Panda Power’s 2 PA Marcellus-Fired Electric Plants Complete!
In August 2013, Moxie Energy of Vienna, VA sold the permits/rights to build a new Marcellus gas-powered electric generating plant in Bradford County, PA to Panda Power Funds of Dallas, TX (see Moxie Liberty Sells PA Electric Plant Project to Panda Power). The project was renamed from Moxie Liberty to Panda Liberty. A few months later, in December 2013, Moxie sold a second Marcellus-gas fired electric plant project to Panda, this one slated to be built in Lycoming County, PA (see Panda Power Buys Rights for 2nd Marcellus-Fueled Electric Plant). That project was renamed from Moxie Patriot to Panda Patriot. Panda contracted with Gemma Power Systems (Connecticut) to build both 829-megawatt plants. We have some terrific news to share: Gemma reports completing both facilities and has turned them over to Panda to begin operation!…
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Last December Pennsylvania’s felony-indicted Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, brought a lawsuit against Chesapeake Energy, Anadarko and Williams accusing them of, among other things, royalty fraud (see 
Yesterday MDN brought you a story of how the Williams/Energy Transfer Equity merger defies logic (see Williams/ETE Merger Defies Logic – Here’s Why). Part of that story deconstructs the support for the deal by proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS). The analyst we quote in that article says ISS is buying Williams’ line that Williams’ assets after a merger with ETE will produce boatloads of cash and profit for the newly merged company, while the very same assets apart from the merger won’t. Even though the merged company will have an enormous load of new debt following the merger. It defies logic. And yet, Williams has found two more proxy advisory firms who are now willing to go on the record, like ISS, in support of the merger. What do they see that we don’t? Tune in to this episode of As the (Midstream) World Turns…
The Sierra Club is one of the worst, most radical Big Green groups in existence. We sincerely hope you never give them a penny of your money. They don’t care a whit about the environment–they only care about feeding the beast, money for their own organization. One way to do that is to keep your name in the news constantly. And a way to do that is by filing frivolous lawsuits. The Sierra Club has been railing against the Cove Point LNG export facility being built by Dominion for years (see 
Shell has long mystified us when it comes to shale. Shell has been involved in the Marcellus Shale for years with its SWEPI (Shell Western E&P) division–at one time with 900,000 acres under lease. But in 2014 Shell took an ax to its Marcellus drilling program (see 
LNG, or liquefied natural gas, is an increasingly important part of the natural gas ecosystem in the U.S. We’ve imported natgas for years–and we’re not beginning to export it as well. Each month the U.S. Dept. of Energy issues a report tabulating both imports and exports of LNG–who shipped it in and out, from where, and how much. It’s a good picture. The April report was recently released (takes a few months before the number crunchers are done). What do we find in the latest report (full copy below)? We find that the U.S. imported 34.8 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of natural gas in the first four months of the year–all of it from Trinidad. We exported 28.9 Bcf during the same period. The vast majority of exports were from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, although a small amount of LNG was exported from American LNG’s export facility in Miami, Florida…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: NRDC Gang & The French Connection; PA rig count stabilizes; budget crunch deadline approaches in PA; nominations for Who’s Who in Energy; Raymond James sees oil at $80 in 2017/2018; EIA’s new data add-on tool for Google Sheets; another alarmist ethane study; LNG oversupply will stretch to 2024; and more!
Rice Energy and farmers in rural Belmont County, OH have a great relationship. You can tell by the way each talks about the other. Farmers love Rice because the company is responsible and works with farmers to protect their land and farming livelihood. And the farms of Belmont County have treated Rice Energy well–very well. Yesterday MDN reported on first quarter 2016 production in Ohio (see 
We’ve written plenty of stories about midstream (pipeline) companies “giving back” to the communities where they either currently, or plan in the future, to operate. Typically midstream companies donate a few thousand dollars to various nonprofit groups. It adds up. Recently PennEast Pipeline donated $85,000 to 17 different groups (see 
There is something about the proposed merger of Energy Transfer Equity and Williams that’s been bugging us. A uneasy feeling. Why is Williams trying so hard to make this deal happen–when they resisted it just as hard in the beginning? What changed? Why are they now insisting that ETE–who has gotten cold feet and wants out–go forward? Recently Williams published a letter from Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS)–a “leading proxy advisory firm”–recommending that shareholders in Williams vote “yes” on the merger with ETE (see 
An issue we’ve highlighted before and one we’d rather not talk about–but must–is the issue of layoffs in the Marcellus/Utica industry. A recent article in the Pittsburgh Times-Tribune paints a heart-wrenching picture of how layoffs are affecting places like Westmoreland County, where personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures are spiking due to energy industry layoffs…
Earlier this month MDN told you about five enviro gangsters who were arrested in Vermont for illegally chaining themselves to equipment to stop work on a new transmission pipeline–41 miles long–between Colchester to Middlebury (see 
We now know why the oil and gas industry has laid off some 200,000 people over the past few years–they’re not spending money. A new research report from powerhouse consulting firm Wood Mackenzie finds that global upstream development (i.e. drillers) have cut their spending from 2015-2020 by 22%. If you role in cuts to conventional drilling, the total amount cut from budgets (worldwide) from 2015-2020 is a staggering $1 trillion! One of the biggest expenses in a drilling operation is human resources–people. Unfortunately we don’t have a copy of the £1000 (~$1,500) report to share with you. But we do have a high level overview provided by Wood Mackenzie…