Last week Shale Support, a frac sand producer and shipper headquartered in Louisiana, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company is not able to deal with $128 million in debt it has accumulated, hence the filing. Shale Support maintains three frac sand terminal facilities in the Marcellus/Utica region.
Read More “Frac Sand Provider with M-U Operations Files for Bankruptcy”
In mid-June, MDN editor Jim Willis experienced the rare treat of venturing out from behind the keyboard to a press conference held in the great outdoors in nearby Susquehanna County, PA. The topic? Energize PA, a series of bills being promoted by Republicans in both the PA Senate and House (see Spreading Marcellus Love Throughout PA with Expanded PIPE Program). The event was organized by PA Rep. Jonathan Fritz, who opened the presser with details on House Bill (HB) 1103, a bill he sponsored that would expand the state’s PIPE program to run more “last mile” natural gas pipelines to homes and businesses in rural communities.
Read More “New Law Signed Expanding PA’s PIPE Program – More Rural NatGas”
Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) finally broke ground and began to build a new Marcellus gas-fired power plant in Cambria County, PA in October 2017 (see CPV Marcellus-Fired Power Plant in Cambria, PA Breaks Ground). Located 60 miles east of Pittsburgh, the CPV Fairview Energy Center is a 1,050-megawatt natural gas and ethane-fueled two-by-one combined-cycle electric generating plant expected to begin commercial operations in early 2020. It looks like that schedule may actually move up.
Read More “CPV Marcellus-Fired Power Plant in Cambria “Ahead of Schedule””
LS Power, which owns a number of competitive power generation projects including the 700 megawatt dual-fuel simple cycle Troy Generating Facility located in Luckey, OH, is threatening to pull a $500 million plan to expand the Troy facility if Ohio proceeds to pass a new law subsidizing the state’s two nuclear plants. The subsidies would create an uneven playing field for natural gas-fired electric plants like the Troy facility.
Read More “LS Power Threatens to Pull $500M OH Project if Nukes Get Subsidies”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Former EQT CEO Rob McNally gets $3.4M to leave company; PA conventional drillers want to restore program to spread brine on roads; Watson to helm Utica Shale Academy; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Fracking in California is about to get a lot more difficult; NATIONAL: EIA expects U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions to fall in 2019; Why U.S. exports of LNG to China are expected to be a major component of a trade deal; Protest at Massachusetts home of FERC member Cheryl LaFleur; INTERNATIONAL: Climate Apartheid? (video); GALACTIC: The meaning of methane on Mars.
Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 16, 2019”
The clock is now ticking for Toby and Derek Rice who have made big promises about the future of the company they just seized control of (EQT). The Rice boys have a “100 day plan” they have already begun to implement. During the proxy fight to control EQT’s board, and ultimately its management team, Toby Rice threw some sharp barbs including talk that EQT’s existing management was not up to the task. The Rice boys said so, their board nominees said so, heck, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) said so too. There will be change (i.e. personnel change) at the “operational level” said ISS. But apparently that change only extended to two people: EQT’s (now former) CEO Robert McNally, and EQT’s (now former) top attorney, Jonathan Lushko–who were shown the door.
Read More “Toby Rice, EQT’s New CEO, is NOT Cleaning House re Top Management”
Do you consider it “free speech” to assemble a mob outside someone’s home at 2 o’clock in the morning and start hollering and shouting, beating a drum, thereby threatening and menacing an innocent family in that home? We sure don’t call it free speech. We call it gang activity–or maybe even terrorism. When the people inside the home feel threatened, what else can you call it? That’s what happened to EQT’s then-CEO Rob McNally and his family in the early morning hours of July 10, the day he lost his job following EQT’s annual meeting. Those outside doing the terrorizing were radical anti-fossil fuel nutters–some from out of state. Crazies. They should have been arrested. They weren’t.
Read More “Radicals Terrorize Outgoing CEO Rob McNally & Family at His Home”
One of West Virginia’s two U.S. Senators, Joe Manchin, is not happy that the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by China and his home state is hush hush. Manchin has not seen a copy of that agreement and he wants to see it, NOW. At a Senate hearing last week, Manchin made noise about the $83.7 billion deal signed by WV and China, part of a Trump Administration effort, back in 2017 (see China Agrees to Invest Amazing $83.7 BILLION in WV Shale, Petchem).
Read More “U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin Demands Details on China’s WV Deal”
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just published its 2018 Oil and Gas Annual Report. This is the third year in a row the DEP has published the report in an interactive, electronic (i.e.online) format ONLY. What does the 2018 report show?
Read More “PA DEP 2018 Annual Oil & Gas Report: Permits Down, Production Up”
Even though both the Rover Pipeline, built by Energy Transfer Partners, and NEXUS Pipeline, built by DTE Energy and Enbridge, have been in service for months (or years), lawsuits against the two projects continue to this day. Some of the lawsuits we understand–cases of landowner property being damaged by construction activities. Some of the lawsuits are politically motivated and funded by Big Green “environmental” groups. Ohio itself is in there too, with its own lawsuit. Ohio EPA’s Craig Bulter is still hunting his great white whale.
Read More “Ohio Lawsuits Continue re Long-Completed Rover & NEXUS Pipelines”
A little good news coming from New England, for a change. Over objections of radical anti-fossil fuel nutters, the Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) on Friday granted an air permit for a compressor station in Weymouth. The compressor station is part of the Spectra Energy/Enbridge Atlantic Bridge expansion project, stalled since 2017. The administration of MA Gov. Charlie Baker (RINO) issued an air permit for the project in January of this year (see Antis Outraged: Massachusetts Gov Approves Weymouth Compress Stn). Antis promptly challenged the DEP permit, dragging out the process another six months.
Read More “Mass. DEP Issues Air Permit for Weymouth Compressor Station”
Dominion Energy began work on the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project in West Virginia in May 2018 (see Atlantic Coast Actual Pipeline Construction Begins in WV). Unfortunately work is now stalled on ACP thanks to lawsuits filed by Big Green organizations. We spotted a heart warming story of how, when construction first began, a WV resident had major concerns. Frankly, she was against the project. But pipeline workers soon changed her mind.
Read More “Atlantic Coast Pipe Workers Change Hearts & Minds in WV”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: It’s not too late for New York to start fracking; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Total kicks up investment in Tellurian’s Driftwood LNG; TS Barry puts 70% of US LNG capacity at risk; Are e-fracs a fix for Permian gas constraints and giveaway prices?; NATIONAL: How Mike Bloomberg pays to prosecute the Trump EPA; Republicans struggle to unite on climate message; Where U.S. exports of butanes and natural gasoline end up; INTERNATIONAL: Pieridae agrees Goldboro LNG deal extension with Uniper; IEA – Huge oil glut coming in 2020; Cuadrilla to restart fracking at British site; 9 things to know about the booming global liquefied natural gas market.
Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jul 15, 2019”
MDN is taking a rare vacation, for two days, on Thursday & Friday, July 11 & 12. We’ll be back on Monday, July 15 to catch you up on all the important news from the Marcellus/Utica, including the latest on EQT following the Rice brothers winning the proxy vote to replace most of EQT’s board of directors. Toby Rice is now President & CEO of EQT. The only two people gone from top management (so far) are former CEO Rob McNally and EQT’s top lawyer Jonathan Lushko.
Monumentally BIG NEWS! The Rice boys, Toby and Derek, have won the proxy fight to elect their candidates to the EQT board. In a joint announcement made this morning, preliminary results show the Rice boys prevailed in a huge upset (80% of the vote) to gain control of the largest natural gas producing company in the U.S. Later today the new board will meet and vote to appoint Toby Rice CEO and President of EQT. The firing and replacement of top management won’t be far behind.
Read More “Rice Bros. Win Proxy War to Control EQT – Toby Rice New CEO”
Last July a group of 100+ southwestern Pennsylvania landowners sued EQT for failure to pay them rental fees for storing natural gas under their properties (see 100+ PA Landowners Sue EQT re Gas Storage Field Payments). That same group has just filed a request in U.S. District Court to upgrade the lawsuit to class action status, potentially including thousands of affected landowners.
Read More “PA Landowners Seek Class Action Against EQT re Gas Storage”