WV Sens. Capito & Manchin Introduce 2 More Ethane Storage Hub Bills
In May, both West Virginia U.S. Senators, Shelley Moore Capito (Republican) and Joe Manchin (Democrat), along with Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, introduced and co-sponsored a bill to study if and how an ethane storage hub can be constructed in the Marcellus/Utica region (see WV/OH Senators Intro Bill to Study Appalachian Ethane Storage Hub). Apparently the issue is more important that just a single bill. Yesterday Sens. Capito and Manchin introduced/sponsored another new bill. Called the “Capitalizing American Storage Potential (CASP) Act,” this new bill would make a regional ethane storage hub (the one envisioned for West Virginia) eligible for the Department of Energy’s Title XVII loan guarantee program. According to the Dept. of Energy website, Title XVII “provides broad authority for the Department to guarantee loans that support early commercial use of advanced technologies, if there is reasonable prospect of repayment by the borrower.” In other words, if the federal government guarantees a loan, lenders are more likely to make said loans at more favorable interest rates. Such a loan is “another tool that the Department will use to promote commercial use of innovative technologies” and is targeted for commercial operations only–not for use in energy research. If the bill passes, it will make building the ethane storage hub that much more attractive. In addition to the Title XVII bill, Sen. Capito also introduced a bill to hack through the red tape and streamline an approval process for the storage hub…
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In March, Mark McCollum, who had been Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services company, left to become the CEO of Weatherford, the world’s fourth largest oilfield services company (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Appalachia gas supply outlook vs. takeaway capacity; critics see Cuomo power play at the PSC; Beaver County developer buys 63 acres behind Beaver Valley Mall near Shell cracker site; ethane cracker tops Pennsylvania’s top construction projects; shale-oil boomtown climbs back from the bust; be happy that natural gas and fracking are here to stay; fracking says “You’re welcome, America” for low gasoline prices; Harold Hamm says American natgas is going to have “world impact”; Trump wants to boost natgas exports to India; and more!
The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has just issued production numbers for the first quarter of 2017. The bad news is that oil production continued to slide in 1Q17, down 29% from the same quarter in 2016. However, that’s an improvement from 4Q16 when oil production was down 44% (see 
In delicious irony, Robinson Township (Washington County), PA, one of the original seven selfish towns that sued Pennsylvania and eventually won at the PA Supreme Court, overturning a portion of the state’s 2012 Act 13 shale drilling law (granting towns the right to self-regulate some aspects of oil and gas drilling by using onerous zoning ordinances), is about to get a new Marcellus gas-fired electric plant. That is, a plant that burns the stuff they don’t like drilled. In April, MDN shared a list of five new Marcellus gas-fired plants coming in Southwestern PA (see 
We’re going to take a stab at this, and we are not confident we will get it 100% right. With that as a warning, we recently reported that a case brought by landowners in northeastern PA against Chesapeake Energy over unwarranted royalty deductions suffered a bit of a setback (see 
In April MDN provided an update on the Sabal Train Transmission pipeline project (see 
In May MDN conveyed the news that it appears Mountaineer NGL Storage, which wants to build a new underground NGL storage facility in Monroe County, Ohio, near Clarington, along the Ohio River (see 
A group of profoundly radical “environmental” organizations filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit last Friday against the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection–for doing their job. Sierra Club, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Appalachian Voices and Chesapeake Climate Action Network has sued the DEP because the department had the audacity to conduct a very thorough review, and then issue a stream and water-crossing permit (demanded under federal law) for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). 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. This is now SOP–standard operating procedure–for Big Green groups with deep pockets. Sue and keep suing in an attempt to slow and eventually kill off any project that remotely involves fossil fuels. Yes, they are RADICAL, they are EXTREME, waaaaaay outside the mainstream of American society. And they MUST BE STOPPED. When will someone launch weekly lawsuits against these Big Green organizations? Here’s the latest maddening development…
In December 2016, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) unveiled new regulations to clamp down on methane emissions and other other air pollution that allegedly comes from shale drilling sites (see 
On Friday, Exxon Mobil took the gloves off and went after the out-of-control New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Last year Schneiderman decided he would try to shake down Exxon for billions of dollars, claiming the company wasn’t being honest with shareholders about the threat of man-made global warming, which doesn’t actually exist. He said Exxon should have done more to warn shareholders that they invest in a filthy, rotten, human-killing Big Oil company–a company whose stock will someday implode. We’ve covered Schneiderman’s witch hunt from the beginning (
Just a quick reminder that the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection is conducting four public hearings, beginning today and running through Wednesday, for the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. If there is any way you can make it to one of the hearings to show your support for the project, do it! Below is the DEP announcement sharing the locations for the hearings. Today are two hearings, both from 6-9p, one in Tunkhannock and the other in Lancaster. Tomorrow the hearing is in Bloomsburg, and Wednesday in Annville. Come out to support this critical pipeline project…
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events.
Something truly amazing is happening in rural Susquehanna County, PA, nestled in the northeastern corner of the state (shares a border with Broome County, NY, where MDN is located). At a special event yesterday held in Montrose, the county seat, Cabot Oil & Gas announced a major milestone. Cabot has, over the past ten years, paid out $1 billion in royalties and another $500 million in lease bonuses. Did you catch that? In a single decade, Susquehanna County has received a $1.5 BILLION economic stimulus in private money flooding into the county–from just one of the major drillers working in the county. And that doesn’t include $3.1 billion spent on equipment and crews to do the drilling (a number we verified with Cabot)! There are other companies drilling in Susquehanna County as well. In very real, practical terms, that means school taxes have not gone up–in years. Property taxes have actually gone DOWN. Mortgages have been paid off. Kids have gone to college–without incurring years of debt hanging over them when they graduate. Story after story was shared of how Cabot’s drilling program has resulted in radically changed (for the better) lives in Susquehanna County. Cabot has pulled some 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas out of what Cabot rep George Stark says is “the sweetest spot to be” in the country. Little known factoid: A single company (Cabot) drilling in one county (Susquehanna) produces nearly 3% of the entire natural gas output in the United States. Amazing! You know what’s even more amazing? Binghamton media blocked all reporting about this major news….