Anti Group Sues to Stop Mass. Utilities from Buying Natural Gas
In early September MDN told you that the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Utilities (DPU) approved long-term contracts for three utilities–Berkshire Gas, National Grid and Columbia Gas–to buy natural gas supplies from Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline–if it gets built (see Mass. Approves Plan for Utilities to Buy Gas from New Pipeline). At the time we warned you that the global warming-mongers were not happy and threatening to sue the state. They’ve now done it. The left-leaning Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) has filed an appeal of the DPU’s decision with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in hopes that they can stop the project from being built if they can dry up demand from utility companies–i.e., prevent the utilities from buying NED gas. The CLF action, if successful, would economically harm every citizen in the Bay State. But the CLF doesn’t give two figs for Massachusetts consumers who are already paying the highest electric rates in the Lower 48…
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A truck driver hauling coiled tubing (pipe) used for fracking had an unfortunate run-in with a railroad overpass in Columbiana County, OH. The railroad bridge running over State Route 558 in Fairfield Township is just 13 feet high. The coiled tubing on the back of the truck was higher, and the driver didn’t realize it. So when he went under the overpass, it literally pulled it off and dumped it across the highway. Oops…
Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA) is a trade organization representing some of the largest manufacturing companies on the planet–manufacturing plants that buy a lot of natural gas. The IECA is picking a fight with interstate pipeline companies by claiming the pipelines, which are quasi public utilities, are overcharging for the delivery of gas flowing through them. The IECA wants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to step in and conduct rigorous reviews of the rates being charged…
A powerful new video has just been released by the Energy & Environmental Legal Institute that takes direct aim at the socialist/leftist policies being pedaled by the Pope and other so-called faith leaders, policies that they hope the United States will adopt to control mythical global warming. The video (watch it below) says that such policies in Europe have already led to the death of thousands of the poor and elderly. How? Electricity and energy prices in places like Germany and other European countries has gotten so high the most vulnerable can’t afford it. Electricity has become a luxury for many–and they end up freezing to death in the winter and frying to death in the summer. No, we’re not being melodramatic to make a point. This is happening–right now. Watch the video. People are dying because of government policies that aim to end the use of fossil fuels–policies like Obama’s proposed Clean Power Plan. These policies are stark, raving, mad–and it must stop. People like the Pope and other religious leaders need to be opposed when they erroneously wander into politics and advocate for government policies that kill the very people they say they want to help…
MDN’s favorite U.S. Senator, bar none, is Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma. Sen. Inhofe is Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works–a very powerful voice in Washington, D.C. when it comes to the environment. We spotted a column written by Sen. Inhofe that rips apart President Obama’s so-called Clean Power Plan. In no uncertain words, Inhofe explains why the CPP–which is fully supported by America’s most liberal governor, PA Gov. Tom Wolf, and his lieutenant DEP Sec. John Quigley–is bad for the oil and gas industry, bad for the electric generating industry, and bad for all Americans. It is, in fact, a fraud being perpetrated on the American public to disguise Obama’s war on fossil fuels…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Heating season forecast; frack talk at YSU; PA incentives to use more gas; natgas’ value to PA; natgas prices in Mass. go down; idiots oppose 5-mile pipeline in Mass.; rig count continues to fall; propane supply chain; French Total manipulates US natgas market; leaky pipes; and more!
At last week’s Shale Insight conference, MDN editor Jim Willis sat in on a few of the main sessions. One of those sessions was the opener on Wednesday–a panel discussion moderated by the inimitable and always interesting Michael Krancer, a partner at the Philadelphia-based Blank Rome law firm and formerly the Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection during Tom Cobett’s administration. The panel discussion was titled “Philadelphia – The New Northeast Energy Hub” and featured an all-star lineup: Joe Colella, senior VP at Sunoco Logistics; Phil Rinaldi, Chairman and CEO at Philadelphia Energy Solutions; and John Walsh, President and CEO of UGI Corporation. Mike Krancer kicked off the session with a bold statement: He believes Philly will rival and soon pass Houston, Texas as the dominant energy hub in the United States…
MarkWest Energy has been fined $76,405 by the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) for a series of water quality violations in connection with projects they’ve built in West Virginia from 2013 to this year. In addition to the fine, MarkWest is required to submit a plan to correct problems that still exist. This isn’t the first time MarkWest has been to the WVDEP wood shed. In 2013 they were fined $306,000 for polluting a small stream near their new Mobley processing plant in Wetzel County (see 
As we have been reporting for months, Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, committed perjury (a felony) by lying under oath about leaking grand jury information to a reporter in an attempt to smear a political “enemy” and she should have resigned and left office long ago–but she’s too obstinate to do that. In PA the AG is required to have a license to practice law. Her license has just been suspended (not yet revoked) by the PA Supreme Court, which raises an interesting constitutional question: Can Kane be forced from office because she can’t practice law, the thing she was elected to do? Everybody, including American’s most liberal governor, PA Gov. Tom Wolf, wants her gone. But she refuses to leave and continues to stammer and yammer about porno emails and conspiracies by old men out to get her…
In April 2014, MDN told you about a proposal from Clean Energy Future to build an $800 million electric generation plant in Lordstown (Trumbull County), OH. The plant will be fired by natural gas from the Utica and Marcellus (see 
Shell continues to work (and spend money) on a site in Beaver County, Pennsylvania that will one day hopefully be the home of an ethane cracker plant. The most recent positive sign that Shell will move forward with the project is that they are in the process of building a bridge over a highway for trucks to access the site as they work on site preparation and building (see 
Seems like just about every pipeline project out there is, in one way or the other, connected to the Marcellus/Utica Shale and moving northeast shale gas to other markets. Example: Yesterday Columbia Pipeline Group announced they have received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval to proceed with the Cameron Access Project in Southwest Louisiana. The $310 million project includes improvements to Columbia Gulf’s existing pipeline system, as well as ancillary facilities, a new compressor station near Lake Arthur, Louisiana, and the installation of an approximately 26 mile greenfield pipeline lateral in Cameron Parish that provides direct access to the Cameron LNG export facility. The purpose of the project? It “further connects abundant, but constrained, Appalachian supplies to higher value markets.” In other words, Columbia will offer a new export market for Marcellus/Utica gas via the Cameron LNG export terminal. The project is due to begin construction in the spring of 2016 and be placed in service during the first quarter of 2018…
Global research firm Wood Mackenzie recently published a brief analysis of LNG export facilities asking the question, Where are all the LNG project postponements? According to Wood researchers, the outlook for global LNG demand is looking increasingly subdued–particularly in China. The number of LNG projects proposed to make a Final Investment Decision (FID) in 2015 and 2016 has not reduced significantly. If all or close to all of the projects on the books make a FID to move forward, there would be an unsustainable glut of new LNG supplies–without a corresponding amount of demand around the globe. Wood Mackenzie’s conclusion? Companies will soon wake up to the fact that there won’t be enough demand and we will see “a raft of project postponements” in the next 6-18 months…
In another sobering bit of analysis by global research firm Wood Mackenzie, the company tells drillers that while their hammering of the supply chain (like oilfield services companies) to reduce prices by 20-30% will help, it will only result in an overall 10-15% savings. If drillers want to keep their drilling projects “viable” (i.e. profitable), “additional measures” will be needed to manage costs. Wood Mackenzie researchers have a few suggestions for how drillers can continue lowering costs to the point their projects are, once again, turning a profit in a low oil and gas price world. If they don’t lower costs more, there’s a mind-blowing $1.5 trillion worth of shale projects that are “at risk” of not happening…
Vermonters have finally woken up to the fact that they’re paying obscenely high electric rates–especially since they mothballed the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, VT. The pastoral, gentile and very green residents of Vermont, you may recall, decided to become the first state in the union to ban fracking, back in 2012 (see