NEXUS Tells Waterville: Ban Vote Meaningless, Still Building Pipe
As MDN previously reported, the dupes in Waterville, OH voted to pass a resolution on Tuesday that would block the construction of the NEXUS Pipeline, planned to go through city property (see Waterville, OH Passed NEXUS Pipeline Ban, Certain to Get Overturned). Apparently in order for the resolution to be officially in force, Waterville City Council will have to vote to ratify it. Whether City Council does or does not ratify it makes no difference to NEXUS–they will still build the pipeline anyway. Why? Because legally the city has NO SAY in whether or not the pipeline can be built. It is a federal project under the purview of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). A NEXUS official said the pipeline is on track to receive FERC approval by Nov. 30, and then a FERC certificate early next year. As soon as they have the certificate in hand, the Waterville resolution will be just a worthless piece of paper…
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You know how Democrats in Pennsylvania vilified and viciously attacked pro-energy Republicans over the past two years, especially with regard to a severance tax. PA Gov. Tom Wolf has been one of the worst. The media in PA has stood behind Wolf and his calls to enact a Marcellus-killing, so-called severance tax, on top of the existing impact fee + corporate income tax which amounts to a rate higher than a severance tax in states like Texas. We were told, repeatedly, that Republicans blocking Wolf’s desire for a new tax (to pay back teachers’ unions) would be political death for the Republicans. The Republicans, most of whom have held firm and resisted such severance tax lunacy, have been called every name in the book and told “at the next election, you’re gone.” Guess what? After Tuesday’s elections, Republicans in PA now hold the LARGEST MAJORITIES in both the House and Senate than they have held IN DECADES! The voters in PA have spoken, and anti-fossil fuel numskulls have been drummed out of power. And not just in PA…
Weatherford International, the fourth largest oilfield services company in the world employing some 31,000 people (down from 44,000 a year ago) and with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region, is a company in trouble as we pointed out earlier this week (see 
What’s wrong with this AP story from yesterday: “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says it’s trying to defuse tensions between Dakota Access pipeline protesters and law enforcement in southern North Dakota, but the pipeline’s developer isn’t cooperating. The agency released a statement late Wednesday imploring Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners to voluntarily stop work in the area where protests against the $3.8 billion pipeline have resulted in more than 400 arrests. The Corps made a similar plea last week, but was also rebuffed.” What’s wrong? It shows that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is no longer a group of engineers. It has been corrupted by the Obama Administration into a political agency. IT’S NOT THE JOB OF ENGINEERS TO WORRY ABOUT OR PLACATE PAID CRIMINALS “PROTESTING” THE DAKOTA PIPELINE! It is the job of law enforcement to deal with the out-of-control, paid criminals who have gathered in North Dakota. We call on Congress to immediately convene hearings into what in the world is going on inside the USACE–and to force them to shut up when it comes to criminal protesters and stick to engineering. We are VERY concerned that the USACE has compromised their role to the point that they should be removed from any kind of regulatory oversight of the Dakota Access project. To their credit, Energy Transfer Partners (building the pipeline) is not backing down and continues to build the pipeline, even in the face of the Obama politicized USACE…
“Please pass the salt for my methane cheeseburger!” This story is one of those stories that makes us literally laugh out loud. It’s the kind of story we love to share–to push in the face of fossil fuel haters. (Sent to us by our faithful story-sniffing assistant, Chris Acker. Thanks Chris!) A California-based company, Calysta, has pioneered a way to convert methane (i.e. natural gas) into “high protein” food–for animals. Calysta is partnering with food-giant Cargill to build a big plant to manufacture this “gassy” food that will be fed to animals–animals that humans eat, like pigs. Calysta also wants to (one day) manufacture food from methane that humans will eat! The technology is already there and done. It’s just a matter of getting approvals and winning the public over to the idea that they’re eating food that started life as a dinosaur…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Northeast NGL production & takeaway capacity; energy companies ask, can’t we all just get along?; horizontal wells among highest-producing US wells; renewable energy will do just fine under President Trump; stick to your instincts on energy, Mr. Trump; what to watch in oil under a Trump presidency; ConocoPhillips selling $8B of natgas assets; EU tries to push Trump around; no letup in oil supplies says IEA; and more!
In August MDN reported that oilfield services company Seventy Seven Energy (SSE), the former Chesapeake Oilfield Operating company, had popped out of bankruptcy in record time–just two months after declaring bankruptcy (see 
Back in April the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told PennEast they would extend the amount of time they are taking until December of this year, rather than this past August, to complete their Environmental Review (see 
Last week a plan to build a $550 million natural gas-fired electric generating plant in the city of Bridgeport, CT was approved by city zoning officials. PSEG Power Connecticut currently operates a coal-fired plant in the same location and wants to build a 485-megawatt facility at the same address. The only remaining obstacle is an air permit from CT environmental protection officials, which is expected to be issued early next year. Once the air permit is in hand, PSEG plans to begin construction. Our question is, with no extra pipeline capacity serving New England, where will they get the gas to power the plant?…
In December 2014 the Massachusetts-based utility Berkshire Gas Company announced the amount of natural gas they could purchase from the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) was at full capacity. There’s no additional gas supplies to buy–unless TGP builds their Northeast Energy Direct (NED) expansion project. So Berkshire was forced to tell new customers for natural gas in portions of Franklin County they won’t be able to tap into Berkshire’s line (see 
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 
MDN has highlighted the importance of the Ohio Supreme Court’s decision with regard to the Ohio Dormant Mineral Act (DMA). In September the OH Supreme Court ruled in three DMA cases, saying all of the other cases come under those three (see 
As soon as Donald Trump secured victory in Tuesday’s presidential election, the hew and cry went up from radical environmentalists that his election spells the end of Mom Earth. Trump is rightly skeptical of claims that mankind is causing a catastrophic warming of the earth–namely because there’s no evidence to support it. No objective “average” temperature data that shows the earth warming up by burning fossil fuels, as is the claim. But global warmers, who have changed their name to climate changers, won’t listen to reason. Their belief in man-made global warming surpasses the fervency of belief by most people in a Supreme Being (i.e. God). Global warming is their religion, and no amount of discourse and debate will convince them otherwise. So when Trump, a “climate denier” as they call him, won–it was for them a disaster. Barack Hussein Obama has been the warmers’ best friend. But there’s a problem with the way Obama achieved his environmental agenda–he did it by fiat. By executive orders. By using executive branch agencies like the EPA and BLM and others to implement his wishes apart from having those wishes enacted in legislation. And what one president can do with executive orders, another can undo with executive orders. Obama’s entire environmental agenda is built on sand–a house of cards. And it’s about to gloriously come crashing down with President Trump. And that fact has warmers sweating…
As we pointed out to you last December, evil corporate raider Carl Icahn (invests in companies so he can fire a bunch of people, boost the stock and pocket the profit) had fired Cheniere Energy CEO Charif Souki (see