Steubenville, OH in the Catbird Seat – Between Two Crackers
Several weeks ago MDN editor Jim Willis attended the 2019 Northeast Petrochemical Conference and Expo in Pittsburgh. A major reason for attending such events is to connect with others in the industry. On this trip, Jim had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Bryce Custer, business director for global commercial real estate company NAI’s Ohio River Corridor division. Bryce’s job is to find real estate for companies in places where maybe real estate isn’t (yet) for sale. Companies like manufacturers who want to locate near the Shell and (soon, hopefully) PTT ethane cracker facilities–looking to locate in the Ohio River Valley. Bryce helps them find suitable locations. Bryce recently spoke to the Steubenville Revitalization Group and had an interesting observation about Steubenville’s geography.
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In March 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) Connecticut Expansion project (see 
New York State is so screwed. Let’s just be honest–there’s no saving the Empire State now. (We can say these things because we live here.) Following the passage of a recent law (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Only explosion from natural gas leak came on social media; Thrasher says WV’s economy could slow after natural gas boom; Three permits issued in Ohio’s Utica-Point Pleasant; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Berkeley to consider prohibiting natural gas in new buildings; NATIONAL: In 2018, 90% of the natural gas used in the United States was produced domestically; Animated chart of the day: US electricity generation by fuel source, 1949-2019; US EIA expects lower gas spot prices, some deceleration in gas production growth; Zero-carbon natural gas not good enough?; Tom Steyer officially announces presidential bid.
When so-called protesters take the law into their own hands and illegally block a legal activity, like building a pipeline, they should be arrested and the maximum sentence should be enforced. If that doesn’t happen, people begin to disrespect and not trust our legal system. Such a miscarriage of justice happened yesterday in Lancaster County, PA. A group of seven radicalized anti-pipeline activists, including an 88-year-old grandma, were given a pass by a local judge for their illegal actions in blocking pipeline construction back in 2017. One more erosion of our legal system.
A project we’ve been tracking since 2017, a 620 megawatt Marcellus-fired electric plant in Greene County called Hill Top Energy Center (
A little over a year ago CNX Resources announced that the company had signed a long-term contract with Evolution Well Services to use Evolution’s 100% natural gas-fueled electric pressure pumping equipment (see 
The pipeline situation today in the Marcellus/Utica region is far different than it was just a year or two ago. Not long ago lack of pipelines meant we had an overabundance of natural gas in the region without buyers, driving prices into the basement. Today? It’s all different. Because of new and expanded pipelines coming online over the past couple of years, producers (i.e. drillers) today have options on where to send their natural gas–fetching far better prices in new markets. In fact, according to the analysts at RBN Energy, “The spate of pipeline expansions and additions in the past two years have not only caught up to production but capacity now far outpaces it.” That’s a big switcheroo.
It may be time to boycott the products and services of Salesforce.com, Microsoft, LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft), Apple and other Big Tech firms who are attempting to force Dominion Energy to abandon plans to build clean-burning, natural gas-fired electric plants in Virginia to power data centers. To which we say, go find your electricity somewhere else, you fools. Go build your own solar farms and windmills, see how far you get in supplying your huge electric demands. And tell your customers “Oops, sorry!” when the electricity cuts out and the data centers go dark when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
In another MDN exclusive, last Friday LOLA Energy filed a lawsuit in Greene County, PA against EQT for allegedly drilling shale wells under property EQT formerly leased, property for which the leases had lapsed and were subsequently scooped up by LOLA Energy (see 
We’ve found one more bit of evidence that Ohio officials believe, rather strongly, that PTT Global Chemical will move forward with building a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker in Belmont County. JobsOhio, a private non-profit with a board appointed by the Ohio governor, gets most of its operating revenue from taxes on liquor sales in Ohio. JobsOhio previously spent $17 million in 2016 to clean up the site where PTT says they may/maybe/might build a cracker plant (see 
A week ago we brought you the news that the country’s top two shareholder advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis & Co., are each supporting opposing sides in the EQT proxy war (see 
The Equitrans Expansion Project (EEP) began construction in late 2017. The project is related to Equitrans’ $4 billion, 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) at the same time as MVP. The $100 million EEP involved upgrading several compressor stations and adding approximately eight miles of pipeline connectors to increase capacity along the Equitrans Pipeline from southwestern Pennsylvania into West Virginia.