Even while maintaining social distancing due to the coronavirus pandemic, Bechtel has managed to complete a 1,100-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle natural gas-fired power plant in Dover (Dutchess County), New York. The new Cricket Valley Energy Center will generate enough electricity to power one million New York homes.
Read More “Bechtel Completes Gas-Fired Cricket Valley Energy Center in NY”
In the end, physics and not government intervention is forcing the end of large amounts of shale oil production across the U.S. With a forced shutdown of the world’s economy (including the U.S. economy) due to the coronavirus pandemic, some 30 million barrels per day of oil the world would have used (out of a previous 100 million bpd) has disappeared. Demand has dried up. Yes, the oil apocalypse is here. Welcome to Hades. Some of our favorite oil superheroes will not make it out alive.
Read More ““End Game” – America’s Shale Oil Industry Begins to Shut Down”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: DEP receives Good Samaritan Act proposals to plug 2 abandoned wells in Wyoming, Venango counties; Appalachian E&Ps’ shares soar on forecasted associated gas decline; Letter to the editor: Conor Lamb, Joe Biden & fracking; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: State regulators taking action as E&Ps fight to survive amid oil demand collapse; Energy Transfer weighs crude storage in idle pipelines; NATIONAL: Withdrawals from natural gas storage this winter were lowest since 2015–16; Oil executive and Trump ally Hamm seeks US probe of oil price crash; U.S. oil and natural gas fighting COVID-19; INTERNATIONAL: Plunge in oil prices could shake up Middle East, Russia; Coronavirus havoc is drowning out China’s failure to buy U.S. crude, LNG, coal; How oil prices could go to $100.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Apr 27, 2020”
Yesterday EQT, the country’s largest natural gas-producing company (based in Pittsburgh) released “preliminary highlights” for financial and operational performance in first-quarter 2020, ahead of the official full release on May 7. It was a tease of good things to come in the full release. What did it show?
Read More “EQT First Look at 1Q20: Production Up, Costs Down, Future is Bright”
Great news! The Mariner East 2 pipeline project along with Shell’s mighty ethane cracker project will once again be able to restart their stopped construction. At least according to our reading of the law. As you may know the Pennsylvania Dept. of Community and Economic Development (DCED) has been “reviewing” waiver requests to allow all work to resume for both ME2 and the cracker project (see PA DCED First Grants Then Rescinds ME2 Pipe Construction Waivers and Shell Files for Waiver to Restart PA Cracker Work w/Fewer Workers).
Read More “Mariner East Pipe, Shell Cracker Can Restart Construction May 1”
The first phase (of three) for Sabal Trail, a $3.2 billion, 515-mile interstate natural gas pipeline in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama to deliver Marcellus gas to the southeast, came online in June 2017 (see Sabal Trail Pipeline Begins Service Connecting M-U Gas to Florida). The second phase was just green-lighted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and about to come online now.
Read More “FERC OKs Extra Compression on Sabal Trail Pipe, M-U Gas to FL”
The U.S. rig count continues in a freefall, losing massive numbers of rigs each week. Over the past month rigs have gone down 47, then 45, then (gulp) 80, and then 74 (see Rig Count Plunges Another 74; M-U Count Steady as She Goes). Last week the rig count crashed another 76–the second-highest loss for one week in the modern era. Most of rigs disappeared from the oil patch. However, last week the Marcellus lost 2 rigs too.
Read More “Carnage Continues: Rig Count Down Another 76, Marcellus Down 2”
Eighteen Pennsylvania State Senators sent a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf on April 21 asking Wolf to direct the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to stop trying to ram through a new tax on carbon that will kill the state’s flourishing natural gas-fired electric generating plants.
Read More “18 PA Republican Senators Ask Gov. Wolf to Cancel Carbon Tax Plan”
We’ve recently brought you a number of stories about Chesapeake Energy and their falling stock price (see Chesapeake’s Reverse Stock Split Bombs, Company “On Life Support” and Chesapeake Suspends Dividend Payments; Stock Still Falling). Most analysts believe that with $9 billion in debt and a stock value approaching $0, the company will have to declare bankruptcy. Soon. But not everyone sees it that way. We spotted one analyst who says Chessy still has a fighting chance to stay out of bankruptcy, if…
Read More “Chesapeake Energy’s Slim Chance to Avoid Bankruptcy”
Reuters recently published a story called “Bankruptcy looms over U.S. energy industry, from oil fields to pipelines.” Until now the main focus and chatter has been about shale oil drillers and how they will, or will not, survive the low oil price apocalypse. What we haven’t heard much about (until now) are pipeline companies. As the article points out, midstream companies are not immune to the price crash nor (for some) to bankruptcy.
Read More “Oil Price Crash Threatens Midstream (Pipeline) Companies Too”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Update regarding Ohio landmen professional registrations; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: U.S. oil firm Continental Resources halts shale output, seeks to cancel sales; NATIONAL: COVID-19 mitigation efforts result in the lowest U.S. petroleum consumption in decades; Patterson-UTI sees 60% decline in activity as oil prices crater; For natural gas, negative U.S. crude is manna from heaven; How the futures market impacts physical crude oil; US energy independence can still lead the way; INTERNATIONAL: U.S. natural gas to be world’s priciest amid virus upheaval.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Apr 24, 2020”
Disgusting anti-fossil fuel lunatics have hassled the Keystone XL oil pipeline in the Midwest with frivolous lawsuits for years. Last week an Obama-appointed liberal judge serving in Montana, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris, vacated a permit for the Keystone project, once again stopping construction. The permit vacated was issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is called a Nationwide Permit 12–the equivalent of a Section 401 permit under the Clean Water Act–allowing projects like pipelines to be built across or under streams, rivers and “wetlands” (swamps). The problem with the judge’s action is that it potentially affects all pipeline projects across the country using an NP12 permit–including the delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile Marcellus/Utica gas pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia.
Read More “Mountain Valley Pipe Permit in Va. Delayed After Montana Decision”
Virginia Natural Gas (VNG), a company that serves customers in northeastern Virginia, wants to build new natural gas infrastructure in Prince William and Fauquier counties. VNG is seeking state approval to build 24 miles of new pipeline and two new compressor stations (expanding a third compressor), connecting to the mighty Transco pipeline system to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the region. The Header Improvement Project, as it’s called, will help service VNG’s 300,000 natural gas customers and is needed to deliver natural gas to two proposed new gas-fired power plants.
Read More “Antis Worried Pandemic Means They Can’t Stop Va. Pipeline Project”
New Jersey Natural Gas’ (NJNG) $130 million, 22-mile natural gas pipeline project called the Southern Reliability Link (SRL) pipeline project to connect NJNG’s distribution system serving customers in Ocean, Burlington and Monmouth counties (in NJ) has been under construction since last summer (see Pipeline Thru NJ Scrub Pines Under Construction Despite Opposition). Although NJ Gov. Phil Murphy has shut down construction projects in general, the SRL has been allowed to continue work.
Read More “Pipeline Thru NJ Scrub Pines Continues Building During COVID-19”
The Narragansett Indian Tribe in Rhode Island won’t be smoking the peace pipe any time soon. The Tribe tried to block construction of Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) Connecticut Expansion pipeline project as a violation the National Historic Preservation Act by not protecting “ceremonial stone landscapes” supposedly found along the path of the pipeline (see Indian Tribe Fights FERC Over Tiny Pipeline in Mass. The Tribe asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reconsider its approval of the project, which FERC refused, so the Tribe sued in federal court last summer (see Rhode Island Indians Take FERC to Court re Massachusetts Pipeline). The federal court ruled the Tribe did not have standing in February, and yesterday the court refused to reconsider their decision.
Read More “Fed Court Rejects Rhode Island Indians’ Attempt to Stop Pipeline”
Marcellus/Utica propane flows from eastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania all the way to southeastern PA via the Mariner East pipelines (ME1 and ME2). A petrochemical facility operated by Braskem America in Marcus Hook (near Philadelphia) processes some of that propane, turning it into polypropylene–the raw plastic used to make N95 masks, hospital gowns, and sanitary wipes–items in critical demand right now to protect health care workers against the COVID-19 coronavirus. This will bring tears to your eyes as it did ours: Some 40 workers at the Braskem plant voluntarily decided to stay at the plant for 28 days straight–working 12-hour shifts–not leaving once during that time so they could be sure of no COVID contamination while they worked to make polypropylene that in turn would be used to make personal protective equipment for healthcare workers. We salute them one and all!
Read More “Philly Petchem Workers Isolate 28 Days to Make Virus Equipment”