Marcellus/Utica Gas to Help Power Holland, MI Electric Plant
It’s a smallish project in Michigan, but it’s important for the Marcellus/Utica nonetheless. Construction is almost complete on a $240 million, 145-megawatt natural gas-fired electric plant in Holland, MI. The plant will go online in February 2017. At least some of the natural gas that will supply the plant will come from the Marcellus/Utica, according to an official. When the plant goes online, it will provide around two-thirds of the electricity used in Holland. From one small power plant. Don’t you just love clean-burning, home-grown energy?…
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Events related to drilling in the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling.
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Upstate NY towns oppose mammoth wind turbines (for good reason); big TX oil find won’t hurt OH Utica shale; Bowling Green, OH to vote on NEXUS offer; OH drilling picking up–slowly; JKLM ramps up drilling in Potter County, PA; FERC denies Sierra Club rehearing request; Dakota Access Pipeline “protester” gets serious injured; Trump to roll back some onerous o&g regulations; fracking blazed the trail for renewables; China getting second LNG shipment from US; and more!
Not even a year go–in December of last year–one of the biggest and brightest stars in the midstream firmament for the Marcellus/Utica, MarkWest Energy, sold itself to Marathon Petroleum (see 
In May of this year, the federal Environmental Protection Agency issued more shale-killing regulations. The EPA issued 600 pages of new regulations that require drillers to install expensive new equipment to locate so-called fugitive methane that may or may not be leaking from wells, pipelines, etc. (see 
It’s always nice when our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, says nice things about the Marcellus/Utica. Today the EIA, publishing in its Today in Energy online publication, highlights the Utica Shale and the very necessary pipeline projects that promise to bring more “takeaway” capacity from the ever-expanding Utica. EIA looks at four key pipeline projects: Rover, NEXUS, Leach Xpress and Rayne Xpress. If you add them all together, those four new projects (all due to be completed by end of 2018 or before), will add an additional 6.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of takeaway capacity out of the Utica…
In early November Canadian midstream giant TransCanada announced they were going on a fundraising bender to get money to pay for their recent $10 billion acquisition of Columbia Pipeline (see 
Something noteworthy has happened in Buckingham County, VA. Planning Commission members in the county worked hard to evaluate a request by Dominion for their Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, a request to build a compressor station in Buckingham County. Residents expressed concerns–over noise, air pollution, explosions–you name it. Planning Commission members listened, and in the end, voted to recommend that Dominion be allowed to build the compressor station, as long as they adhere to 40 conditions set forth in the Commission’s recommendation. You see, this is how adults do things. They are reasonable (able to be reasoned with). They listened, closely. They heard the concerns. They devised a plan that will allow Dominion to build the compressor station, but at the same time protect the residents that live near it. Of course that wasn’t good enough for the children-in-adult-bodies who chanted a threat to shut down the pipeline…
Marcellus Drilling News typically takes Thanksgiving and the day after off. This year we will add Wednesday to the mix, so no daily MDN this Wednesday through Friday. We will be sure to keep an eye on the news and if there is anything earth-shattering, we will bring you that news. Otherwise, we’ll see you next Monday. Have a great Thanksgiving! – Jim Willis, editor
On April 29, Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO) “Delmont Line 27” pipeline exploded in Westmoreland County, PA, seriously injuring one resident who was burned over much of his body (see 
Each month the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy issues a report on LNG exports and imports. We check in on the report from time to time. This month’s report (with data through September) is particularly interesting. It shows the rapid scale-up of Cheniere’s Sabine Pass export facility on the coast of Louisiana. Sabine Pass is exporting U.S. shale gas, including some Marcellus/Utica gas, which is why we are interested in the LNG story. November is predicted to set a new record on the export of U.S. shale gas from Sabine. The LNG import picture, increasingly small, is also interesting and instructive. All of the LNG coming into the U.S. (via ship, not via pipeline from Canada) this year has come from one country: Trinidad. And there is a single import terminal that receives almost all incoming, non-pipeline LNG: Everett, MA (near Boston). Which is why GDF Suez, the operator, has been agitating against new pipelines to New England (shame on them)…
The radicals at the Sierra Club are at it again. Causing private companies to expend big money to defend their Constitutional, capitalistic rights. The NEXUS Pipeline is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. It is a critically needed pipeline to move Utica and Marcellus Shale gas from an over-saturated market in the northeast to markets in the Midwest and Canada. The Sierra Club has just sued DTE Energy, one of the sponsors of the project, falsely claiming DTE’s electric customers will end up paying more for electricity because of the pipeline…