VA Supreme Court to Hear Atlantic Coast Pipe Survey Case
In the southeastern U.S. much of the Big Green opposition to pipelines has centered on preventing pipeline companies from entering properties to complete required surveys. If you can stop the process before it begins (so they reason), it saves them from having to hop in the VW Microbus and go to (pot smoking) anti-pipeline rallies all over the place. Peace man! Landowners in West Virginia and Virginia have challenged the rights of various pipeline companies to enter their property. It happened with EQT’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (see Mountain Valley Pipeline Sues 103 WV Landowners for Survey Access), and it happened with Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (see Atlantic Coast Pipeline Wins Another Virginia Court Case). Each time these cases have been litigated in Virginia courts, the pipeline companies have won (if not in the first case, then on appeal). However, a high-stakes case has just been accepted by the Virginia Supreme Court in which an 83-year old granny says she doesn’t want surveyors for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to enter her property. Dominion and other pipeline companies have a lot riding on the case…
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Running a bulldozer a few feet into a swamp–without written permission–can land you in a lot of hot water. That’s what Spectra Energy is learning following such an incident. Well, we don’t know if it was actually a bulldozer or not, but here is what we do know. On August 28, 2016, Algonquin Gas Transmission (a Sepctra company) experienced a break in the drill stem while attempting the pullback of a 5,000-foot-long HDD (horizontal directional drill) along the Hudson River in New York. The work being done is for Spectra’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) Project. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had an on-site Compliance Monitor, and that person WAS informed that Algonquin believed the break was within a wetland (i.e. swamp) adjacent to the drill entry side, and that Algonquin would like to “excavate the wetland” which includes removing a few trees, to access the drill stem. The Compliance Monitor (sort of like the old Soviet political officer) told Algonquin that he needed more information before taking such an action. Then it all gets muddled. Algonquin says it was a misunderstanding, and the FERC Compliance Officer says they ignored him (our interpretation of what’s being said). At any rate, the upshot is if Algonquin had waited for the written permission slip from the political officer, er, a, Compliance Monitor, there wouldn’t be a story. But Algonquin went ahead, encroaching on about 381 square feet of swamp–about the size of an average living room. And because of it, FERC has rained down hell fire on Algonquin…
Maya van Rossum, who is THE Delaware Riverkeeper (the river’s mamma), got 182 of her friends, whom she calls “organizations” to sign a letter and sent it to the U.S. Senate demanding (she always demands, never politely asks) for hearings into the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Why? Because they’re actually doing their job–and that just can’t stand. Instead, she wants FERC shut down so no new pipeline projects will get approved. That’s the only acceptable outcome for Mamma Maya. She alleges that FERC is misusing its power under the federal Natural Gas Act. One of Mamma Maya’s friends, CORNball Paul Gierosky (cofounder of COalition to Reroute Nexus, or CORN) says: “FERC is corrupt and needs to be reformed.” What hubris…
Each year the consultants at Deloitte conduct a survey of oil and gas industry professionals. What does this year’s 2016 survey find? The survey, titled “2016 Oil and Gas Industry Survey” (full copy below) finds that 24% of industry executives believe the recovery has already begun, while 33% believe it will begin in early 2017, for a combined 57% who say we’ve either already turned the corner, or soon will. The long, dark night appears to be over and we’re just now seeing the crack of dawn again. Here is what the people who eat, sleep and drink oil and gas say about our cherished industry…
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently launched a “What If…?” series to counter the radical “keep it in the ground” movement–a movement that irrationally hates the use of fossil fuels. In August the Chamber released their first such report, titled “What If…Energy Production was Banned on Federal Lands and Waters?” (see 
Day One of Shale Insight is now in the books. MDN editor Jim Willis is attending, with a booth, and had a chance to shake hands with many subscribers. A hearty and heart-felt “thank you” for the kind words to subscribers and long-time industry friends who stopped by. There is no way to sugarcoat the fact that the exhibit space (number of exhibitors) is much smaller this year than in past years. However, you just can’t replace getting face-to-face with customers and (hopefully) future customers. Although the event may be smaller in numbers, that’s not a reflection of the conference program. This year’s program is filled with terrific speakers. Jim had a chance to listen to the speakers during the main sessions in the morning and at lunch. They were some of the best he has heard in attending Shale Insight over the past five years–and that’s no exaggeration. Without a doubt the speaker from Day One grabbing the most headlines was Harold Hamm, CEO of Continental Resources and one of the drillers who figured out how to frac (with no “k”, we’ll explain below). Below are highlights only–pickings from the things Jim heard on Day One. We hope, at some point, to bring you the PowerPoint presentations and perhaps even videos for some of the talks–we’re working on it. In the meantime, here are brief highlights, things that caught our fancy, from the first day…
One of the interesting tidbits to come out of yesterday’s first day of the Shale Insight conference in Pittsburgh was an off-the-cuff remark from Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s special assistant for infrastructure, Yesenia Bane, who said that Gov. Wolf is “willing to talk” with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ask him to approve the Williams Constitution Pipeline project in the Empire State. Bane said Wolf has met with Williams and other stakeholders in the Constitution project, and apparently Wolf was impressed enough that he’s willing to add his own voice to those calling for an approval of the Constitution. Democrat on Democrat. Mano a mano. Should be interesting, if Wolf ever gets up the nerve to do it…
Canadian driller and midstream company Epsilon Energy had a shareholder rebellion in 2013 and threw out the sitting board of directors (see 
You may recall that TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see 
For the gazillionth time, PennEast Pipeline is addressing the lie spread by opponents that “most a that thar gas will get exported overseas.” Virulent anti-drillers try to whip up opposition to the pipeline any way they can, including spreading the lie that PennEast gas will not stay local and benefit local residents. The single counter-argument that utterly destroys that lie is this: In order to export gas, PennEast would first have to apply for and receive permission from the U.S. Dept. of Energy. Guess what? PennEast has not (nor is going to) apply to the DOE for export permission, as they indicate in the following Letter to the Editor…
The Saudis sure didn’t see this one coming. Back in 2014 Saudi Arabia and their toadies in OPEC declared open war on the American shale industry. The aim was to bankrupt our shale drillers by pumping so much oil for so cheap, that our small potatoes drillers would go out of business. The thinking was that the Kingdom could outlast our private companies–for years if necessary. And sure enough, some of our o&g companies have gone bankrupt–nearly 100 of them since 2015. But here’s what happened along the way–the unintended consequence. Good old American ingenuity kicked in and our companies innovated–figured out how to drill for less money and get even more oil (and gas) out of the ground while doing it. That is, the Saudis’ action in trying to bury us was to make us better and stronger. One of the major ways we became better and stronger was through the lowly grain of silicon–as in sand. Can anyone say, “mega-frack”?…
“Pay no attention to that corporate raider behind the curtain! I am the great and powerful Oz!!” Carl Icahn is an evil corporate raider who buys just enough stock in a company to fire a bunch of people and force the company to sell key assets–all so the stock price will pop up and he can then sell his shares at a tidy profit. Icahn has been doing it for years. He tried it with Chesapeake, firing co-founder Aubrey McClendon back in 2013 (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) used to, once upon a time, lease a small fraction of the land under its oversight to allow Marcellus Shale drilling. And like any private landowner, the DCNR received bonus payments when leasing, and royalties when the gas began to flow. In fact, when Marcellus drilling had hit its peak in 2013, the DCNR received almost enough just from bonuses and royalties they were nearly self-funding (see 
Maryland is supposedly working on revisions to revisions of revisions of fracking regulations that will allow the state to begin fracking on or about October 1, 2017. At least, that’s the theory. There has been some evidence that work is actually getting done to revise the revisions already released by former Gov. Martin O’Malley. In June the Maryland Dept. of the Environment held public hearings where anti-drilling nutjobs paraded around spreading lies about how fracking will kill ya (see