NY DEC Calls Propane Fracking “Unique Technology”; Wants More Info
It only took nine months, but the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which moves like a glacier, has finally responded to a request by a group of farmers in Tioga County, NY to use propane fracking technology (also known as LPG fracturing or “liquefied petroleum gas”) on a shale well. Last July a group of landowners flying under the name of The Snyder Farm Group (five families make up the group) contracted with Tioga Energy Partners (based in Texas) to drill a fracked Utica Shale well, and follow it up with drilling a fracked Marcellus Shale well, using liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or propane) and sand (see NY Landowners File to Frack Horizontal Well w/Waterless Tech and NY Heroes: More Details on NY Propane Fracking Proposal). The wells will not use water for fracking–and therefore, according to the landowners, avoid the ban on high volume fracking recently imposed by Andrew Cuomo. It’s just coming to light that last month the DEC issued a “notice of incomplete application” for the proposal (see a copy below) and requested more information on things as truck traffic, how long it will take to frack, the type of storage tanks that will be used, etc. This is more Cuomo tried and true delay as long as you can, then delay some more. It’s always worked so well for the corrupt Cuomo, why not keep doing it? Here’s the details…
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The process of screwing over existing stockholders in favor of debtholders continues at Seventy Seven Energy (SSE). In April, MDN told you that SSE–the old Chesapeake Oilfield Operating unit that was spun into its own company a few years ago–was ordering up one prepackaged bankruptcy to go (see 
EXCO Resources was once a sizable player in the Marcellus. They still have 145,000 net acres in the Marcellus, with 124 horizontal Marcellus wells drilled and in production. However, EXCO, as we pointed out in March, has pretty much abandoned the Marcellus at this point (see 
The U.S. Dept. of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) selected Penn State University to lead a consortium of nine universities in all that will study fossil fuel technologies for the next six years. NETL is giving Penn State $20 million of your money (i.e. taxpayer’s money) “to accelerate the development and deployment of fossil fuel-based technologies.” We can certainly think of worse uses for the money. Penn State will lead the Lucky University CoalItion for Fossil Energy Research (LUCiFER). Uh no! That’s not right! Let’s try it again: Penn State will lead the University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER). There, that’s it! Here’s what the feds said, and what Penn State said, about the new grant and the new UCFER coalition…
Fitch Ratings, one of the world’s top ratings services (rates stocks, bonds and more), issued a press release/opinion on Friday that tackles the issue of LNG (liquefied natural gas) and how the LNG market is rapidly and radically changing because of U.S. shale gas. Historically the price for LNG and oil have been linked. When the price of oil goes up or down, so too does LNG. But that’s now changing, because of the super abundance of U.S. shale gas. Fitch points out that with the U.S. now in the LNG export game, the link between LNG, natural gas and oil has “weakened.” They also say the U.S. natural gas market is “too big and too well supplied” for LNG exports to affect natgas prices here at home. In other words, we can export all of the LNG we want and it still won’t raise the domestic price of natural gas for consumers…
A general warning and heads-up on the newest/latest attack in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Well, maybe it’s not all that new–it’s been going on for a few years–but the intensity and pace of the attacks have picked up. We’re talking about the argument being made by anti fossil-fuelers that FERC doesn’t, by law, consider all pipelines when it evaluates a single pipeline–i.e. “cumulative effects.” For example, if three different pipeline requests for the same region are filed with FERC, FERC does not have the authority to decide only one of the three is really “needed” and that building all three would be “overbuilding.” FERC evaluates them one by one and (properly so) and lets the free market (i.e. capitalism) decide which one(s) will get built. FERC is not in the business of Communistic command-and-control decisions over private companies. FERC’s concern is that a given, single pipeline project doesn’t harm the environment and shows a need. Period. Antis, detecting an opportunity, want to force FERC, either by social pressure or by the courts, to take into consideration larger regional concerns–and even mythical global warming concerns–before making decisions. Here’s the latest example, from Virginia…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Fracking will pay off for Appalachia; natgas-fired power plants proliferating in OH, PA, WV; northeast gas supply/demand hits another milestone; the noose tightens around corrupt Gov. Cuomo; new Souki venture files with FERC for LNG plant approval; which shale plays will increase 2016 production; the perfect natgas storm; and more!
Yesterday the federal Environmental Protection Agency–a rogue agency that is out of control and drunk on its own power (and needs reigning in)–issued more shale-killing regulations, designed to suppress the very revolution that has kept the United States out of an economic depression despite Obama’s wild spending spree. 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. And if they find such microscopic amounts of methane, they need to capture it. All in the name of preventing non-existent man-made global warming. What a lark. But it’s no laughing matter. You can tell it’s a bad regulation because the oil and gas industry has lined up against it, and radical, leftist environmental groups have lined up to support it. They should–they helped create it…
PTT Global Chemical, based in Thailand, announced in April 2015 they are interested in building a $5 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH (see 
Two more partisan organizations in Pennsylvania are publicly supporting PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed redo of drilling regulations–regulations that threaten conventional and unconventional drilling in the state. The fact that the radical PA Trout Unlimited and the League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters of Pennsylvania are supporting the Dept. of Environmental Protection’s update of Rule 78 and 78a is all you need to know about just how bad a proposal it is. These groups join other anti-drilling groups in supporting the new rules (see 
It’s time to sue THE Delaware Riverkeeper out of existence. The group is a litigious nuisance and anti-American. It is led by Maya van Rossum and fed by money from the Heinz Endowments and William Penn Foundation. Even with repeated calls the IRS has refused to investigate violations of the group’s non-profit status. The latest outrage from this group of virulent radicals is to launch a lawsuit to try and stop Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project through southeastern PA. Just last week Williams received a favorable Environmental Assessment (EA) from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (see