Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 23, 2019
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PJM Interconnect records record electricity use Friday, over weekend; 10 arrested during climate change sit-in at Pa. Democratic HQ; Philadelphia Energy Solutions files for bankruptcy after refinery fire; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Blackstone weighs Cheniere Energy Partners stake sale; NATIONAL: Halliburton cuts 8% of North American jobs in frack slowdown; U.S. Shale: Peak oil [production] finally arrives; Icahn launches proxy fight after stalled talks with Occidental CEO; INTERNATIONAL: No, natural gas is not as bad a coal – IEA; Western Canada’s natural gas production is nearing all-time highs; LNG demand to spike five-fold in parts of Asia; RBC – Natural gas glut will last into 2020s.
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On Friday Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well back in 2004, announced two deals that will net the company $634 million total. In the first deal, Range sold a 2% overriding royalty interest on 350,000 acres “in southwest Appalachia” for $600 million. In the second deal, Range sold ~20,000 non-producing acres in Armstrong County for $34 million ($1,700/acre).
As we have and continue to cover, there is an exciting development happening in northeastern Pennsylvania. New Fortress Energy has begun to clear the site where they will build an LNG liquefaction plant in Wyalusing (see 
A new Pennsylvania PIPE (Pipeline Investment Program) grant for $320,950 will help extend a natural gas delivery pipeline to the Keystone Cement Co. near Allentown, PA, which will allow the plant to replace coal with natural gas, used to manufacture cement. Total cost of the new pipeline project is over $2 million. The grant helps. According to the engineer working on the plan, it takes truck traffic off the roads and lowers costs to the plant.
In May 2016, a landowner in Wayne County, PA filed a lawsuit against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) asking a judge to declare that the DRBC does not have jurisdiction to prevent construction of a natural gas well (see 
A week ago MDN told you that Joe Manchin, one of West Virginia’s two U.S. Senators, is not happy that details of the deal signed between WV and China in which China agreed to invest $83.7 billion (with a “b”) in WV’s shale and petrochemcial industries is secret (see 
CNX Resources Corporation, formerly CONSOL Energy, released its “Corporate Responsibility Report” on Friday. CNX is headquartered in Pittsburgh and focuses totally on the Appalachian region. Corporate responsibility, sometimes called “Corporate social responsibility” (CSR), is an effort by a company to be socially accountable…to itself, its stakeholders, and the public. Companies like CNX aim to be conscious of the impacts they have on all aspects of society–including economic, social, and environmental. CNX (and others) want to leave the world a better place. How did CNX do in 2018?
A newspaper in the Philippines is reporting that New Fortress Energy, the company currently building one (rumored to be two) liquefied natural gas (LNG) liquefaction plants in the northeastern Pennsylvania Marcellus, has approached the Philippines Department of Energy (DoE) about building an onshore LNG import terminal that would be integrated with a gas-fired power plant.
A federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulation meant to ban wastewater coming from unconventional (shale) wells from being disposed via municipal sewage treatment plants is about to go into effect in August. The new reg, which was first issued by the Obama EPA in 2016 (see 
The State of Connecticut’s “Siting Council” has changed its mind. In 2016, NTE Energy proposed building a 650-megawatt natural gas-fired electric plant in Killingly. The Siting Council said NTE couldn’t justify the plant and refused to issue a certificate. In February, we reported the Siting Council was once again actively considering the project (see 
It’s not every day you read an editorial in a prominent Pennsylvania newspaper lending a full-throated endorsement for PA’s impact fee over a so-called severance tax, but it just happened in Williamsport. The Sun-Gazette editorial board published a column pointing out the superiority of an impact fee (actually an impact tax) over a severance tax. They make some great points, pointing out the numbers speak for themselves…
In May 2018, Liberty Utilities, a New Hampshire company, announced a new pipeline project called Granite Bridge–27 miles of new natural gas pipeline to be buried along Route 101 from Stratham to Manchester (see 
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo tried to stop a fully built, brand new natural gas-fired electric generating plant in Orange County from going operational last year by instructing his Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to deny renewing an air permit it had approved just five years earlier (see