The Williams Transco “Gateway Expansion Project,” an $85 million project which flows an extra 65,000 dekatherms per day (65 million cubic feet) of natural gas to a couple of utility companies in New Jersey, has just gone online–11 months early!
Read More “Williams Transco NE Gateway Expansion Project Goes Online Early”
The companies behind PennEast Pipeline, a $1.2 billion new greenfield pipeline project from Luzerne County, PA to Mercer County, NJ, have not given up on the long-delayed project. As we told you in November, PennEast filed will file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court (on Feb. 3) to overcome a lower court ruling that prevents PennEast from using eminent domain in New Jersey for some of the route (see PennEast Pipe to Appeal Bungled Fed Court Decision to US Supremes). Apparently the builders believe they have at least something of a chance to get the Supremes to review the case because PennEast has just asked FERC to extend the deadline to build.
Read More “PennEast Pipe Still Hopeful, Asks FERC for 2-Year Extension”
The Ohio Supreme Court, on Christmas Eve, threw a lifeline to an effort to overturn an Ohio law that provides corporate welfare in the form of $1 billion of ratepayer (taxpayer) money to FirstEnergy (which recently changed its name to Harbor Energy). The Ohio law provides the funds to FirstEnergy so they can keep two economically failing nuclear power plants up and running, giving the plants an unfair advantage over gas-fired plants that don’t receive corporate welfare.
Read More “OH Supreme Court Keeps Door Open to Reverse $1B Nuke Bailout”
Last June Philadelphia City Council voted to approve a $60 million Marcellus LNG export facility, to be built on property owned by Philadelphia Gas Works (see Philadelphia LNG Export Plant Approved by City Council Vote). Since that time we’ve not heard anything about the project or its status. Until now.
Read More “Philly LNG Export Plant Advances, Seeks Bids for Solar Power”
One of the companies in the Marcellus industry targeted for extinction by Pennsylvania’s former Attorney General, Kathleen Kane, was Minuteman Environmental Services (see PA’s Anti-Drilling AG Charges Minuteman with Enviro Crimes). Kane filed charges against the company in 2014, charges that were later dropped, but in the meantime she forced the company into bankruptcy. Since May 2015, the owner of Minuteman has fought back (i.e. sued) to regain his good name and to ensure prosecutorial abuses like what he’s experienced never happen to anyone else. He continues to fight to this day, and the PA AG’s office continues to block his efforts to obtain justice.
Read More “Minuteman’s 5-Year Battle for Justice Against Former PA AG”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: CEO of top U.S. power market is under fire even before he starts; Appalachian gas valuations: the bad, the ugly, (and the good); OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Natural gas development not responsible for Pavillion’s water issues; Cameron LNG kicks off production from Train 2; Burn, pay, or shut it down: three evils for Permian drillers; NATIONAL: Biden, Sanders and Warren present the oil and gas industry with a stark choice in 2020; INTERNATIONAL: European import terminals plan expansions as U.S. LNG volumes grow; The top energy stories of 2019.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Thu, Jan 2, 2020”
We wish you a Merry Christmas..and a Happy New Year! MDN will take off (i.e. no new stories posted) between Dec. 24 and New Year’s Day in observance of the holiday season. Don’t worry, we’ll still keep an eye on the news and if anything earth-shattering happens, we’ll post about it. However, our intent is to take a break from writing for an entire week. We will see you again on Thursday, January 2nd.
A brief note to thank you, our loyal readers, from the bottom of our heart. Thank you for subscribing and resubscribing year after year. We take our responsibility seriously to bring you the news–in context–throughout the year. We look forward to 2020 with eager anticipation for what it will bring in the Marcellus/Utica.
Enjoy this Christmas carol (and our wish to you) from the inimitable Celtic Women:
The Battle Run Compressor Station, owned and operated by Williams and located in Valley Grove (Ohio County), West Virginia, exploded and caught fire Saturday night. Fortunately no one was injured and the fire was extinguished within a half hour. Williams has “isolated” the flow of gas to the facility while the incident is investigated.
Read More “Williams WV Compressor Station Explodes, Catches Fire”
Columbia Gas of Ohio (NiSource) recently announced a new $135 million pipeline project to bring new supplies of Utica-sourced natural gas to homes and businesses located north and west of Columbus, in central Ohio. The project, called the Northern Loop Project, will file for regulatory approval with the Ohio Power Siting Board and hopes the OPSB will approve the project in 2020, with construction set to happen in 2022.
Read More “Columbia Gas Plans New NatGas Pipeline in Central Ohio”
Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company (ESNG), a subsidiary company of Chesapeake Utilities Corporation, filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in Sept. 2018 to build 19+ miles of new pipeline and new meter and delivery stations in Kent and Sussex counties in Delaware, and Wicomico and Somerset counties in Maryland, to carry more PA Marcellus natural gas to locations in Delaware and Maryland. Last Thursday FERC granted final approval for the project.
1/7/20 UPDATE: Chesapeake finally issued a press release on Jan. 7 to tout FERC’s final approval. We’ve included the release below.
Read More “FERC Approves Del-Mar Energy Pathway Pipe Project”
Among a flurry of new approvals, last Thursday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave final approval to Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s “261 Upgrade” project–a project to build approximately 2.1 miles of 12-inch diameter pipeline loop and replace two older, less efficient compressor units with a single new and more efficient compressor unit at the location of Compressor Station 261 in Agawam, Massachusetts.
Read More “FERC Approves Tennessee Gas Pipe Expansion to Springfield, Mass.”
Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Law Judge Elizabeth Barnes has tried to stop or block or otherwise do damage to the Mariner East pipeline projects for years. Most (all?) of her actions against the project have, in the past, been reversed by a vote of PUC Commissioners (see PA PUC Overrules Lib Judge – Mariner East 1 Returns to Service and PA PUC Allows ME2 Pipeline Work to Restart Near Philly). Will PUC members also overturn Barnes’ latest overreach in fining the Mariner East 1 pipeline $1,000, to be given to a nearby homeowner who doesn’t feel “safe” living 1,000 feet from a pipeline that’s been there all of his life?
Read More “PA Judge Fines Mariner East Pipe $1K for Scaring Homeowner”
In September MDN told you about environmentalist wackos at the Bernheim Arboretum (about 25 miles from Louisville, Kentucky) who refuse to grant an easement for 4,000 feet of land they bought *after* the Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) already had a state-approved plan to build a new pipeline over that land as part of tiny 12-inch, 12-mile pipeline (see KY Utility Hints at Defunding Local Arboretum Blocking New Pipe). The Arboretum’s refusal, along with a few other property owners, means 62 homes and businesses have been denied the right to connect to LG&E’s local natgas utility system.
Read More “Kentucky PSC Dismisses Antis’ Request to Block Pipe Near Louisville”
Carnegie Mellon University is clearly feeling the heat over their overtly political, unscientific “study” that says Marcellus Shale extraction and the use of that gas is polluting the air and causing man-made global warming–and therefore killing people (see Carnegie Mellon Junk Science Says Shale Kills via Air Pollution). The university is feeling the heat so much (big donations in jeopardy?) that the “president emeritus” (former president) of the school felt it necessary to pen a letter-to-the editor in the anti-shale Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to protest the way the study is (accurately) being reported as anti-shale. To borrow a phrase from Billy Shakespeare, “The president emeritus doth protest too much, methinks.”
Read More “Carnegie Mellon Feels the Heat re Study Bashing Marcellus Shale”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Dominion Energy completes equity recapitalization of Cove Point; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: BKV deal for Devon’s Barnett assets said potential opening for LNG exports to Thailand; Natural gas industry’s $1 million PR campaign sets up fight over Northwest’s energy future; NATIONAL: Is LNG actually the future of energy?; Banks get tough on shale loans as fracking forecasts flop; Carnival delays debut of its biggest LNG cruise ship ever; Joe Biden will kill jobs. Just ask him.; Worst performing stocks of the decade; Top five U.S. energy developments of the last decade; INTERNATIONAL: Supreme Court dismisses appeal in long running Packers Plus technology fight; Shale to continue to crowd OPEC supply in 2020; For energy, poor people deserve to be rich.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Dec 23, 2019”
New Jersey Resources’ Adelphia Gateway project is a plan to convert an old oil pipeline stretching from Northampton County, PA through Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties, terminating in Delaware County at Marcus Hook, into a natural gas pipeline. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final approval for the project yesterday.
Read More “FERC Issues Final OK for Southeast PA Adelphia Gateway Pipeline”