MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Workforce development in Susquehanna County takes place on its own; NATIONAL: Schlumberger Appoints Olivier Le Peuch as CEO; U.S. natural gas prices sinking again; INTERNATIONAL: LNG Limited move business to USA; So you think we’re reducing fossil fuel? — think again.
Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jul 22, 2019”
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.
Read More “New Fortress Working on Deal to Send Marcellus LNG to Philippines”
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 EPA Bans Disposal of Frack Wastewater at Public Sewer Plants), will also apply to (snag) a number of Pennsylvania’s conventional oil and gas drillers. Further collateral damage from the new regulation will be local municipalities, some of which will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue–an economic catastrophe for those communities.
Read More “EPA’s “No Wastewater @ Sewage Plant” Rule Snags PA Conv. Drillers”
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 CT Wisely Reconsiders, Allows NatGas Power Plant to Proceed). Good news: the Siting Council has approved the project.
Read More “Connecticut Approves New Natgas-Fired Electric Plant in Killingly”
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…
Read More “Newspaper Editors Say Impact Fee Superior to Severance Tax in PA”
The amount of natural gas that gets produced, and the amount that actually gets traded (bought and sold), are two different numbers. Don’t try to figure out–just accept it on faith. Cornerstone Research has just published its annual report (full copy below) looking at the amount of natural gas traded in the United States for 2018. The report says both natural gas trading activity and marketed production reached record highs in 2018. Total trading activity increased for the fourth consecutive year and marketed production continued steady growth that first began in 2005. The reason? Shale.
Read More “NatGas Trading Volume Up 4th Year in a Row – Sets New Record”
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 Liberty Utilities Floats Plan for 27-Mile Pipeline in Southern NH). Part of the Granite Bridge project includes building an LNG storage facility located midway along the pipeline near Epping. Later this month Liberty will host an LNG safety demonstration at the Epping Middle School gymnasium in their effort to win state and public approval for the project.
Read More “Liberty Utilities to Make Case for Granite Bridge LNG Tank in NH”
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 Cuomo Strikes Again: Blocks Completed Gas-Fired Plant from Starting). Fortunately a judge stepped in to prevent the DEC from shutting down the now-operational Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) 680-megawatt Valley Energy Center in Wawayanda (see Judge Refuses to Shut Down Orange County, NY Gas-Fired Plant). Cuomo’s corrupt DEC is just conducted public hearings on the air permit.
Read More “Antis Ask NY DEC to Shut Down Operating Gas-Fired Plant”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Nine permits issued in Ohio Utica/Point Pleasant shale; Cuomo tilts with windmills; Wheeler hits Cuomo for blocking pipelines; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Berkeley approves $273,341 salary for new czar to enforce nation’s 1st natural gas ban; NATIONAL: Summer natural gas prices on track to be the lowest in more than 20 years; Working natural gas stocks are more than half full in all regions as the deficit to the five-year average declines; Ryan Zinke touts new career in the oil and gas industry during Houston visit; U.S. energy is hotspot in Trump’s economy; INTERNATIONAL: How to reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.
Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, Jul 19, 2019”
This is a momentous occasion, nearly 13 years in the making. The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) issued permits on June 28 to drill two Utica Shale wells in Monroe County. Both wells begin on privately owned land, but then travel under sections of Wayne National Forest (WNF). As near as we can tell, these are the first two such wells to pass under WNF land. Below we tell you exactly where they’re located, and which company received the permits to drill them.
Read More “Ohio Issues First Permits to Drill Under Wayne National Forest”
Columbia Transmission is on a mission to flow more Marcellus/Utica gas south–all the way to the Gulf Coast in Louisiana. Earlier this week Columbia filed a new application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the Louisiana XPress Project, a project to beef up flows along the existing Columbia pipeline system by an additional 850 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) by adding and expanding several compressor stations in Louisiana. Most, if not all of the M-U gas that will flow through it, is heading to Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG export facility in Lake Charles.
Read More “Columbia Asks FERC to OK Louisiana XPress, M-U Gas to Gulf”
Kinder Morgan (KM), perhaps the largest pipeline company in the United States, was first out of the chute yesterday with a financial and operational update for the second quarter. While KM maintains a number of pipelines in the northeast, primarily the Tennessee Gas Pipeline, our main focus in reviewing yesterday’s update is for new information about the long-delayed Elba Island LNG export facility along the coast of Georgia. Elba Island will export Marcellus/Utica molecules.
We updated this post on 7/19/19 with new information.
Read More “KM Says Elba Island in “Advanced Stage” of Commissioning/Startup”
A small cabal of 18 leftist Virginia state legislators sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulator Commission (FERC) last week trash talking the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) proposed by Dominion Energy. The odious Sierra Club “applauds these legislators for standing up to polluting corporations like Dominion Energy that are putting their profits over people.” Same old tripe the Clubbers always peddle. What the Sierra Club doesn’t tell you is that there are 140 Virginia legislators, meaning 122 legislators either support, or certainly don’t oppose, ACP. Translation: The vast majority of Virginia residents and their representatives are in favor of ACP.
Read More “18 Virginia Legislators Oppose Atlantic Coast Pipe, 122 Don’t”
Last December MDN pointed out the biased “reporting” now coming from the Charleston (WV) Gazette-Mail (see Antis Get a Reporter at the Charleston Gazette-Mail). Reporter Ken Ward, Jr. now has most (all?) of his salary paid by anti-fossil fuel organizations, and his “reporting” on the shale industry reflects the bias of his paymasters. Following a couple of recent grossly biased “articles” penned by Ward and fellow “reporter” Kate Mishkin, the West Virginia Oil & Natural Gas Association is hitting back–hard.
Read More “WVONGA Hits Back Hard Against Leftist Charleston Gazette-Mail”
We love how innovative our industry, and indeed academic researchers, are. Who would ever think to combine wastewater coming from electric power generating plants with wastewater from oil and gas wells? Both industries, the power industry and the O&G industry, produce a LOT of wastewater. Researchers at West Virginia University have combined both wastewater streams to produce “water that is clean enough to reuse.” How cool is that?!
Read More “Researchers Mix Power Plant + Frack Wastewater, Get Clean Water!”
Here’s a major scientific study that’s being suppressed and ignored by mainstream “news” (i.e. propaganda) outlets: A recently published study by Finnish researchers finds that human activity, specifically burning fossil fuels for energy, doesn’t even move the needle on global average temperatures. They point out a major flaw in climate modeling used by “mainstream” alarmists–in how they use a computer model that overestimates warming by a factor of 10.
Read More “Finnish Study Finds Humans Don’t Cause Global Warming”