Lack of NatGas Pipelines Casts Doubt on NE Winter Electric Rates
Contrary to the assurances of charlatans like Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey who tells us new natural gas pipelines are not needed, New England is once again looking down the throat of potential electricity shortages this winter–if we have another winter like that of 2013/2014. ISO New England Inc. (ISONE), the electrical grid operator in the region, issued a statement last week to say they are implementing a 2016-17 Winter Reliability Program to guard against potential electricity shortages because there’s not enough natural gas in the region to power electric plants if much of that gas is also heating homes and businesses on cold days. According to ISONE, “Electricity supplies should [not a reassuring word] be sufficient to meet consumer demand for electricity in New England this winter.” They then go on to say, “but constraints on the region’s natural gas pipelines could pose a challenge to reliable operations.” In other words, if it gets really cold and snowy, we’re screwed. So, to fend off that screwing, ISONE has devised a program to load up on oil, of all things, and LNG, to help produce electricity if natgas runs short. Don’t say we haven’t repeatedly warned New England that without new pipelines they will not only continue to pay 4x what everyone else pays for electricity, at some point there just won’t be enough fuel sources to produce electricity and sooner or later New England will have brownouts and/or rolling blackouts–because THEY’RE FOOLS and continue to reject safe, reliable natural gas pipelines…
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And so it begins. So-called “reporters” who are either too stupid or too lazy to examine important issues closely, like the issue of paid, out-of-state protesters who descended on Standing Rock, ND and have engaged in multiple lawless acts, are now beginning to hold up Standing Rock as the model for how to defeat important oil and gas infrastructure projects in the Marcellus/Utica region. The editorial writer(s) at the Delaware County Daily Times has deigned to compare Standing Rock and the temporary block on completing it by the politicized Obama Administration to the Mariner East 2 NGL pipeline slated to be built across Pennsylvania. The writer(s) express their hope to see the lawless criminals from Standing Rock to “pop up here if and when construction on Mariner East 2 begins.” You see why the newspaper industry in this country is crashing and burning? Because of such blatant bias and misstatements of fact (i.e. lies)…
In May, U.S.-based oilfield services company FMC Technologies announced they will merge with their much larger quasi-competitor, France-based Technip, in an all-stock deal that will create a new company called TechnipFMC worth $13 billion (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Pipeline projects in PA deserve support; Mass. AG tries to change story re Exxon in federal court; Trump offers opportunity to correct country’s energy policy; shale companies hedging is turning oil market “upside down”; natgas prices hit near 2-year high; EPA close to releasing final fracking report; OPEC should be very afraid of US shale companies; 3 Sec State candidates have o&g connection; India moving to natgas economy; and more!
Recently MDN brought you an article from the Seeking Alpha investors website, written by an analyst/investor pointing out the financial troubles at the world’s fourth largest oilfield services company, Weatherford (see 
In one final, breathtaking rejection of the rule of law and poke in the eye of those who support fossil fuels, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, doing Lord Obama’s bidding, has rejected granting Energy Transfer (ET) an easement to complete the final leg of the Dakota Access Pipeline that crosses federal land. The out-of-state/paid protesters who have assembled at Standing Rock, ND were orgasmic with delight. Their euphoria, however, will be short-lived as ET expects the incoming Trump Administration to quickly reverse the policy and grant permission to complete the pipeline along its original route. Although this conflict is happening far outside the Marcellus/Utica, it is important for us nonetheless as this group of paid, out-of-state protesters, backed by Big Green money (using money from California billionaire and nut Tom Steyer, among others), has promised to leverage a win against the Keystone XL Pipeline and now the Dakota Access Pipeline by coming to the Marcellus/Utica in an attempt to defeat important pipeline projects in our region. Here’s the latest in the dust-up over the Dakota Access Pipeline…
The future site of a $5 billion petrochemical complex, including an ethane cracker, in Belmont County, OH is now cleared and essentially ready to begin building on. It has taken nearly a year, but the old R.E. Burger power plant that used to sit along the Ohio River is now just a memory. Belmont County officials say they expect PTT Global Chemical, the company that will build and operate the cracker, will make a final (positive) investment decision by the end of March–in just a few months’ time. Although the project began after Shell’s cracker project in Beaver County, PA, the PTT Global project in Belmont County has almost caught up with the Shell cracker project with respect to site readiness and building the actual buildings that will house the mighty cracker…
In 2014 Pennsylvania anti-drillers from a local chapter of the Izaak Walton League, a so-called conservation organization, attempted a smear job on the Marcellus Shale industry. They alleged that shale drillers were illegally dumping frack wastewater in an abandoned coal mine, the Clyde Mine, which sits near the Ten Mile Creek where the creek joins the Monongahela River. According to the smearmeisters, the illegally dumped wastewater was leaking out of the mine and into Ten Mile Creek (see 
Pipelines are the safest form of transportation on the planet–bar none. Everyone knows it. But anti-fossil fuel radicals attempt to lie about the safety of pipelines in an attempt to get projects canceled–a tactic in their war on fossil fuels. They know as well as anyone that pipelines are perfectly safe, so they lie about safety to try and stop projects. Like the $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline and the $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline–both critically important projects in the Marcellus/Utica. Note their language in opposing such projects. The aim is not to re-route the projects, but to kill them altogether. There is no reasoning with un-reasonable people like those who are members of the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, a small group of anti-fossil fuel radicals…
Events related to drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling.
This post will not make anti-fossil fuel nutters happy. You know how antis have moaned and groaned at the prospect of allowing barges on the Ohio River to transport produced water–naturally-occurring salty water that comes out of the ground long after fracking operations are over. Antis complained so much that the Obama Administration politically prevented the Coast Guard from moving forward with a barging plan (see