Penn Twp Blocks Apex Energy Well Pad Request, What Next?
How do you prove a negative? You can’t. But that’s the (illegal) demand Penn Township (near Pittsburgh) is placing on Apex Energy. Penn Township’s zoning board has denied Apex permits to begin building a well pad for an eventual nine wells–wells that are fully permitted and permissioned by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP). The Penn Township ordinance “states that drillers have to prove that the drilling site won’t violate Penn Township citizens’ rights to clean air and water.” Apex provided air and water studies showing possible risks from accidental spills, etc.–along with how they will prevent such things from happening. But the zoning board was tone deaf and rejected it. So what’s next? We’ve seen this movie before. Last year a group of anti-drillers took Apex to court to stop drilling on two wells, with the town backing them. Apex’s lawyers roared that the company was losing $70K per day by not drilling, threatening to sue. The town backed down, and Apex drilled the wells…
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In February the natural gas industry in the Lower 48 States made history by hitting record high production (see 
We knew that corporate raider Carl Icahn’s protege, Keith “Mini-Me” Meister, had been meddling in Williams since 2013 (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Appeals court hears NEXUS pipeline case; Dimock verdict “aberrant result”; why do researchers hide good news about fracking?; PHMSA schedules hearings on LNG regs; Schlumberger’s new tech may be competitive threat; E&P capex spending plunges again; and more!
The partners in the Constitution Pipeline, including Williams and Cabot Oil & Gas, have come roaring back against Gov. Cuomo and his pusillanimous Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) after the DEC lied last Friday in announcing they would not grant stream crossing permits for the pipeline project. Yesterday Cabot, along with Williams, issued a STRONGLY worded rebuttal that says, in part that the DEC’s “stated rationale for the denial includes flagrant misstatements and inaccurate allegations, and appears to be driven more by New York State politics than by environmental science.” Flagrant misstatements is another way of saying the DEC lied, which is exactly what we said yesterday (see 
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s action to stop progress on the Constitution Pipeline has very real, tangible negative effects on jobs in Upstate New York. This is the true story of two large regional employers in New York’s Southern Tier that would benefit from cheap, abundant, and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from northeastern Pennsylvania. Wait. You believed the anti’s lie that all of the gas traveling through the Constitution would be transported to other areas, with much of it exported, and would not in any way benefit local residents? Yeah, that’s a lie. Another 100% lie pedaled by irrational fossil fuel haters. As the Constitution crosses places like Broome, Chenango and Delaware counties in the Southern Tier of New York State (i.e. “Upstate”), the pipeline will be tapped in several locations by Leatherstocking Gas Co.–a small but important local utility company. Leatherstocking will then provide gas to area communities and to two large businesses. One of those businesses is the Amphenol Aerospace plant in Sidney, NY. Amphenol is the largest employer in Delaware County with some 1,100 employees. Amphenol needs cheap Marcellus Shale gas from the Constitution to stay competitive and to keep the plant open. The second business is located in the small Chenango County village of Greene–Raymond Corporation. You know those bright red-colored forklifts you see in warehouses and factories? They’re all built at Raymond, which ships them worldwide. The facility is now owned by Toyota. Raymond also needs natural gas from the Constitution Pipeline. With over 
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), charged with overseeing potential impacts on the Delaware River and the various tributaries that feed it, has once again stepped outside of its legal bounds. The PennEast Pipeline is a $1 billion, 118-mile pipeline from Luzerne County, PA to Mercer County, NJ–part of it through the Delaware River Basin area. In 2014 the DRBC tried to tell PennEast and its sponsors that the pipeline will need their approval before it can be built (see 
In what appears to be an ongoing strategy/trend among exploration and production companies (i.e. drillers), Rex Energy is the latest driller to convert outstanding debt in the form of notes (IOUs) into equity, or stock ownership. Earlier this year Rex, a small Marcellus/Utica driller headquartered in State College, PA, offered to refinance its IOUs so the notes expire later, meaning Rex wouldn’t have to cough up cash sooner to pay off the debt (see 
Last week midstream giant Kinder Morgan announced they didn’t have enough demand lined up for their proposed $3.3 billion Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline and so they will suspend any more work on the project (see 
Last week Seventy Seven Energy (SSE)–the old Chesapeake Oilfield Operating unit that was spun into its own company a few years ago–announced it would soon declare bankruptcy (see 
Radical environmentalists from groups like the Sierra Club, Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Earthjustice continue a full court press to try and stop Dominion’s Cove Point LNG (liquefied natural gas) export facility, currently under construction (more than a quarter done) along the coast of Maryland. These groups coordinate and collude to try and deny a single, legitimate business–Dominion–the right to conduct business. Sounds like something out of Stalin’s Russia or Hitler’s Germany–but no. It’s right here in the US of A. Here’s the radical’s strategy in a nutshell–throw as much feces against the wall as you can, and hope that some of it sticks. One pile of feces they’ve thrown is to file multiple lawsuits, in various courts (see 
How low can world LNG prices go? One of the potentially important markets for U.S. LNG is Japan. Historically when drillers would get $3-$4 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) here at home, they could easily get $8 or more per Mcf in Japan–if they could just get the gas loaded onto ships and get it there. Hence facilities being built like Dominion’s Cove Point, Maryland, which export gas to Japan (and India). But something happened on the way to the LNG party. Last December Platts reported LNG deliveries to Japan and Korea were fetching $7.40/Mcf (see 
You can’t see we didn’t predict this outcome: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made the political decision to not grant the Constitution Pipeline stream crossing permits, temporarily stopping the project from advancing. Cuomo’s lackeys at the totally humiliated and discredited Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) made the announcement on Friday, so-called Earth Day. Virulent anti-drillers erupted in spontaneous (and multiple) orgasms at the news. The DEC claims Williams, the builder of the Constitution, did not provide detailed information about pipe burial that the DEC had requested. This is a blatant, 100% lie. Gov. Cuomo is corrupt and is being led, as our friend Tom Shepstone points out, by the nose by Rockefeller money. Prosecutor Preet Bharara–are you paying attention? MDN now calls on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to bypass New York State, as is its right under the U.S. Constitution. FERC has the power to bypass Cuomo and the DEC and authorize the pipeline without NY’s stream crossing permits. Yes, hoops will need to be jumped through with various courts, but now is the time to permanently remove NY from such decision-making. The state has proven it is incapable of making independent, science-based decisions on the topic of oil and gas drilling and pipelines. Time to overrule the state and move on. Below we have the DEC’s pathetic political cover-up, along with various responses to the news…