Stop Press! Enbridge to Begin Construction on Weymouth Compressor
WOW, what a reversal of fortune! Barely a month ago MDN told you that two natural gas utility companies, National Grid and Eversource, had cut the legs out from under Enbridge by declaring they no longer need the Weymouth (Mass.) compressor station to supply them with incrementally more natural gas supplies for the Greater Boston area (see 2 Utilities Cut Enbridge Off at Knees re Mass. Compressor Station). The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Black Friday granted Enbridge a final go-ahead to begin construction anyway. Christmas came early!
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When bullies get away with their bullying, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has done with natural gas utility National Grid (see 
Last week MDN told you about a law firm fishing for Energy Transfer shareholders to join its class action lawsuit against the company over rumors of corruption in obtaining permits to build the Mariner East 2 pipeline project (see 
An interesting Ohio Supreme Court ruling from last week caught our attention, thanks to the legal beagles at Vorys. As with most of these cases, this one is complex. But we want to highlight *why* it’s important right up front: Landowners (or mineral rights owners, usually the one and the same but not always) have a longer period of time, 21 years, to bring an action to reclaim their severed mineral rights than the previously thought 15 years–in certain situations. That was the upshot in Browne v. Artex Oil Co.
It’s been 10 short/long years since the founding of one of the premier trade groups in the Marcellus/Utica region: the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC). Can you believe it?! The MSC has been a key player in advancing the shale gas industry in Pennsylvania. Absolutely key. A group of industry executives involved with founding the group gathered last week in Cranberry Township to celebrate and reflect on the last 10 years.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Draft PA greenhouse gas emission inventory shows nearly 19% reduction between 2005-2016; Range Resources – over-levered, depressed, but making progress; NATIONAL: Reporter’s Notebook: Natural gas producers in sad state; 6 LNG investments to tap into; Why oil demand won’t follow coal’s death spiral; Why I’m thankful for the shale revolution; NYMEX January gas continues to fall on warmer weather forecasts; Natural gas and the electric power sector: the latest trends; INTERNATIONAL: Yamal LNG eclipses annual nameplate production; OPEC meeting may be moment of reckoning for these oil producers; Gas ‘indispensible’ in mitigating climate change; The natural gas nation every exporter is targeting.
It’s the end of the road for some not-so-nice folks in Nicetown, a Philadelphia neighborhood. In 2016, Philadelphia’s SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) announced plans to build a Marcellus gas-powered electric plant to provide electricity to SEPTA’s northern Regional Rail lines and a bus garage (see 
MDN previously reported on the rumor that ExxonMobil is sniffing around southwestern Pennsylvania looking for a site to build a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant (see 
Speaking of the Mariner East (ME) pipelines and the NGLs (primarily ethane, but also propane and butane) they flow, why isn’t the organized business community (i.e. Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce) doing more to stick up for the ME pipeline projects? MDN friend Garland Thompson, a gifted reporter/writer who covers energy and technology issues for US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine, recently penned an open letter to the Philly Chamber challenging them to get off their collective butts and defend ME and the jobs it will create in the greater Philly region.
For years (maybe a generation) we’ve heard the refrain that America needs to become “energy independent.” But what does that phrase actually mean? It means we produce enough of our own energy (oil, natural gas, nuclear, renewable, etc.) that if push comes to shove, we could actually survive if the rest of the world decided to cut us off from all sources of outside energy. Can you actually measure such an amorphous concept? Turns out you can.
Some 33 industry associations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Petroleum Institute, sent a letter to White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Mary Neumayr last Friday asking the agency to “expeditiously proceed” with efforts to “modernize” National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations. What is NEPA and why should you care?
Here’s something that really bugs us. The Donald J. Trump Administration is doing its best to try and roll back some of the smothering overregulation foisted on the oil and gas industry during the Obama reign of terror. Example: The EPA is looking to reverse direct regulation of oil and gas methane (created by Obama) because the EPA already regulates methane emissions via regulations for volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Yet a few oil “majors” (biggest oil companies in the world) want the EPA to continue its onerous methane regulations. Thing is, the oil majors that want this insane overregulation are NOT American-based companies.