Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jun 3, 2019
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Cuomo’s ‘renewable’ fiasco; The politics behind pipeline opposition; Confidential shale gas settlement found in Washington County prothonotary office; NATIONAL: Anti-fracking researcher quietly admits – Studies show no harmful pollutants near oil and gas sites; Total takes over Toshiba’s U.S. LNG business; Icahn sues Occidental and threatens fight for board, sale; INTERNATIONAL: Bulgaria makes first U.S. gas purchases with two LNG cargoes.
Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jun 3, 2019”
We’re always a sucker for a “Top 10” list. We spotted a Top 10 list for Ohio oil and gas producers recently published by Columbus Business First. The list ranks companies by production in 2018 converted to thousand cubic feet equivalent. We’ve also included a nifty graphic from our own 
Pennsylvania State Sen. Gene Yaw, Republican from Lycoming County, PA, seems to have changed his mind about a severance tax on Marcellus Shale production. The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) visited Williamsport in Yaw’s home district yesterday. At a joint press conference to discuss the superiority of an impact fee to a severance tax, Yaw called those supporting a severance tax “bobbleheads.” Whoa, way to go Sen. Yaw! That’s a far cry from his vote in favor of a severance tax in 2017 (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 
The Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) yesterday released its 2019 Summer Outlook for Natural Gas report (summary below). It’s not much different than the Winter Outlook was (see 
From time to time MDN highlights new technologies used in shale drilling. We’ve talked about companies developing alternatives to water as a fracking fluid, things like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG or propane) fracking (see 
Maya van Rossum, who fancies herself as THE Delaware Riverkeeper, has her knickers in a twist. She’s just woken up to the fact that New Fortress Energy, which is building an LNG liquefying plant in northeastern Pennsylvania (see 
Antero Resources sued EnerQuest Oil & Gas in a Texas court last year claiming EnerQuest had solicited and received trade secrets for a pair of landmen who live and work in Texas. A lower court dismissed the lawsuit based on a technicality (because the solicitation from EnerQuest came via email), claiming Texas does not have jurisdiction over the case. Antero disagrees and has just asked the Texas Supreme Court to review the case.
Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, collects data on all aspects of the U.S. energy industry. We spotted a newly updated spreadsheet issued by EIA that lists all “liquids” pipeline projects from 2010 to the present (and planned into the future). That caused us to look for another spreadsheet EIA produces (also recently updated) showing all natural gas pipeline projects from 1996 to the present (and planned). Jackpot! We culled both lists and have pulled out just those projects (below) for the Marcellus/Utica.
Month after month Marcellus/Utica production continues massive grow at around one-third of a billion cubic feet (see 
Last December MDN told you that even though NEXUS Pipeline, a $2.6 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that runs from Ohio into Michigan is built and has been fully online since November, the Coalition to Reroute NEXUS (CORN), along with the City of Oberlin, Ohio, filed yet another lawsuit (with the D.C. Court of Appeals) to nullify the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) original decision to approve the project (see 
The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected hearing a case appealed from a lower court by a group of Lancaster County landowners who claim Williams and their Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project abused eminent domain authority by building the pipeline before litigating (for years) how much money landowners should receive–landowners who refused to negotiate in good faith in the first place.