In a superb tag-team performance, both President Trump and federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler this week hit New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, hard, over his refusal to allow fracking and for blocking the Constitution Pipeline. It’s smack down time!
Read More “Trump & Wheeler Stick Up for Constitution Pipe, Smack Down Cuomo”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Layoffs at PES refinery begin, as union argues for continued presence due to safety concerns; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: State regulators want better reporting of lost natural gas; NATIONAL: Natural gas… Assessing if we are close to a bottom; US oil, gas rig count falls 15 on week to level not seen since May 2017; U.S. oil industry has idled 201 rigs in 10 months – does it need to idle more?; INTERNATIONAL: Offshore oil and gas rigs leak more greenhouse gas than expected.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Aug 16, 2019”
After a bruising proxy fight, Toby and Derek Rice (formerly from Rice Energy) won control of EQT, the largest natural gas-producing company in the U.S. (see Rice Bros. Win Proxy War to Control EQT – Toby Rice New CEO). Toby Rice has been CEO for barely a month. He announced late last week that he would conduct four “town hall” style meetings with landowners–two this week and two next week.
Read More “Road Trip! EQT CEO Toby Rice Talks to Landowners in Town Hall Mtgs”
This one slipped under the radar for a bit. At the end of June, Pittsburgh-area Falcon Drilling, a Marcellus and Utica shale drilling contractor, announced it is buying out and merging in another Pittsburgh-area drilling company, Complete Drilling Solutions. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Read More “Falcon Drilling Buys/Merges with Complete Drilling Solutions”
In January 2016, Invenergy announced their intention to build a natgas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County (see Invenergy Eyes SWPA for Second Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant). It took a few years, a lawsuit and a new location, but eventually Elizabeth commissioners approved Invenergy’s plan in December 2018 (see Elizabeth Twp in Allegheny Co. OKs Invenergy Gas-Fired Plant).
Read More “Public Mtg Planned to Gin Up Opposition to SWPA Gas-Fired Plant”
Last week MDN brought you an RBN Energy article that outlines how Marcellus/Utica gas hitches a ride to the Gulf Coast to feed several LNG export facilities–specifically the newly-minted Cameron LNG export facility (see Marcellus/Utica Gas Heads to Gulf Coast to Feed LNG Export Beast). LNG exports along the Gulf Coast are a hugely important current and future market for Marcellus/Utica gas. Today RBN is back with more details on the intricate network of pipelines used to get our gas to both the Sabine Pass and Cameron LNG export facilities located in Louisiana.
Read More “How Marcellus/Utica Gas Feeds Sabine Pass & Cameron LNG in La.”
There is no disputing the fact that the Marcellus Shale has fundamentally changed the economic landscape for Pennsylvania–for the better. A former PA state senator and county commissioner from southeast PA recently went on a tour of shale related infrastructure in western PA and wrote an insightful editorial that outlines the case in favor of building *more* natural gas pipelines in the state.
Read More “More NatGas Pipelines in Pennsylvania Benefit All State Residents”
When the anti-fossil fuel Park Foundation pays your salary, your “research” had darned well better reflect an anti-fossil fuel result. Or else the money spigot quickly gets cut off. That’s what explains the latest “study” published (in Europe, not the U.S.) by Cornell University professor Robert Howarth–a study that claims shale drilling is pumping catastrophic amounts of methane into the atmosphere making Mom Earth toast.
Read More “Cornell Prof Publishes Faux Study on Methane Escaping Shale Wells”
We’re highlighting a second scientific study today, this one real. We told you about Cornell University’s Robert Howarth’s faux study that says methane escaping from shale wells is causing the planet to toast. This second study, from Princeton University, actually performed in-the-field experiments to measure methane escaping from Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania. Real science. The study found some 77% of the methane that escapes into the atmosphere comes from 10% of the wells–and concludes if we can identify and fix the 10%, we’ll go a long way to solving the escaping methane issue.
Read More “Princeton Prof Publishes Real Study on Methane Escaping Shale Wells”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Study breaks down the fastest-growing jobs in WV; Johnson praises students at New Castle School of Trades; NATIONAL: Bloom Energy stock swoons because attitudes on fossil fuel are changing; Oil exports boost US trade balance says Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Yergin; INTERNATIONAL: New Brunswick Indian tribe blocks shale drilling in province; A few traders are making money off LNG tankers going nowhere.
Read More “Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Thu, Aug 15, 2019”
President Trump visited the Shell ethane cracker plant site yesterday in Monaca, PA, along with Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. Trump was greeted by a crowd of some 5,000 people, many (most?) of them workers at the site–union members. When was the last time you heard about 5,000 union members attending a rally for a Democrat?! But we digress. Trump toured the facility and delivered a rousing hour-plus speech to those gathered. There is no mistaking the fact that Donald Trump is a big supporter of the oil and gas and petrochemical industries.
Read More “President Trump Visits Shell Cracker Plant Near Pittsburgh”
Democrats and the media (one and the same) are truly a conflicted, schizophrenic bunch. Both national and local Democrats who pretend to be unbiased journalists (what a joke) couldn’t wait to blast out headlines from yesterday’s visit by President Trump to Monaca, PA that Trump is falsely “taking credit” for the Shell ethane cracker, a plant that began life–at least planning stages–during the reign of their Lord and Savior Barack Hussein Obama. Yet in the next breath they write that this plant Trump is taking credit for will produce eeeeevil plastic that’s dooming all life on Mom Earth to extinction. They want credit for the plant, yet they don’t want the plant. What’s a lib Dem to do?
Read More “Trump Takes Credit for Shell Cracker Plant – Media Blows a Gasket”
Hoping that lightning strikes twice with the “judges” at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circus) who read children’s books like The Lorax and use them in their decisions, deep-pocketed Big Green groups have filed a new lawsuit with the quirky judges asking that they overturn federal approvals issued to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Big Green hopes the clown judges will overturn approvals for MVP the same way they did for Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project.
Read More “Radical Greens Ask 4th Circus to Block MVP re Endangered Species”
Ohio recently passed an odious new law (House Bill 6) to prop up two bankrupt nuclear power plants and several coal-fired plants (see Ohio Nuke Bailout Law Means Fewer Natgas-Fired Electric Plants). The law raises electric rates for all Ohioans and threatens to end a number of planned natural gas-fired electric plant projects–billions of dollars worth of gas projects.
Read More “Ohio RINO AG Rejects Anti-Nuke Referendum”
Quick: Which company which recently had a board and upper management shakeup and focuses exclusively on Marcellus/Utica drilling is the #1 natural gas producer in the United States? That’s right, EQT. In a list of the top 40 natgas producers in the U.S. (full list below), it’s striking to note that eight of the top 10 are focused exclusively or primarily on the M-U.
Read More “M-U Companies Dominate Top 10 NatGas Producers in 2019”
Two radical left members of the U.S. House of Representatives–Chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Peter DeFazio (D-OR), and Congressman Tom Malinowski (D-NJ)–sent a follow-up letter to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) requesting an update on where the special permit for Energy Transport Solutions, LLC to move liquefied natural gas (LNG) by rail stands now that the public comment period has closed. The letter was not *really* about seeking information, but about threatening PHMSA, signaling that the agency had darned well better block LNG by rail. Or else.
Read More “Democrat House Members Try to Block New Fortress LNG by Rail”