Crestwood 3Q16: Turnaround Success, No Word on Finger Lakes LPG
Crestwood Equity Partners (nee Crestwood Midstream) recently issued its third quarter 2016 update. In April Crestwood announced that New York City utility giant Consolidated Edison Inc. has formed a 50/50 joint venture to purchase ownership of pipelines and storage facilities in the PA and NY Marcellus region (see Utility Giant ConEdison Buys a Piece of the Marcellus Midstream). The newly formed jv, called Stagecoach Gas Services, became official in June (see Con Ed & Crestwood Seal the Deal on Marcellus Pipeline/Storage JV). Perhaps the biggest news is that Crestwood has turned things around financially. In 3Q15 they lost $634 million. In 3Q16 they made $3 million. That’s a huge turnaround year over year (2/3 of a BILLION dollars!). Stagecoach and other projects in the Marcellus/Utica get an update in this latest quarterly report from Crestwood. We also spotted a few interesting slides from the latest PowerPoint deck…
Read More “Crestwood 3Q16: Turnaround Success, No Word on Finger Lakes LPG”
It’s about time! A U.S. District Court Judge in Texas recently granted Exxon the right to examine “internal phone records, other communications and depositions” of far-left Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, related to her involvement in attempting to persecute Exxon Mobil for daring to say man-made global warming may not be all it’s cracked up to be (see 
Paul Driessen is senior policy adviser for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), which is sponsoring the All Pain No Gain petition against global-warming hype. He also is a senior policy adviser to the Congress of Racial Equality and author of “Eco-Imperialism: Green Power – Black Death.” Driessen writes and publishes in a number of venues, including Townhall. A recent article penned by Driessen (below) absolutely nails the anti-pipeline movement in our country. We’ve long known that antis moved from fracking to piplelines, figuring they could stop the use of fossil fuels if they can strangle the pipeline network necessary to move oil and gas to market. But as Driessen explains, the real root of this movement, the thing that motivates them more than anything, is not saving Mom Earth. It is the total annihilation of capitalism (and our country). That’s what drives these anti-pipeline fanatics…
Another week, another so-called research paper that purports to show a link between fracking and earthquakes. Two researchers at the University of Calgary looked at drilling and fracking of shale wells in Canada’s Duvernay Shale (western part of the country), looking for clues that might indicate fracking itself–if done near an underground fault–can lead to low-level earthquakes. The researchers claim they have found such a link–which is the first such study to make a connection between fracking and earthquakes. The researchers have just published “Fault activation by hydraulic fracturing in western Canada” (full copy below), in the journal Science. We have repeatedly reported, based on studies and observable facts, that disposing of high volumes of wastewater in injection wells near underground faults (large cracks in the rock layer) can lead to earthquakes. We’ve also chronicled that fracking directly over a fault can also lead to an earthquake–which has been documented to happen perhaps half a dozen times, ever, out of the hundreds of thousands of times wells have been drilled and fracked. Statistically zero. But this study claims there is a link and the inference is that fracking leads to more earthquakes that you may think. Should we be worried?…
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: Williams looking like a better investment; antis put on pathetically small dog & pony show in Baltimore; fracking in Florida; Dakota Pipeline won’t reroute around criminal protesters; the Obama rush to regulate oil & gas before he leaves office; coal on the ascendancy, may re-assume title of king for electric generation; former electric utility head may lead FERC; and more!
It was a pleasure having Alex Epstein, founder of the Center for Industrial Progress and author of the New York Times bestseller “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” present a webinar on Friday, Nov. 18 based on the themes found in his book. Alex addressed the MDN audience for over an hour. There was plenty of comments, questions and great information. We have a recording of the entire session. Give it a watch/listen below!…
A small Worthington (Franklin County), OH driller, Geopetro, has just purchased 37,000 acres, 27 working shale wells and 5 not-yet-hooked-up wells from Chesapeake Energy for an undisclosed amount of money. The wells are located in Columbiana County, OH and Beaver County, PA. All but one of the wells are Utica wells. One of the wells is drilled to the Upper Devonian layer (above the Marcellus). The purchase is a big deal for the small Geopetro. It converts what until now has been mostly a conventional (shallow, vertical only) drilling company into primarily an unconventional/shale company. Welcome to the shale industry!…
Turns out anti-fossil fuel protesters, behaving like the petulant children they are, couldn’t stop the adults in the room last night in Philadelphia. You may recall we told you yesterday that wackos from a fringe-left group called 350 Philadelphia threatened to “swarm” a meeting of SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) where a vote was scheduled on a plan to build a Marcellus gas-powered electric plant that would provide electricity to SEPTA’s northern Regional Rail lines (see 
Earlier this week we ran the news that Canadian pipeline giant TransCanada’s plan to radically lower the cost to pipe natural gas from the western regions of Canada to the eastern part of the country, in an effort to undercut Marcellus/Utica gas from flooding into the region, failed (see 
Earlier this week MDN brought you the news that the New Jersey Division of the Rate Counsel (NJDRC)–a state government agency responsible for representing the interests of residents, businesses and other rate payers in dealing with regulated public utilities and insurance firms–responded to PennEast Pipeline’s release of a study obliterating the NJDRC’s claims that the pipeline isn’t needed (see 
Last week 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 
It seems old Mom Earth has a major case of flatulence (i.e. farting). Researchers who have been mapping the ocean floor have discovered “an active strip of seafloor called the Cascadia Subduction Zone is bubbling methane like mad” off the coast of Washington, Oregon and California. [Quick, somebody call Cornell prof Bob Howarth! There’s fugitive methane escaping!!] Big Green advocates get their knickers in a twist over fugitive methane because, ‘ya know, it causes global warming. But this time mankind is nowhere to be found as the cause. This massive methane leak off the West Coast is Mom Earth, all by herself, farting away and killing herself without even knowing it. How tragic. And how funny!…