Court Rejects Stanford Prof’s Lawsuit Against Renewables Critics
A Standford University professor who sued another scientist who dared to criticize his wacky views on renewable energy in a journal article sued the scientist and the journal for defamation. It took a while for the lawsuit to play out (two years), but a judge in the case recently ruled the Standford prof was wrong in filing the lawsuit and must now pay the attorney’s fees for those whom he sued. Sweet justice.
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: ExxonMobil donates medical-grade sanitizer to Pa. for COVID-19 response; Pipelines, transmission lines impacted by hold on federal stream permits; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Final phase of natural gas line expansion between Wallingford, Middletown begins; Permian natural gas forwards curve signals better days ahead; Gas well projects spike amid negative oil prices; NATIONAL: Low liquidity and limited available storage pushed WTI crude oil futures prices below zero; Oklahoma governor says pandemic “Act of God,” asks Trump to help oil & gas; Trump faces big decisions on energy industry rescue as U.S. runs out of places to store oil; Natural gas broke a bearish trading pattern last week; As oil prices plunge, energy job losses soar; INTERNATIONAL: Hidden threat: Japan has only 2-week stockpile of LNG.
Last Friday PTT Global Chemical, the huge Thailand-based petrochemical company looking to build a world-class ethane cracker plant in Belmont County, OH, issued an update for the project. In February PTT’s CEO signaled that a final investment decision (FID) on whether (or not) to build the project would happen by “mid-year 2020” (see 
Last week as Chesapeake Energy’s stock plunged toward $0 in value, it seemed as if it was a matter of when (not if) the company would either declare bankruptcy or get bought out/taken over. The board of directors, sensing the takeover sharks were swirling, adopted a “shareholder rights plan” (aka poison pill) last Thursday to try and prevent another company or person or group from swooping in and buying up the company’s assets. And then a funny thing happened. On Friday Chessy’s stock price zoomed up 45%.
When will the practice of THE Delaware Riverkeeper (radial leftist “environmental” group) of filing frivolous lawsuits stop? Using money from the William Penn Foundation and the Heinz Endowments (both of which should be investigated by the IRS for violations of their 501(c)3 status by engaging in political activities via proxies like Riverkeeper), THE Delaware Riverkeeper has launched yet another attack on the New Fortress Energy proposed loading dock on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River, where Marcellus Shale LNG is due to be loaded onto ships bound for other countries.
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.
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?
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 
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 
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 
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.
We’ve recently brought you a number of stories about Chesapeake Energy and their falling stock price (see 
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.