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    Marcellus/Utica Gas-to-Liquids Not Dead! Dominion Sniffing Around

    Once upon a time there was an initial flurry of interest in converting shale gas, specifically Marcellus and Utica Shale gas, into other products like diesel fuel using technologies first pioneered in the 1920s. The process is called gas-to-liquids, or GTL, and there were three our four projects mentioned in the northeast over the past couple of years. The project closest to reality seemed to be the Ashtabula (OH) Energy GTL plant that got a final necessary permit from the Ohio EPA in July (see Ohio EPA Issues Final Permit for Ashtabula GTL Plant). However, parent company Velocys became embroiled in controversy, suspending its CEO for possible “serious misconduct” (see Velocys GTL Company Suspends CEO for Possible Serious Misconduct). With the collapse of the price of oil, all GTL projects seemed to fade away primarily because the substance that the natural gas would be converted to–things like diesel fuel and gasoline–are cheap direct from the refiner. That is, it’s just not economic to use natgas as the feedstock for something made cheaper via different method (refining oil). However, we have exciting news of a potential new GTL project, backed by Dominion, in the Marcellus/Utica area. Dominion’s project would convert natural gas into isobutanol and farnesene…
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    What Happened Behind the Curtains of the Marathon/MarkWest Deal?

    pull curtain backA couple of interesting tidbits have come to light regarding the impending buyout of MarkWest Energy by Marathon Petroleum, announced in July (see Midstream Bombshell: MarkWest Sells Itself to Marathon Petroleum). First interesting tidbit: As recently as February of this year, MarkWest rebuffed an informal offer from Marathon telling Marathon they prefer to be a standalone company. Then the continuing low price apocalypse deepened, changing everything. The second interesting tidbit: Two other companies were bidding to takeover MarkWest, starting in May. It appears that MarkWest didn’t want to be wedded to either of those companies and went running into the arms of Marathon instead…
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    PA Budget: Where Will Republicans “Find” $400M for Big Education?

    We are holding our collective breath. Yesterday there seemed to be movement toward finalizing a deal for the Pennsylvania State budget. The floundering Tom Wolf administration made a promise to Big Education they can’t keep–raping, er, a, raiding the Marcellus Shale industry and giving the proceeds to teachers’ unions as political payoff for helping to elect him. Republicans, which control both the PA Senate and House, have held firm: You don’t tax a single industry to transfer its wealth to another group that didn’t earn it, no matter how “worthy” and “noble” the cause. It’s called theft. Yesterday word leaked that Republicans and Wolf met and the Republicans offered Wolf $400 million for education. We’re assuming that’s $400 million on top of the increase they already offered (an increase that doesn’t get reported by mainstream media). Wolf fancifully thought by raping, er, a, raiding the Marcellus industry he’d get $1 billion. So there’s a $600 million delta there. But word is that Wolf is seriously considering the offer. What we don’t know is: Where will Republicans get the $400 million? The state is flat busted as it is, thanks to pensions that are bankrupting the state. Our question/warning is this: We sure hope Republicans aren’t getting ready to cave on a Marcellus Shale severance tax. It doesn’t matter if the tax is little or big. Little taxes today get converted into bigger taxes next year with the stroke of a legislative pen…
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    Tiny Protest (in PA) Claims to be Part of “Hands Across Our Land”

    Yesterday we told you about the “nationwide” protest that was a bust–held in three locations in Virginia and one in West Virginia by less than a cumulative 100 people (see Anti-Pipeline “Hands Across Our Land” Protest in VA & WV a Bust). The protest was supposedly against two natural gas pipelines planned to run from West Virginia through Virginia and for one of the pipelines, into North Carolina. We spotted one more protest that claims to have been part of the Hands Across Our Land “movement”–a protest at a well pad site in Pennsylvania. Of course the PA gathering had nothing to do with being against pipelines, the supposed reason for the protest in the first place. This particular group of protesters slipped across the border from Ohio (an anti-drilling group called Frackfree Mahoning Valley) to show their “solidarity” with a family who didn’t want a drill pad operating near their property. Once again it illustrates that whether they claim to be “against” fracking/drilling, or “against” a pipeline–it’s really neither. These protesters are “against” fossil fuels, period. That’s what motivates them–an irrational hatred of fossil fuels…
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    300 Ohio Boy Scouts Earn Oil & Gas Engineering Merit Badge

    This goes under the “How cool is that?” department. More than 300 Boy Scouts, attending a special summer camp in Ohio, have earned their oil and gas engineering merit badge over the past three years. The latest batch of 100 have just completed earning their badges. Scouts learn about the key role engineering and science plays in the Ohio oil and gas industry. Scouts visit working oil and gas wells as part of the program and put their learning to use by building scale models of pipelines and drilling rigs. No doubt some of them, as a result of their experiences, will decide to go to work in the greatest industry on the planet…
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    Lawless EPA Issues New Methane Rule to Cripple U.S. O&G Drilling

    lawlessThe gloves are now off and everything is out in the open: President Barack Hussein Obama wants to destroy the oil and gas industry in the United States of America. Yesterday Obama’s preferred tool of destruction, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), released a plan that brings the jackboots of the federal government down on the necks of the industry–forcing them to “reduce” methane emissions by 40-45%. Methane, you may recall, is what drillers actually extract from the ground and sell. Methane is what they get paid for–the very thing they are incentivized to capture so they can sell it. Drillers have reduced their methane emissions–the stuff leaking out around the edges–by at least 40-45% over the past few years. In other words, the industry is already doing what the EPA wants them to do. Which means this action is a blatant attempt at stifling drilling in this country. Let us be crystal clear: This action by the EPA is illegal. This is an outright attempt to regulate the oil and gas industry, contrary to the U.S. Constitution which reserves such regulation to the individual states. Just have a look at the so-called “rule” the EPA has published (all 591 pages of it). It is a top to bottom set of unlegislated regulations that will put all oil an gas drilling in the regulatory hands of the EPA.

    This is a big and important story, so we’ve broken it into several posts. Below, in this post, is the EPA press release–a masterful propaganda spin job–along with a copy of the 591-page “rule” the EPA will first publish in the Federal Register, and then, 60 days later, adopt as an unlegislated law that will become of the law of the land governing oil and gas drilling. All done through the back door of trying to reduce methane emissions as a way of controlling mythical global warming.
    Read More “Lawless EPA Issues New Methane Rule to Cripple U.S. O&G Drilling”

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    Pro-Drilling Groups Weigh in on Lawless EPA Methane Rule

    white hatAs for the good guys, the guys in the white hats who support clean-burning natural gas and fossil fuels, they also weighed in on the EPA’s lawless new methane reduction rule, otherwise known as 40 CFR Part. Here’s what the good guys from ANGA, API, Marcellus Shale Coalition, WVONGA and even what three U.S. Senators had to say…
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    Anti-Drilling Groups Weigh in on Lawless EPA Methane Rule

    black hatIf you wonder whether or not a new regulation is good or bad, you can always tell by who supports it and who doesn’t. In the case of the EPA and their lawless new methane reduction rule, otherwise known as 40 CFR Part 60, national radical environmental groups like Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, along with regional and local radical groups like the Ohio Environmental Council and the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council, are applauding the action taken by the Obama EPA…
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    The One Graph that Exposes the EPA Lie re Methane Regulation

    The graph below puts to rest the lie that the EPA’s action in trying to control oil and gas drilling via the back door of controlling methane emissions will do anything to help so-called global warming. It won’t. Not a thing. Why? One-third of all methane emissions are naturally occurring–coming from “wetlands” (i.e. swamps, representing 22%), the ocean (3%) and yes, termites (4%). Who knew termites fart that much? But wait, there’s even more farting. Of all “man-caused” methane emissions, cow farts, otherwise referred to as “enteric fermentation” represent 16% of all methane emissions, and “animal waste” (i.e. cow manure) represents another 5% of all methane emissions. That is, agriculture is responsible for 21% of all “fugitive” methane emissions. Oil & gas and coal extraction? That represents 19%. So the EPA is focusing on 19% of the problem and ignoring the other 81% of the problem, claiming that will magically reduce global warming. What utter cow manure…
    Read More “The One Graph that Exposes the EPA Lie re Methane Regulation”

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    Has Aubrey McClendon Finally Hung Himself with High Debt?

    An article on Bloomberg takes aim at famed wildcatter Aubrey McClendon, calling his move into the Marcellus Shale a “misadventure” that has left investors holding an empty bag. According to the article (excerpts below), McClendon’s strategy after leaving Chesapeake Energy was to get a bunch of money from investors (load up on debt) and then work off the debt over time as production ramps up. Problem is, the price of natural gas and oil collapsed after he loaded up on debt, and consequently there’s been very little production, and the money that comes from production is tiny. The debt hangs around Aubrey’s neck like a millstone. The question now is, has Aubrey finally hung himself with high debt? Can Ascent Resources–the one-time American Energy Partners subsidiary that broke away–survive the mountain of debt it carries long enough for prices to turn around?…
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    More Suitors Line Up to Buy Williams – Spectra Energy Makes a Bid

    Early in the year, midstream giant Energy Transfer Equity began an attempt to woo another midstream giant Williams into a buyout. Williams resisted and the whole thing went public in June when ETE announced they would pursue a hostile takeover (see Energy Transfer Makes “Indecent Proposal” to Buy Williams for $48B). Williams has continued to spurn the overtures of ETE and has instead gone shopping for another suitor (see Williams Continues to Resist ET Offer, Talks with Other Suitors). We now know of one serious alternative suitor to ETE. Reuters published an exclusive, insider story revealing that Spectra Energy is now bidding to merge with/takeover Williams. Kinder Morgan is also interested and sniffing around, but at this point Spectra seems to be in the lead…
    Read More “More Suitors Line Up to Buy Williams – Spectra Energy Makes a Bid”

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    Anti-Pipeline “Hands Across Our Land” Protest in VA & WV a Bust

    Hands Across Our Land, a minuscule gathering in three locations in Virginia and one location in West Virginia organized by the far left Sierra Club and the extremists of 350.org, held “protests” so small yesterday that if it weren’t for local media looking for any story to report during the summer doldrums, nobody would have noticed there even was a protest. Casual observers would have thought, “Oh, there’s a small group, perhaps a (nutty looking) family out for a stroll.” The “protesters” were there to object to two necessary, innocuous, safe natural gas pipelines from being buried in the ground–Dominion’s 550-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline which is due to run from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina; and EQT/NextEra US Gas Assets’ 330-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline from West Virginia into southern Virginia. As is typically the case, most of the protesters were in their 50s and 60s, former hippies who have found a new cause (anti-fossil fuels) to rejuvinate their otherwise meaningless lives…
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    A Strong Case for Exporting Marcellus/Utica Shale Gas

    Yesterday the price of natural gas trading at the benchmark Henry Hub delivery point in southern Louisiana traded for $2.71 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). At the Algonquin Citygate (Boston), where the price is known to spike due to pipeline shortages, the price was $2.59/Mcf. At Dominion South in southwestern Pennsylvania, the price was trading at $1.33/Mcf. And at the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Zone 4 Marcellus in northeastern Pennsylvania, gas traded at (don’t cry): $0.70/Mcf. A lousy 70 cents. (All prices are from the top notch NGI Daily Gas Price Index reporting service.) We are awash in natural gas in this country–a good thing. But we need exports and we need exports desperately or production will go down and prices won’t recover all that much. MDN spotted a press release from Platts touting their Japan/Korea Marker (JKM) service. In that release, they report the average price being fetched for natural gas trading in northeast Asia. You know how much they get for gas there? $8.01/Mcf. That’s 3x what gas is fetching on the Henry Hub, and 11x what it’s fetching at Tennessee Zone 4. Can we possibly make a stronger case that we need to export our cheap, abundant and clean-burning natural gas to other countries? Is it not a good thing to become a net exporter once again, instead of being indebted to the other countries of the world, countries that are gradually buying our country one piece at a time?…
    Read More “A Strong Case for Exporting Marcellus/Utica Shale Gas”

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    Marcellus/Utica Tied to $43.8B in New NE Industrial Projects

    How much of an impact does Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling (and its associated activities) impact the northeast economically? We now have a pretty good idea, thanks to research done by Industrial Info Resources, a research company based in Sugarland, TX. Industrial Info is tracking more than $43.8 billion in industrial capital and maintenance projects that are set to kick off from now through 2016 in the Northeastern U.S. and New England. Industrial Info says, “Abundant natural gas from Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania are responsible for much of the activity”…
    Read More “Marcellus/Utica Tied to $43.8B in New NE Industrial Projects”

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    PA DEP: We’re Not Close to Being Done with New Drilling Regs

    you ain't seen nothing yetYou know what happens when you elect Big Government liberals to important positions, like governor? You get high taxes and onerous regulations across all industries–but particularly on the drilling industry. Welcome to Pennsylvania and the floundering administration of Gov. Tom Wolf and his PennFuture sidekicks who pretty much run the whole show for Wolf–including the PennFuture Sec. of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley. PennFuture is an anti-drilling environmental group that Quigley used to work for prior to being appointed by Wolf to run the DEP, the agency in charge of drilling (how’s that for ironic?). On a conference call yesterday Quigley said, of the current round of new drilling rules and regulations, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. He plans to attack the Marcellus industry with even more onerous rules and regulations in the coming months and years of a (hopefully) one-term Wolf administration. Quigley is making his onerous list and checking it twice; gonna find out who’s naughty and naughtier (there is no nice in fossil fuels, ya know)…
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