Ruling Stands: States have 1 Calendar Yr to Review Water Permits
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear a case that challenged a ruling in the Hoopa Valley Indian Tribe case–a ruling/case that has HUGE implications for Williams’ Constitution Pipeline running through New York State. The Supreme Court rejection is a crushing defeat for Big Green groups Trout Unlimited and California Trout, and very good news for the Constitution project.
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Williams, the pipeline giant, held its annual analyst day in New York City last Friday. The company’s top brass was there to wow and woo investors with the company’s plans for 2020 and beyond. In reading about the session, we picked up on some startling statistics. Stats like Williams now provides 30% of all LNG feed gas in the U.S. And most of that (all of it?) comes from the Marcellus/Utica.
The rig count in the Marcellus/Utica region is crashing–down to its lowest level for a December since the M-U became a “thing.” It’s now lower than the levels reached in 2014, which was the advent of the first “crash” in rig counts. BUT (and this is a big BUT), lower rig counts do not necessarily mean less drilling or less production. How can that be?
Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) previously filed a request with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that judicially creates a new law stipulating pipelines can’t cross under the Appalachian Trail without (no kidding) an Act of Congress. The clown judges of the Fourth Circus (our name for that court) revoked a permit issued by the U.S. Forest Service. A list of 21 business and oil/gas industry groups filed a “friend of the court” brief yesterday supporting ACP, asking the Supremes to reinstate the Forest Service permit for the project.
In what is at least the second (maybe third or fourth) serious attempt, radical Democrats in the New York State legislature have floated a bill that would force NY’s public employee pension fund to completely divest any stock holdings in fossil fuel companies. Are NY retirees ready to take a $1 TRILLION hit in their wallets if it happens?
Once upon a time in BSE (before shale era) if you were to chart the price of oil and the price of natural gas together on the same graph, the path/track was almost identical. When the price of oil went up (or down), so too did the price of gas. With the advent of shale in 2008/2009, tracking between the two has changed. It’s gone. The value of natural gas compared to the value of oil is now *much lower* than it was in BSE.
NATIONAL: Even shale veterans don’t buy the bullish production forecasts; Warm winter weather prompts lower natural gas price forecasts; INTERNATIONAL: Shale novice to head Argentina’s energy portfolio; Chinese firms offer to resell LNG cargoes due to weak demand.
As far as we can tell, MDN is exclusively breaking the following news: On December 5 (last Thursday), the PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) granted a special permit to Energy Transport Solutions, LLC (i.e. New Fortress Energy) to transport LNG in DOT-113C120 rail tanker cars between Wyalusing, PA and Gibbstown, NJ. This is huge! There still is not a new regulation/law to allow shipment of LNG by rail across the country, but somehow New Fortress has gotten a special permit to do so anyway. Huge!
This post catches you up on both some old and some new news. In February of this year Chevron signed a lease with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) to lease 1,028.4 acres of land *under* the Monongahela River in Greene and Fayette counties (southwestern corner of the state). That’s the old news. The new news is that Chevron has just added another 235.6 acres to the original lease for a grand total of 1,264.3 acres. Chevron is paying DCNR just over $5 million in lease signing bonuses for the entire deal.
In September, Huntley Energy Exploration (HHEX), a conventional and shale driller headquartered in Southpointe (Washington County), PA that leases land and drills in the Pittsburgh suburbs, changed its name to Olympus Energy (see 
“Peaker plants” are small electric generating plants that produce electricity for brief periods during high demand. Older peakers were often powered by oil. Newer peakers are powered by natural gas. In early November Dominion Energy floated an RFP (request for proposal) for companies to build a series of peakers (no smaller than 50 megawatts) totaling a combined 1,500 MW to come online beginning 2022 in Virginia. A month later, following criticism from a competitor, Dominion has canceled the RFP…at least for now.
Once upon a time Carnegie Mellon University used to conduct real research and publish real scientific studies with respect to the PA Marcellus Shale (see 
Some anti fossil-fuel nutters are finally responding to the criticism they don’t eat their own dog food. They don’t practice what they preach. They don’t “walk the walk.” One of the most egregious examples is old, fat Al Gore who jets around the world every other week and maintains a palace he calls a house…and has a carbon footprint (the thing he preaches against) as big as a small city. Now, some “climate scientists” and “researchers” are trying to actually live the low carbon footprint lifestyle they demand the rest of us live–and they’re finding out they don’t much like it.
NATIONAL: U.S. oil and gas producers to slash spending for second straight year in 2020; U.S. oil drillers cut rigs for seventh consecutive week; How long-term contracts factor into U.S. LNG cargo destinations; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC left with limited options; Ending the Gulf Crisis: natural gas frames future Gulf relations.