PA Gov Wolf Launches (Gasp) Pipeline Investment Program
11/3/16 Update: We should have known. Wolf didn’t even do this one thing right, as we had assumed–although he takes credit for it. Earlier this year the PA legislature directed this shift in funds–a move that Wolf did not support. See the note below for a full explanation.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a complete disaster as a governor, has managed to do one thing right. Yesterday Wolf’s office announced he is shifting $24 million away from a boondoggle program called the PA Alternative Energy Investment Act and into a new program called the Pipeline Investment Program (PIPE). The PIPE program helps fund pipeline construction to manufacturers, hospitals and (double gasp) schools to provide clean-burning, abundant, cheap and home-grown Marcellus Shale gas to those organizations. As far as money goes, it’s a veritable drop in the bucket–but you wouldn’t know that by the reaction from Big Green Nazis. They’re having a cow, and we’re loving it…
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The well-funded Big Green radical movement–the movement that wants to end the use of all fossil fuels–thinks it has found a new legal tactic to use in their attempts to stop the Mariner East 2 (and other) pipeline in Pennsylvania. You may recall that in September the Democrat-controlled PA Supreme Court further eviscerated the 2012 Act 13 Marcellus drilling law (see 
You may recall that in April, New York’s anti-drilling governor, Andrew Cuomo, decided he would cave to pressure from radical environmentalists once again and block the building of the federally-approved Constitution Pipeline (see 
Coming on the big news yesterday that CONSOL Energy is calling it splitsville with Noble Energy on their 2/3 of a million acres joint venture in the Marcellus (see 
As we pointed out yesterday in our story about CONSOL Energy and Noble Energy deciding to end their Marcellus joint venture (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: 11 Utica permits, rig count goes down; cracker plants will revitalize Ohio; fracking jobs are safer than most – the numbers prove it; smoking gun – Rockefellers promise access to InsideClimate News editor; was Baker Hughes/GE excitement premature?; coal to gas switching in the U.S. electric power industry; shale v OPEC; and more!
On Monday, October 24, 2016, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals (in Western Pennsylvania) ruled that Marcellus driller ECA (Energy Corporation of America) did not prove a need for a new trial in the case it previously lost. Pennsylvania landowners sued ECA in federal court beginning in 2010, saying their royalty checks were shorted because ECA was improperly deducting post-production costs. Sound familiar? In February 2013 a federal judge upheld a split decision that said most of what ECA was deducting was OK, but the one thing they can’t deduct from royalty checks are charges for interstate pipeline transmission (for the full story, read our post 
Midstream giant Williams issued their third quarter 2016 update yesterday. According to Williams, the company had “strong” financial results in 3Q16. Indeed they did. The company swung from losing $194 million in 3Q15 to making $326 million in 3Q16–a net change of over half a billion dollars. Impressive! In the Marcellus/Utica, what Williams calls its Northeast G&P division, the company had revenue of $208 million, up from $189 million last year this time. On an investors phone call yesterday, CEO Alan Armstrong said the low prices in the Marcellus/Utica compared with other parts of the country will work themselves out, in time. That is, when more pipeline projects (like Williams Atlantic Sunrise and Constitution) go online to move the gas to other regions, the prices that gas fetches will go up and eventually gas prices in the northeast will be closer to the benchmark Henry Hub. Here’s the Williams 3Q16 update…
Dominion, a major pipeline and utility company operating in the Marcellus/Utica region, released its third quarter 2016 update yesterday. Like Williams, Dominion showed an impressive swing up in revenue. They made $728 million in 3Q16 vs. $599 million in 3Q15, a healthy 22% increase. Several items in the update caught our interest: CEO Thomas Farrell mentioned that construction has begun on the largest natural gas-fired electric generating plant in Virginia, the 1,588-megawatt Greensville County plant. He also said that the Cove Point LNG export facility in Maryland is now 75% complete and “the facility continues on time and on budget for a late 2017 in-service date.” Farrell also said the company is working hard on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the related Supply Header project. He expects both projects to be online in late 2019. Here’s the 3Q16 update for Dominion…
In September midstream giant Dominion completed its $4.4 billion takeover of Questar Corporation (see 
We spotted an announcement that American Electric Technologies, Inc. (AETI) has won a contract to “provide a turnkey power delivery solution for a new Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) liquefaction plant under construction” in New England. Well that caught our attention. Where is this new LNG liquefaction plant located? The announcement does not say. However, we have a guess…
As this post is being written and published, the world’s third largest oilfield services company, Baker Hughes, is holding an investor webcast to announce it has struck a deal to combine/merge with/sell itself to GE’s oil and gas business. The deal, according to the Wall Street Journal, will result in a new company that will be 65.5% owned by GE and 37.5% owned by Baker Hughes shareholders. The deal, IF it gets approved by the Dept. of Justice, will create a company with $32 billion in revenues. Make no mistake, aside from all of the “partnership” talk, this is GE buying out Baker Hughes. The CEO of the new company will be Lorenzo Simonelli, chief executive of GE Oil & Gas. The board of directors for the new company will have 5 members appointed by GE and 4 members appointed by Baker Hughes. The deal, if it happens, would catapult the new Baker Hughes (or whatever it will be called) past Halliburton to become the world’s second largest oilfield services company. Get this: The deal may even catapult the new company to become the world’s number one oilfield services company–eclipsing Schlumberger! The question now is, will the Dept. of Justice approve the deal? Earlier this year the Obama DOJ killed the proposed Baker Hughes merger with Halliburton (see