ACC Tells FERC Proposed GHG Review Policies for Pipes a Bad Thing
Three Democrat Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners voted to adopt and immediately begin using new guidelines for approving pipeline projects by taking into account mythical global warming factors back in February (see FERC Democrats Ram Thru Global Warming Policy for Pipe Decisions). Barely a month later, in March, all five FERC commissioners, including Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick, voted to convert those new policies back into draft mode, meaning they don’t apply–not yet anyway (see FERC’s Glick Does “Abrupt About-Face” on New Global Warming Regs). FERC’s Dems intend to bring the onerous new regs back, after eliciting public comment. It was furious backpedaling by the Dems after getting serious blowback. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has just filed its comments telling FERC their proposed regs are (our words) junk.
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The world can’t get enough LNG (liquefied natural gas), specifically American LNG. The U.S. has seven active LNG export terminals, another 18 FERC-approved export terminal projects (four under construction), and six or more proposed but not yet approved projects. The world needs our natural gas/LNG, we have the ability to provide it, let’s build! Chop chop!! But wait a minute–it’s not that easy (nothing ever is). There are two big reasons why more LNG export facilities are not proceeding to final investment decisions (FIDs) and beginning to build, even with the world begging for our LNG.
Last week Pennsylvania issued 22 new shale well permits, up ten from the prior week. EQT led the way with five permits, all in Greene County. Both LOLA Energy and Snyder Brothers had four permits each, LOLA in Butler County and Snyder in Armstrong. For the second week in a row, Ohio had no new shale permits issued last week. Bummer. West Virginia had eight permits, up from two in the prior week. Arsenal Resources had the most with four permits in Taylor County, while Southwestern Energy had three permits–one in Ohio County and two in Brooke County.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Plans for New Fortress Energy Louisiana FLNG advance; NATIONAL: Peak oil might be just three years away, McKinsey says; INTERNATIONAL: Poland and Bulgaria say Russia is suspending their natural gas supplies; Plan to quickly wean Europe off Russian gas faces major hurdles.
Over the past decade or more landowners have been approached about leasing their property and/or mineral rights–for shale drilling, pipelines, solar and wind farms, etc. Here’s a new one to add to the list: pore rights. Pore space is the underground space where carbon dioxide that’s captured from various processes can be injected and stored, keeping it locked away underground where it theoretically won’t damage Mom Earth. The whole concept of storing CO2 underground would be funny if it were not so sad that grownups are actually doing this. But we digress. Leasing pore rights may be the next big thing for landowners and mineral rights owners in the Marcellus/Utica region as carbon capture and storage takes off. However, who owns pore rights? Landowners or mineral rights owners?
When you only have one main pipeline flowing natural gas from the prolific Marcellus Shale to your region, as does Boston, if that pipe has an outage for any reason, as the Algonquin Gas Transmission (AGT) has had, you’re in trouble. AGT declared a force majeure (an unforeseen act of God) on the 26-inch line of its J System in Massachusetts. The outage in one particular section of the pipeline means “slashing nominations downstream of Trapelo to zero for the foreseeable future.” Ouch. Guess what’s happening to the price of natural gas at the Algonquin Citygates natgas trading hub? Through the roof.
The Acting Deputy Secretary for Oil and Gas Management at the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Kurt Klapkowski, spoke to the DEP’s Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board (TAB) yesterday, updating the board on his program’s finances (lack thereof). As part of his comments, Klapkowski observed that each year the number of new shale wells drilled in PA decreases. He offered some reasons why that may be happening. We have a few reasons to add that Klapkowski overlooked.
Pennsylvania has already received the first $25 million payment from the so-called infrastructure bill, a down payment on what will eventually be ~$400 million over the next 15 years to plug abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells across the state (see 
JobsOhio, a private nonprofit largely funded by liquor sales that the state allows the nonprofit to collect (in essence it collects sales tax on liquor sales), has funded a study from Cleveland State University that promotes the Buckeye State as THE place to locate a $2 billion hydrogen hub. However, the study says such a hub should NOT use Ohio’s abundant, clean, Utica Shale gas as a source to create the hydrogen that would be used by such a hub.
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility, to provide extra natural gas. That project is being investigated by the Biden administration on charges of racism (see 
You know how Big Banks have gone woke left, threatening to defund, divest, and refuse to loan money to oil and natural gas companies due to pressure from a small, vocal minority on the environmental left? Big Banks are now facing their worst nightmare: The oil and gas industry is making enough money, generating enough free cash flow, that it can walk away from loans from Big Banks. Goodbye and good riddance.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow more Marcellus gas to Westchester County, NY and New York City for Consolidated Edison customers, called the East 300 Upgrade Project, took a giant leap forward last Thursday when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued permits that allow TGP to upgrade two existing compressor stations (in PA), and build a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County, NJ), just across the border and not far from Westchester County. This is a major victory and a sign this project will now get completed.
Pennsylvania State Rep. Marina White (Republican from Philadelphia, a true rarity) sponsored a bill that’s getting traction in Harrisburg. House Bill (HB) 2458, which passed with a vote by the full House on April 13, creates a task force to study how to establish Philadelphia LNG exports to international markets, particularly those in Europe. The bill creates a task force to study the economic feasibility, financial impact, and the security needed to turn the Port of Philly into an LNG export terminal, exporting PA’s abundant and clean Marcellus Shale gas.
Not content to prosecute years-old accidents as “crimes” for the shale industry in his zeal to attack fossil energy, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a vicious radical running for governor this November, is now targeting mom and pop conventional drillers too. Specifically, he is investigating conventional drillers for spreading non-toxic brine on PA’s dirt roads in the summertime, a legal practice in the Keystone State (at least it was legal until last December), looking to prosecute someone, anyone, to grab another headline and stoke his radicalized base of supporters.