New Owner “Mothballs” GASFRAC’s Waterless LPG Technology
In March MDN told you the sad story that Canadian waterless fracking company GASFRAC had been sold to an unnamed third party after going bankrupt (see Bankrupt Waterless Fracking Co GASFRAC Sold to “Third Party”). GASFRAC’s technology had been used to frack a Utica Shale well (for $22 million), and the results were, shall we say, less than stellar (see EVEP Reports Waterless Fracked OH Well is a Bust). We now know two new things about GASFRAC: (1) the company that purchased it out of bankruptcy is another Canadian company–STEP Energy; (2) STEP has mothballed GASFRAC’s waterless LPG fracking technology…
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On Tuesday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection held it’s first “listening session” to consider which creative ways they will cut the economic throat of the state by attempting to comply with nonsensical carbon standards set by our Dear Leader, Barack H. Obama, via his so-called Clean Power Plan (see 
The R Street Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan, public policy research organization (i.e. “think tank”) headquartered in Washington, DC with satellite offices in Florida, Texas, California, Alabama, and Ohio. After conducting an extensive review of existing published studies, R Street has found that while every form of energy has its negatives, including fracking, on the whole fracking for shale energy’s benefits far outweigh its negatives. Their findings are published in a new report titled “The Green Side of Fracking” (full copy below)…
From time to time we highlight companies that get their line of credit/borrowing power reevaluated by their bankers. Usually we spot announcements from exploration and production (E&P) companies, otherwise known as drillers on MDN. Sometimes we spot such announcements for midstream (or pipeline) companies. The one we spotted from yesterday about made our eyes pop out–by far the biggest such line of credit we’ve seen for a company with major operations in the northeast shale area. Enterprise Products Partners, which built and operates the 1,230-mile Appalachia-to-Texas Express (ATEX) ethane pipeline from Ohio to the Gulf Coast, announced they got a bump up in their credit line of $500 million. They now have the power to borrow up to $5.5 BILLION (yes, with a “b”). They could buy a small country with that kind of money…
ET Rover is a 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will serve mostly U.S. customers and will cost $3.7 billion to build and run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada (see 
What’s going on at Hess? On Monday MDN told you that one of Hess’ board members, John H. Mullin III, had purchased 7,000 shares of Hess stock for $381,430 (called “insider buying”), bringing his total holdings of Hess stock to $3.2 million (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Gas going from East to West; title attorneys face layoffs from low gas prices; WNY residents oppose compressor station; Ohio passes 1K producing Utica wells; PA town beats back challenge to Sunoco pipeline; antis threaten lawsuit against WV EPA; and more!
Did Chesapeake Energy take Williams to the cleaners? Chesapeake Energy has just cut a deal with Williams to shave 25 cents per Mcf off their natural gas gathering fees in the Utica Shale (see this Shale Daily story: 
Once again Ohio Republicans are starting to lose their cool and are considering a dalliance with a high Utica Shale severance tax proposed by RINO Gov. John Kasich (who’s running for president, but then nobody knows since he’s at 0% in the polls). Perhaps state Republicans think by giving Kasich what he wants in a high severance tax it will enhance his presidential prospects with conservatives? (NOT!) Whatever the reason, Ohio’s left-leaning PBS outlet at Kent State is reporting legislators are meeting “behind closed doors” with members of the oil and gas industry to beg and plead for an increase in the severance tax…
Kinder Morgan announced yesterday they are extending the current binding open season for the proposed Utica Marcellus Texas Pipeline (UMTP) project. Which is not a very good sign in our humble opinion. Before it was called the UMTP, Kinder Morgan’s proposed NGL pipeline, that will run from the Marcellus/Utica all the way to the Gulf Coast, was called the Y-Grade Pipeline and had its first binding open season at the end of 2013 (see 
The global warming/control-every-single-aspect-of-your-life-for-you nutters are on a rampage. Some 400 “organizations” (mostly individuals) have sent a letter to their Dear Leader, Barack H. Obama, asking the Dear Leader to keep all fossil fuels in the ground. Sensing that their time grows short while Dear Leader is still in office, the nutjobs, wackos and ne’er do wells in the most extreme part of the environmental movement (which is pretty much all of it) are pressing their advantage while they have a sympathetic ear in the White House. The letter, delivered yesterday (a copy is embedded below) predictably uses man-made global warming as the excuse to choke off all further fossil fuel extraction on U.S. owned or controlled land. In good liberal fashion they’ve created a catchy phrase for their effort: “Keep it in the ground.” They’re starting with federally controlled land first–then they’ll go after private land next. Below is the press release from EARTHWORKS, one of the worst of the worst of these lunatic organizations…
Love it, love it, love it! What would it actually be like without fossil fuels in our lives? We hear it all the time–global warming nutters “demanding” we end the use of fossil fuels. Read today’s related story about a group of 400 people who wrote to Obama demanding that he “keep it [fossil fuels] in the ground.” The Western Energy Alliance (WEA) is calling their bluff. The WEA is challenging those who profess to want to end the use of fossil fuels to participate in a Fossil Fuel Free Challenge for five days–so they can see for themselves just what life would be like without the miracle of fossil fuels. The dirty little secret is, they can’t do it, because they can’t live without fossil fuels in their lives. It’s impossible. This is a brilliant move on the part of the WEA–calling the bluff of those agitating for an end to fossil fuels–exposing the lie that it’s even possible…
It appears that fossil fuel hate group FANG–Fighting Against Natural Gas–has struck again in Rhode Island. We told you in August about two FANG radicals who used PVC pipe (made from fossil fuels) and tar to stick themselves to each other and to a fence at a site where a natural gas compressor station is being built (see 
FlexEnergy, a New Hampshire-based manufacturer of gas turbines, has just sold three of their gas turbines to Pennsylvania General Energy to power a remote compressor facility in the Marcellus Shale region. The PGE compressor station will be located in a middle of nowhere area without the benefit of an electric line–hence the FlexEnergy gas-powered compressors…
If this doesn’t beat all: New York has banned fracking as potentially unsafe to the health and welfare of its citizens–but its citizens, particularly in New York City, are benefiting from fracked shale gas (from Pennsylvania) in a huge way. Electricity prices for the five boroughs of NYC have plummeted because of the abundant, cheap and clean-burning natural gas from PA’s Marcellus Shale, used in electric generating plants that serve Gotham. In fact, NYC’s electric rates are now at parity or falling below the electric rates in Washington, DC!…