FERC Delays PennEast Pipe 3rd Time, PennEast Spins as ‘Good News’
PennEast Pipeline is a very important $1 billion, 118-mile, primarily 36-inch pipeline that will get built from Dallas (Luzerne County), PA to Transco’s pipeline interconnection near Pennington (Mercer County), NJ. It will feed local utilities and power generation plants along its route. In April 2016 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees permitting for the pipeline, told PennEast the agency would extend the amount of time they are taking until December 2016, rather than the original target of August, to complete their environmental review (see PennEast Spins FERC Delay as a Good Thing – Optimism or Denial?). It was (for us) a small red flag. Hey, it happens. Projects get delayed because regulatory agencies get bogged down. But then it happened again: FERC told PennEast they would once again move the goal posts and delay the final environmental review from December 2016 to February 2017 (see FERC Delays PennEast Pipeline Final Review – Again). Hmmm. Bigger red flag. Now FERC is doing it for a third time, which is a huge red flag in our book. FERC issued a statement on Friday to say the final environmental review now won’t happen until April. What’s going on? And why is PennEast once again spinning this as some sort of “good news”?…
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“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” (Proverbs 26:11, King James Version) We could think of no better way to convey the news that no less than three so-called Republicans from the Philadelphia area, and a plethora of Democrats, are in the process of introducing severance tax bills in the Pennsylvania State Legislature, once again. The bills range from assessing a 3.5% tax all the way up to 9%. We won’t repeat our many MANY arguments for why such a tax is just plain stupid. We’ll just share with you who (in the PA legislature) wants to steal money from landowners and drillers and give it to teachers’ unions…
Yesterday the U.S. Pipeline & Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) published a final “rule” (actually 31 pages of rules, which we’ve included below) in the Federal Register, which will become law (i.e. official regulation) on March 24th. The new “rule” requires pipeline operators to report incidents or accidents by phone within one hour of when they become aware of the incident/accident. It also steps up drug and alcohol testing requirements for workers. Here’s the latest in unlegislated laws to come down from on (Washington, DC) high…
EXCO Resources still has 145,000 net acres in the Marcellus with 124 horizontal Marcellus wells drilled and in production. However, they have pretty much abandoned the Marcellus at this point. EXCO was officially warned by the New York Stock Exchange last week that their stock is in danger of becoming delisted on the NYSE. Sound familiar? It should. The NYSE warned EXCO of the same thing in March 2016 (see 
Rex Energy, a driller focused mainly on the Marcellus/Utica (headquartered in State College, PA), released their fourth quarter and full year 2016 operational update yesterday. As seems to be the trend with many drillers, Rex has released the “good news” about how they produced, etc. ahead of releasing their financial statements (which have tended to be the bad news). What do we find in the Rex update? Production of all hydrocarbons was up 12% when comparing 4Q16 with 4Q15, and up 6% when comparing all of 2016 with all of 2015. However, when you dig a little bit, you discover that Rex’s methane (dry gas) production was down slightly when comparing 2016 with 2015, which we attribute to lack of drilling new wells. Here’s the update…
Last week Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield services (OFS) company, reported their numbers for fourth quarter and full year 2016. As we highlighted, the company experienced a net loss last year (see 
In March 2013, the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) burst onto the scene. It had been a closely guarded secret, the creation of a few hand-picked people from both industry and the environmental movement working together to see if there is any common ground on which both sides can agree that shale development would be safe, sustainable AND affordable. They worked hard for over a year and finally hammered out a set of 15 standards that if a driller (or midstream company or contractor) would meet, it would get a stamp of approval from both the industry and environmental groups as being a good goobie–a safe driller. In Sept. 2014 the CSSD announced they have certified their very first driller–one of their founding members–Chevron (see 
Good news for natural gas drillers in general, and Marcellus/Utica drillers in particular: Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts the average price for natural gas in the U.S. will rise in both 2017 and 2018. EIA expects the Henry Hub natural gas spot price to average $3.55 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2017 and $3.73/MMBtu in 2018, both higher than the 2016 average of $2.51/MMBtu. Higher prices in 2017 and 2018 reflect natural gas consumption and exports exceeding supply and imports, leading to lower average inventory levels…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: The future of northeast gas markets; drilling increases in PA, OH & WV; fringe OH fractivists chase more taxpayer money to fund sham studies; Standing Rock Indians want the paid protesters gone asap; Trump tells EPA to freeze all grants & contracts; weekly rig count sees biggest increase in 4 years; the days of cheap natgas are over, so says peak gas theorist; polar votex returning; OPEC vs shale; and more!
Well that didn’t take long. Immediately, as soon as Donald J. Trump was sworn into office on Friday at noon, key changes were made to the official White House website. Among them: the page touting man-made global warming nonsense (i.e. “climate change”) came down, and up went Trump’s “America First Energy Plan” instead. Trump’s plan? Support shale, dump Obama’s so-called climate plan, and refocus the EPA. Slap me! Am I dreaming? Will I wake up and find Lord Obama is still in charge? Or worse yet, that Hillary is President? No! Trump won, and the best possible outcome is now happening for American energy (including shale energy) and the American people. A true “all of the above” strategy from Team Trump. Below is a copy of Trump’s energy plan and some of the hysterical reaction by radical environmentalists…
A former U.S. Steel pipe manufacturing plant near Pittsburgh (in McKeesport) has been leased to Dura-Bond Industries and will re-open in the next 6-9 months, according to the president of Dura-Bond. The plant will hire around 100 people (fantastic news for Pittsburgh). According to the Pittsburgh Business Times, 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–will use Dura-Bond pipe. Our conclusion: One of the reasons (perhaps THE reason) for the McKeesport facility re-opening is to produce Atlantic Coast Pipeline pipes…
MDN has previously reported on a $900 million natural gas-fired electric generating plant coming to Orange County, NY (see 
In January 2014, MDN brought you the story that due to incessant nagging from the NJ Sierra Club and the NJ League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters the Pinelands Commission, which oversees a stand of scrub pines in South Jersey, nixed a plan for a new natural gas pipeline to bring cheap, clean, abundant Marcellus Shale natural gas to South Jersey for use by residents and to feed an electric plant a local utility wants to convert from burning coal to natgas (see 
Two weeks ago MDN told you about an effort in Virginia to ensure new changes in Virginia’s environmental regulations that require “mandatory disclosure of fracking chemicals, baseline water testing and monitoring, and spill prevention and response planning” would still protect trade secrets–the exact combinations of chemicals used by drillers when fracking (see