Regulators Reject Pieridae/Shell Plan to Feed Nova Scotia LNG
Pieridae Energy wants to build an LNG export plant in Nova Scotia, Canada. The project is called the Goldboro LNG project. We’ve tracked the project for years hoping Marcellus/Utica gas might one day feed it (see our Goldboro LNG stories here). Our hopes to have M-U gas feed Goldboro were dashed when Pieridae announced a deal last June to buy assets from Shell in Western Canada with plans to pipe the gas to the Goldboro plant (see Pieridae Buys Shell Assets in W Canada to Feed Nova Scotia LNG). Canadian regulators in Alberta have just scuttled the deal, refusing to grant permission.
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Will this, finally, help convince any fence-sitting Democrats who give a damn about the future of our country and the oil and gas industry that a vote for Joe Biden is a vote to end it all? Biden, the presumptive nominee for the Democrats to run for president (even though he’s senile, really) has appointed both Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, the woman with half a brain, and John “haughty” Kerry, the guy who tried to destroy America with the Paris climate treaty, as co-chairs of his campaign’s so-called climate task force. What a joke! Except…it’s not a joke. It’s real, and it’s very scary.
MDN is updating our 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: New year greets Marcellus/Utica shale with new, unexpected challenges; DEP permits will keep Marcus Hook as an economic engine in Southeast PA; NATIONAL: United States bump LNG exports in March; The impacts of U.S. LNG cargo cancellations; U.S. pipeline safety report reveals fewer incidents, more infrastructure; Zinke says Biden’s plan to ban fossil fuel drilling on federal lands is ‘nuts’; ‘Oil is back,’ tweets Trump. Not so fast, says reality; Natural gas drillers face price meltdown as storage fills fast; INTERNATIONAL: We’re at risk of an oil shortage.
Is it time to turn the gas off for New York City and let the people there reap the “benefits” of having a dictator, Andrew Cuomo, as their governor? On Friday the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation, thoroughly and completely corrupted by Cuomo, issued yet another rejection for the critically-needed Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project. It was the last straw for Williams, the builder of the project, which has walked away from the project. Gas customers on Long Island, including parts of NYC, now face the real prospect of running out of natural gas (this is not an exaggeration). Andrew Cuomo is the grossest, most corrupt governor in NY’s history.
Yet another lawsuit trying to emasculate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by attacking its right to delegate eminent domain authority to pipeline builders has been tossed in federal court. Several of these cases have been tried using Marcellus/Utica pipeline projects. This latest case was brought by uppity, privileged landowners in Virginia against the Equitrans Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project.
In Ohio, it costs drillers $5,500 to file for and receive a permit to drill a new shale well. In West Virginia, the cost is $10,150. In Pennsylvania, it currently costs drillers $5,000 for a new shale well permit. Following an upcoming meeting by the state Independent Regulatory Review Commission on June 3, PA’s permit fee will zoom to the top of the M-U list: $12,500 (2 1/2 times the previous fee).
Last week MDN brought you the news of another Pennsylvania Pipeline Investment Program (PIPE) grant being issued–this one in Luzerne County, near Wilkes-Barre (see 
Wow! What a difference three months can make. In January Moody’s Investors Service downgraded EQT Corporation’s bonds to “junk” status (see 
Just when it seemed everything was going great to get all 10 mini-trains up and running at the Elba Island, Georgia LNG export facility (owned and operated by Kinder Morgan), a compressor fire earlier this week has caused the shutdown of three functioning units along with a fourth unit in the process of commissioning.
Midstreamer Equitrans, the former EQT Midstream (before EQT split itself into two companies) posted its first-quarter 2020 update yesterday and held a conference call with analysts. Of primary concern and focus for us, and most observers was an update on the company’s 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, which is 90% built and in the ground. The remaining portions of MVP are held up by various court cases and regulatory actions. According to officials on the call, there is a “narrow path” to completing the project by the end of this year at a cost of $5.4 billion. If the timeline slips, the cost goes up.
The crash in the drilling rig count continued last week for the ninth straight week, although the decline slowed for a third week in a row. U.S. oil and gas rigs for land-based operations fell another 29 last week, to a total of 369 active rigs. Most of the decrease comes from oil-focused rigs. However, we’ve noticed a disturbing trend in the Marcellus rig count.