Dela. Riverkeeper Tries to Scare Neighbors of NJ LNG Loading Dock
New Fortress Energy plans to build a $96 million, 1,600-foot-long pier and storage facility on the Delaware River (Gloucester County, NJ) to be used for docking and loading two ships at a time with LNG. The LNG will be manufactured at a plant in landlocked Bradford County, PA and shipped to the NJ facility via rail (see U.S. Gov’t Grants New Fortress Permit to Ship NEPA LNG by Rail!). From the start when the project was announced, THE Delaware Riverkeeper has tried to whip up opposition to the project, without much success (see Enviro Leftists Keep Up Attack on LNG Export Dock on Dela. River).
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Pennsylvania House Bill (HB) 1100, aimed at attracting new petrochemical investment to the state, was previously passed by the PA House, and last week, by the Senate (see 
While we’re sure he means well, Congressman David McKinley, a professional engineer (P.E.) from West Virginia (Republican) has thrown his support behind a “bipartisan” effort to create a new federal bureaucracy to oversee the decarbonization of the power generation sector. In other words, an effort that will end the use of natural gas to generate electricity–by 2050. We just can’t support something like that. It’s short-sighted, heavy-handed, and creating a new federal bureaucracy simply goes in the wrong direction. Period.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio shale gas permits slow in the face weak gas prices; Protect PT to host workshop against fracking; Chesapeake Energy requests waiver on setback to drill well in Bradford County; Why Pa.’s public pension funds have millions of dollars of your money tied up in the natural gas industry; NATIONAL: Could the flight shaming movement take off in the U.S.? JetBlue thinks so.; Alternative energy can’t replace hydrocarbons; Unlike in Europe, the US approach to climate change is actually working; A climate blacklist that works: “It should make her unhirable in academia”; INTERNATIONAL: Power and natural gas roil energy shift: what to know at E-World; Oil prices could fall much further as Russia refuses additional production cuts.
Andrew Cuomo’s blockade of important pipeline projects like the Williams Constitution Pipeline (from northeast PA into NY) continues to keep the price of natural gas high in the Empire State. The Constitution, which was supposed to be built years ago, is supposed to connect to two other interstate pipelines, one of them the Iroquois (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has taken the first, very big and important step of approving an environmental assessment (EA) for TC Energy/Columbia Transmission’s Louisiana XPress Project. TC/Columbia filed an application with FERC last July for the project (see 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf flat out, 100% lied when he introduced his latest annual budget on Tuesday, declaring “it doesn’t raise taxes.” B.S. As he has done for the past six budgets, Wolf once again is calling for a new severance tax on the Marcellus. On top of the existing impact tax (the equivalent of a severance tax). Wolf’s plan calls for a new tax that would steal $4.5 billion out of the pockets of drillers and landowners in order to redistribute their hard-earned wealth to a panoply of others.
Pennsylvania State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, Majority Chair of the House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, doesn’t put up with the juvenile antics from the Democrats on his committee–like Danielle Friel Otten and Greg Vitali–from those who violate decorum by pretending they want to ask a question when in fact they want to pontificate like the gasbags they are. Wednesday at a hearing on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), Metcalfe shut down Otten and Vitali when they attempted to violate rules and bloviate instead of asking relevant questions.
A fascinating new study has just been published in the peer-reviewed journal Science of The Total Environment. The new study, titled “Characterizing anecdotal claims of groundwater contamination in shale energy basins,” looks at the perception of landowners who say local fracking activities have impacted (polluted) their water wells–versus reality. The study finds that in most cases the so-called pollution problems of these water wells is (using our own words here) “all in the heads” of the landowners. It’s not real. Fracking, in fact, has NOT caused the pollution of their wells. Researchers studied wells in the Texas Barnett and Eagle Ford, the Louisiana Haynesville, and (yep) the Pennsylvania Marcellus–in Dimock.
If there’s any silver lining to the ongoing low price for natural gas (NYMEX price closed at $1.86 yesterday), it is that gas-fired power generation kicks in with more demand, which will ultimately cause the price to rise–or at least not fall any further. Electric generation is a critically important market for natural gas. We spotted a couple of interesting articles. The first, from Platts, outlines the relationship of low gas prices to more switching from coal to gas. Platts says if gas stays under $2/Mcf, “power burn could see significant upside risk.” The other article, from Rigzone, says natgas will generate nearly 40% of all electricity in 2020–double what it generated just 10 years ago.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro claims an accident in 2017 (based on human error) that resulted in 63,000 gallons of produced water in Lycoming County, PA spilling onto the ground (outside the well pad) is negligent and a crime. Shapiro has filed criminal charges against Inflection Energy and the subcontracting company they used, Double D. We view it as yet another stunt by a man who wants to tee himself up to run for governor.
