The media spin machine and anti-fossil fuelers are in overdrive, but they can’t paper over this fact: Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court expressed a very loud and clear interest in hearing the PennEast Pipeline vs. New Jersey case–and that spells bad news for NJ and its radical Attorney General who is trying to block the pipeline from entering the state.
Read More “US Supreme Court Signals It Wants to Hear PennEast Pipeline Case”
Former Chester County, PA District Attorney Tom Hogan (RINO), and his successor Deb Ryan (Democrat) are 100% humiliated after a Chester County Magisterial District Judge dismissed the entire case against the local head of security for Energy Transfer in what the DA’s office lyingly calls a “buy a badge scheme.” Judge John Bailey dismissed all 54 criminal counts against Frank Recknagel over his hiring of constables as off-duty security guards for the Mariner East pipeline project. The DA’s office tried to criminalize moonlighting for the pipeline.
Read More “Chester DA Charges Against ME Pipe Security Chief Tossed by Judge”
We’ll try not to sound arrogant, but once again *only* MDN nailed it–which is why you subscribe, right? Yesterday we brought you the news that Chesapeake Energy has finally filed for bankruptcy (see Chesapeake Files for Bankruptcy – Debtors to Take Ownership). In our opening paragraph, we told pipeline companies according to the language we read in the press release, that Chessy is “looking to break existing contracts, using the bankruptcy filing as an excuse.” And guess what? That is exactly what happened, including a request to break a contract with Crestwood’s Stagecoach Pipeline in the Marcellus/Utica.
Read More “Chesapeake Asks Court to Break Pipeline Contracts, Including M-U”
On Sunday Chesapeake Energy filed for bankruptcy (see Chesapeake Files for Bankruptcy – Debtors to Take Ownership). Yesterday the New York Stock Exchange, on which Chesapeake shares (CHK) trade, halted trading and immediately began proceedings to delist the stock.
Read More “Chesapeake’s Existing Stockholders Wiped Out – Shares Delisted”
Nuverra Environmental Solutions (formerly Heckmann) is one of the largest companies in the United States that handles transportation and disposal of shale drilling wastewater and leftover rock and dirt from drilling. The company has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. In April the company laid off roughly 100 employees (see Nuverra Environmental Cuts Budget 30%, Lays off 100 People). Yesterday the company finally released first-quarter 2020 results. Revenue was down and losses were up.
Read More “Nuverra 1Q20 Results: “Stormy Like Most of Us Have Never Seen””
This is one of those “follow the bouncing ball” stories with lots of names. Bear with us because there is a connection to the Marcellus/Utica region. BP Energy Partners, a private equity firm based in Dallas, TX, invests in (and ultimately controls) a number of companies. Two of their portfolio companies are Thigpen Solutions and Blue Roads Solutions, both virtual pipeline companies delivering CNG and LNG to different types of customers. BP is merging the two into one company and renaming it Sapphire Gas Solutions.
Read More “Thigpen & Blue Roads Merging to Form Sapphire Gas Virtual Pipe Co”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Construction worker “lucky to be alive” following incident at Wellsburg Bridge site; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: DTE Energy extends net zero goal to include gas company; Minnesota sues Exxon, Koch over climate change; NATIONAL: U.S. commercial crude oil inventories reach all-time high; Oil at $30 may be enough to revive shale activity, say drillers; Shale fracking returns, tapping huge glut of idled equipment; INTERNATIONAL: BP sells petrochemicals business to Ineos for $5 billion; India courts foreign investment to boost natural gas use.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jun 30, 2020”
We’ve told you for months to expect it. Yesterday (on Sunday) Chesapeake Energy finally filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after lining up a $925 million loan to keep the doors open, the lights on, and the drill bits chewing away. Pipeline companies (and other vendors) that have contracts with the company should be concerned. The opening paragraph of Chessy’s press release says, “Chesapeake intends to use the proceedings to strengthen its balance sheet and restructure its legacy contractual obligations to achieve a more sustainable capital structure.” That means they’re looking to break existing contracts, using the bankruptcy filing as an excuse.
Read More “Chesapeake Files for Bankruptcy – Debtors to Take Ownership”
A landowner in Allegany County, NY who tried to block National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) from crossing her property with its Northern Access Pipeline to flow PA fracked gas into the Empire State, has failed. Last week New York’s highest court, called the State Court of Appeals, overturned a lower court ruling. The high court decision clears the way for NFG to use eminent domain to cross the woman’s property when (not if) the pipeline gets built.
Read More “NY’s Highest Court Approves Eminent Domain for NFG Pipeline”
We’re still steamed about a totally fake/manufactured “report” issued by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro last week bashing the shale industry (see PA AG Launches I-HATE-FRACKING Hotline; Report Bashing Shale, DEP). Shapiro wants to run for governor in 2022 and trashing the shale industry gives him credibility with environmentalist wackos–an important segment of the lib Dem Party. Since the report came out there’s been wall-to-wall coverage in the lamestream press in PA. They’re almost orgasmic, believing this is somehow the death knell for shale drilling in the state. They’re DEAD wrong.
Read More “PA AG Sham Shale Rpt: Wolf Prevaricates, MSC Debunks, Antis Cheer”
Virginia Natural Gas’ (VNG) Header Improvement Project wants 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 northeast Va. region (see Va. Turns Down Anti Request to Delay Hearing on VNG Pipe Project). The Virginia State Corporation Commission is saying before they will give the project its permission to build, the Commission needs certain ironclad assurances.
Read More “VA Regulators Want Assurances Before Approving VNG Pipe Project”
National Grid, a huge utility company that supplies natural gas to all of Long Island, including two New York City boroughs (Queens and Brooklyn) has both a short-term and long-term gas supply problem. Corrupt Gov. Andrew Cuomo single-handedly decided to deny National Grid new natural gas supplies via a new pipeline (see Cuomo Rejects NESE Pipe Again, Williams Walks Away). That’s the long-term problem. The short-term problem is that National Grid needs extra supplies for this coming winter. How do they meet an increase in demand so Long Islanders don’t run out?
Read More “National Grid Band Aid Solution – Truck CNG to Long Island”
In February we told you the fix is in. A bankruptcy judge in Delaware announced he would award the sale of the closed Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) refinery to a Chicago developer that has plans to demolish the East Coast’s largest and oldest refinery–and replace it with big, smelly, noisy warehouses with trucks coming and going day and night (see Anti-Fossil Fuel Judge Sells Philly Refinery to Chicago Developer). After a last-minute stunt by the Chicago developer (demanding a $30 million price reduction, settled for $26.5 million reduction, the deal was done last week. Welcome to even more noise and pollution than a refinery would generate.
Read More “Philly Refinery Sold – To Become Huge, Polluting Truck Terminal”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PA Treasurer calls on U.S. supermarkets to reduce emissions of pollutants; PA DEP awards over $434,000 in environmental education grants; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Looks like city will ban natural gas after councilwoman gets go-ahead from state agency; NATIONAL: U.S. refinery capacity sets new record as of January 1, 2020; US propane supplies looking tighter later in 2020; 30% of U.S. shale drillers could go under; INTERNATIONAL: Russia’s Nord Stream II handed a potential death knell.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jun 29, 2020”
Yesterday Pennsylvania’s corrupt Attorney General, Josh Shapiro (who is running for governor trying to curry favor with Big Green wackadoodles) issued a 243-page report (full copy below), the result of two years of muckraking “investigations” into the Marcellus Shale drilling industry. Shapiro announced a new hotline where people can call and complain about frackers. And he had the gall to issue his own legislative agenda to further restrict fracking! In normal, sane states prosecutors uphold laws created by the legislature (and signed by the executive). In PA, Shapiro (in the judiciary) wants to make new laws. The man is out of control and needs to be locked in a padded room for his own safety.
Read More “PA AG Launches I-HATE-FRACKING Hotline; Report Bashing Shale, DEP”
The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) does a good job of guesstimating how much impact fee revenue will get generated in the coming year, based on permit and producing wells activity in the current year. Impact fees are PA’s equivalent of a severance tax–a fee paid by drillers for each new well they drill, paid over a 15-year period. This year IFO is offering up two scenarios for how much money the state will receive in impact fee revenues next year (based on wells drilled and active this year). One scenario is based on natgas prices averaging at least $2.25/MMBtus (million British Thermal Units) on the NYMEX, and the other scenario assumes gas prices slip below that level.
Read More “PA IFO Predicts 2 Possible Scenarios for 2020 Impact Tax Revenue”