Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Crime | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide OH | Statewide WV | West Virginia
Proposed OH, WV Laws Clamp Down on Illegal Pipeline Protests
Bills aimed at clamping down on illegal pipeline protests (which pretending to be free speech but aren’t) have been introduced in both the Ohio and West Virginia legislatures. In WV, House Bill (HB) 4615 passed the House last week and is now under active consideration in the WV Senate. In Ohio, Senate Bill (SB) 133 was passed last May. The bill was recently reported out of a House committee and likely to see a full House vote soon. It’s obvious that regular folks are tired of radicals and their illegal attempts to block pipeline projects.
Read More “Proposed OH, WV Laws Clamp Down on Illegal Pipeline Protests”
More obsessing and hand-wringing over the low price of natural gas (we can’t help it!). Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published a post on Friday that points out the NYMEX price of natural gas has hit its lowest level for a February day in the past 20 years, closing at $1.77/MMBtu on Feb. 10 (up slightly since then). EIA also points out these are the lowest absolute prices (for any day in any month) we’ve seen in the past four years–since the price crash of 2016. Again, the price crash is happening in February! Yuck.
In the space of a little over 10 years natural gas has gone from “climate hero” to “climate villain.” In no small part the change has come due to huge amounts of money spent by disgusting Big Green groups like the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch, NRDC, EDF and others. We’d guess if you were to ask most Americans, they would say fossil fuels (like natural gas) will be replaced “soon” by electricity–not knowing natgas is the single largest source of generating electricity! At the Winter Policy Summit of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) last week, a standing-room-only crowd filled a session moderated by former FERC Commissioner Cherly LaFleur on the topic of how soon the electric sector (along with other sectors) will “wean off gas” here in the United States.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Lamb: Western Pennsylvanians feel ‘betrayed’ by fracking ban legislation; Due process delayed: Tolling orders put pipeline opponents in ‘legal limbo’; Everyone will benefit if Mariner East developers are allowed to make changes to the project; NextEra Energy appoints ex-EQT CEO to board; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Bernie Sanders comes to Colorado to tell state’s oil and gas workers that he wants to eliminate their jobs; PG&E launching big pipeline project in Napa Valley; NATIONAL: BEBs or bust? Battery electric buses make no sense at all; If they are so alarmed by climate change, why are they so opposed to solving it?; Outgoing INGAA chief urges focus on steps along path to clean energy; States need to answer for stubbornly high electricity bills; INTERNATIONAL: EIA revises global liquid fuels demand growth down because of the coronavirus.
Believe it or not, today is a New York Stock Exchange holiday (i.e. bank) holiday. MDN rarely takes a day off, so we tend to track with those holidays observed by the NYSE. Have no fear, we are monitoring the news and if anything earth-shattering happens, we’ll bring you the latest. Otherwise, look for full-strength MDN to return tomorrow. In the meantime, we have issued the weekly calendar of events.
Antero Resources, one of the biggest Marcellus/Utica drillers (with major operations in West Virginia) released its fourth-quarter and full-year 2019 update yesterday, along with hosting a conference call to discuss what investors can expect for 2020. There are loads of important details to share. Production was up 19% in 2019 over 2018. The company lost $482 million in 4Q19, compared to a $122 million loss in 4Q18. However, $463 million of the loss was an impairment charge (write-down) of Antero’s ownership interest in its midstream subsidiary (i.e. paper loss). Looking forward to 2020, the company plans to cut spending by 10% this year (spending $1.15 billion) and plans to make some layoffs. Antero plans to drill 95-100 wells and complete 120-130 wells this year.
In September 2018, MDN brought you the news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
Yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) released a draft of its proposed rules for PA’s participation in what is called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). It’s a tax on carbon aimed at coal and natural gas-fired electric power plants, with an eye to driving them out of business. PA Gov. Tom Wolf is attempting to force PA to participate in RGGI, a collection of blue northeastern states (New England, NY and NJ) in an attempt to bolster his credibility with environmentalist wackos–to ingratiate himself with the wackos so he is more appealing as a Vice Presidential candidate.
Mob rule is the opposite of the rule of law. Mob rule is what’s being advocated under the guise of “protest” in Brooklyn, NY where a mob of anti-fossil fuelers are attempting to block the final few feet of construction for a 6.8-mile natural gas pipeline stretching from Brownsville to North Brooklyn. Utility company National Grid, responsible for flowing more natural gas to *meet demand* (and not run out) is working to complete a new gas main pipeline–and a mob in Greenpoint is hell-bent on stopping it. Why? Because they believe in “global warming” and have an irrational hatred of fossil fuels, including natural gas.
A brand new study (full copy below) published in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) looked at 25 small watersheds over the course of 2 years in northeastern Pennsylvania, looking for any possible correlation between fracking and local streams. Know what they found? There is NO impact from fracking on local streams. NONE. Those who worked on the study include researchers from the US Geological Survey, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).
Big Green continues its fight to strip away the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) right to use tolling orders when considering requests to “rehear” decisions to approve pipelines (see 
Last Friday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking for an extra 45 days to revise an Endangered Species Act (ESA) review of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Also from last week: anti-fossil fuelers (Big Green groups) virulently opposed to MVP (which is 90% built) continued to hound the project by pestering the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) over minor violations the DEQ found in construction activities from September to December. Big Green wants to know what the DEQ is going to “do” about the violations.
UGI Corp. has just won a case on appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that overturns an order by a lower court ordering UGI to pay more than $380,000 combined to two sets of property owners for taking their land as part of the Sunbury Pipeline in Snyder County, PA. The landowners who sued used a so-called expert whose testimony was, according to the judges, “speculation and conjecture” and “not good science.” Therefore the lower court award was overturned.
In January the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) finally, after more than a year, agreed to lift a moratorium on new construction work for several Energy Transfer pipeline projects in the state, including the Mariner East 2 and 2X projects (see