Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 21, 2020
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Wooing petrochemical plants in the age of COVID-19; Atlantic Coast Pipeline capacity hinders Cabot’s growth potential; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: California regulators reiterate support for gas phase out; Permian well shut-ins wind down, but natural declines extend oil, gas downturn; NATIONAL: Lawsuits seek transparency on coordination between state AG offices and outside organizations; EIA forecasts U.S. petroleum demand will remain below 2019 levels for several more months; URTeC 2020: Opening session speakers see industry recovering, but ESG issues loom large; Future-proofing gas generation for the coming carbon-free world; Nat gas prices crash as U.S. exports fall; INTERNATIONAL: New US sanctions block Putin’s pipeline despite Danish breakthrough; Russia and Saudi Arabia are rooting for Biden…Here’s why.
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In December 2018 Williams announced a new project to increase capacity along the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) in PA by an extra 582,400 dekatherms (582 million cubic feet) per day. Williams officially filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the “Leidy South Project” in August 2019 (see 
Energy Transfer’s subsidiary Sunoco Logistics is trying to finish up final construction of the Mariner East 2X pipeline in southeast Pennsylvania. ME2 and ME2X flow natural gas liquids including ethane and propane from eastern Ohio and western PA all the way to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. As the pipe travels through Philly neighborhoods, some of the geography is limestone (porous) and when drilling to install pipes, it has led to sinkholes. Another seven such sinkholes have appeared since June and the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) is investigating.
The Philadelphia Inquirer published a story today that is (surprise!) totally one-sided and biased. The story has the provocative title of, “‘Dark money’ groups spent $517,000 against two Philly-area candidates who oppose the Mariner East pipeline.” Oooohhh. It’s dark money and sinister and it was used against two virtuous, pure-as-the-wind-driven-snow Democrat candidates in primaries. Completely absent from the story is any reference to Big Green dark money that was poured into those same races (see 
Last week we brought you news that Shell had temporarily suspended adding back some 300 workers per week at its ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a spike in COVID-19 coronavirus cases (see 
NEXUS Pipeline, a $2.6 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that runs from Ohio into Michigan, has been fully online since October 2018 (see 
We’re always suckers for railroad story. Not sure why, but we love reading about short line railroads that do well because of the shale industry. We spotted such a story about the 48-mile short line Belpre Industrial Parkersburg (BIP) Railroad between Parkersburg, West Virginia, and Relief, Ohio (via Marietta). BIP expects to double its traffic over the next year to 18 months thanks to the Marcellus/Utica Shale industry and the business it’s generating.
In mid-May the nation’s largest natural gas producer, EQT Corporation, temporarily shut-in (curtailed) roughly one-third of its natural gas production in Pennsylvania and Ohio (see 
When the COVID-19 coronavirus hit, Shell stopped all work on its mighty cracker plant in Beaver County, PA, sending nearly 8,000 workers home in mid-March for what was thought to be “a few days to a few weeks” (see 
Over the past week, comparing this past Wednesday (Jul 15) with a week ago Wednesday (Jul 8), the Enverus onshore rig count increased by five–from 276 to 281. After four solid months of the rig count going down, perhaps we’ve finally hit bottom, turned a corner, and any other analogy you can think of to indicate better days are ahead.
The wackos at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have convinced, bullied and coopted 14 far-left-leaning states plus the District of Columbia to sign a “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) that pledges their states will force tractor-trailers, buses and other large and medium-sized vehicles to be all-electric by 2050–in thirty short years. It’s crackers. It’s cuckoo. It’s not even possible! And it will never happen. But just the threat is enough to inflict economic harm and hardship on working-class folks. We’d even call the NRDC MOU racist.
Multi-billionaire Warren Buffett (with more money than God) is a darling of the Democrat left because he’s a Democrat and often $upports leftist causes. Buffett has even praised crazy Bernie Sanders for championing the little guy. Yet Buffett isn’t ready to give up capitalism the way most of the rest of his party advocates. When it comes to investing and making money, Buffett is betting big on fossil fuels. Less than two weeks ago Buffett finalized a deal to buy all of Dominion Energy’s natural gas pipeline business, including major assets in the Marcellus/Utica (see 
In January President Trump announced a list of proposed changes to the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in an effort to strip away some of the governmental red tape that has built up over the years like plaque in an artery, preventing important infrastructure projects like pipelines, dams, bridges, and roads from getting built (see