Maryland), and new tax revenue for local communities. BANG. Done. Killed. Death. Thanks Larry, you da man. We previously reported that the Maryland House had loaded the chamber, and then the Senate had cocked the gun and put it in Hogan’s hand (see 
Carbon Natural Gas Company, an independent oil and gas exploration and production company, owns, operates and develops oil and gas properties in the Appalachian, Illinois and Ventura Basin areas of the U.S. Most of the wells they own and operate are conventional. However, the company is dipping its toe into unconventional shale as well. Yesterday Carbon issued a press release to announce they have formed a subsidiary called Carbon Appalachian Company, with backing from two unnamed institutional investors. The new venture has access to a whopping $100 million to get them going, with $20 million of that going to the purchase of “natural gas producing properties and related facilities” located in Tennessee. Currently the existing wells just purchased by Carbon in TN produce a measly 3.6 million cubic feet per day (Mcf/d) of mostly natural gas. You paid $20M for that?! Aaahh, there’s more to the story. The acreage that comes with the wells is located in the Chattanooga Shale–a shale layer much shallower than the Marcellus or Utica. Carbon plans to drill horizontal wells in the Chattanooga. Which got us to thinking: How active is the Chattanooga? Who else is drilling there? Is there shale drilling in TN? We found some answers…
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project, which filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2015, is being built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners. The project has faced stiff opposition from landowners in both West Virginia and Virginia. Although the project is not yet fully approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the project did get a favorable Draft Environmental Impact Statement from FERC last September (see 
On Monday Pennsylvania House Republicans released their version of a state budget, and yesterday (Tuesday) they voted to pass it. Ba-boom! The budget is noteworthy for many reasons. Of prime interest to MDN is that the budget does NOT include PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s insane 6.5% severance tax (see 
Luuucy! You have some ‘splainin’ to do! Somebody at the Scranton Times-Tribune, a reliably anti-drilling rag in the heart of Marcellus country, will have some explaining to do about an editorial that just ran in the Times-Tribune’s sister publication the Wilkes-Barre Citizens’ Voice. We can’t remember the last time we read a positive editorial about the drilling industry in either the Times-Tribune or the Citizens’ Voice, but yesterday it happened. A editorial in the Citizens’ Voice deals with eminent domain being used for pipeline projects, including Atlantic Sunrise. You may recall we recently highlighted the news that Williams has (regrettably) had to file eminent domain cases against 27 holdout landowners in northeast PA (see 
Pssst. Hey buddy. Got a spare power plant you want to sell? Consumers Energy is Michigan’s largest utility, providing natural gas and electricity to 6.7 million of the state’s 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties. Consumers is canceling an existing contract with Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant in 2018 and needs to replace the electricity they were buying from the plant. So Consumers is going shopping–for a natural gas-fired power plant that can provide up to 800 megawatts of electricity. Who wants to lay odds that whichever plant they end up buying will be supplied, at least partially, but Utica/Marcellus gas…
As we do every month, MDN tracks how many rigs oilfield services company Patterson-UTI Energy reports operating–as a proxy for when/if the drop in rig counts for the Marcellus/Utica will turn around. Patterson operates a number of rigs in the northeast, as well as other areas of the continental United States (and Canada). Patterson was our “canary down the mine shaft” for discerning when the deep, dark recession in drilling would turn around. It happened in June 2016–and every single month since that time, including the month of March. In fact, Patterson’s March rig count jumped by 10, to an average of 88 active rigs operating in the U.S. That’s the biggest single monthly increase since they began adding rigs again last June…
Early Sunday morning there was a low-level earthquake in Monroe County, OH–that literally nobody felt–but was picked up on seismic monitors by the U.S. Geological Survey. There was, according to the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) one fracking operation “near” the earthquake that ODNR shut down within an hour after the event–out of an abundance of caution. Immediately several radical anti-drilling groups, including the Ohio Environmental Council and the Sierra Club, jumped on the news and declared fracking unsafe and too risky in the nearby Wayne National Forest. With zero proof that it was tied to either fracking or wastewater injection wells. Here’s the news, and the way the news is being distorted by antis…
This is a story we have not previously covered on MDN. It goes back to 2010 and involves two of the biggest Marcellus/Utica drillers–although in this case the issue is not related to the Marcellus/Utica. Landowners in southwestern Virginia previously sued both EQT and CONSOL Energy’s CNX subsidiary over charges that EQT and CNX shorted landowners out of royalties owed to them, claiming post-production expenses, deductions for severance taxes, etc. that should not have been taken. The wells drilled were conventional wells–some 3,347 EQT wells and 4,261 CNX wells. The vertical wells targeted methane extraction from coal seams–not horizontal wells through shale, which is far more common today. Some lawsuits were green lighted as class action cases in 2013, with a potential for “thousands of landowners” to participate in sharing $30 million in payouts. Last week a federal judge certified three of the five class action lawsuits, allowing them to move forward…
A few weeks ago MDN reported on an upcoming meeting (to be held March 27) in Monroe County, OH to announce a new project to build a 485-megawatt Utica gas-fired electric plant (see 
West Virginia has become a hotbed of pipeline projects. You don’t realize it until you stand back and consider all of the proposed projects for major interstate natural gas (or gas liquids) pipelines. There are, in fact, nine such major projects on the board. Some of them either are, or soon will be, under construction. Not all of them are yet approved by their respective regulatory agencies–but most are. If we were to bet, we’d bet most of the nine will get built. Can you name all nine projects? Let us give you some help: Atlantic Coast, Mountain Valley, Western Marcellus, WB XPress, Leach XPress, Mountaineer XPress, Buckeye XPress, Rover, and Appalachian Storage Hub. Actually that last one, the storage hub, is a series of six pipelines–but we lump them all into one project. Here’s a summary of each project, most of them coming soon to the Mountain State…