Ohio Says PTT Cracker Will Get Built – Bechtel Confirms EPC Contract
Last Thursday and Friday, MDN attended the Northeast Petrochemical Conference & Exhibition in Pittsburgh. There were a number of interesting stories coming from the event that we will chronicle this week. However, there was one bit of breaking news from the event: Bechtel Oil, Gas & Chemicals Senior Project Manager of Pennsylvania Chemicals, Paul Marsden, made official what we previously shared as a rumor–that Bechtel has been selected as the EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor to build the PTT cracker plant complex, when and if a positive final investment decision is made. According to a number of sources, that decision will get made this year.
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The legal beagles at Vorys represented Antero Resources in a recently-decided case with far-reaching implications for Ohio drillers and landowners. The Vorys team won the case. As with most lawsuits, this one is complicated and gets in the weeds. The short short version is that under an original lease signed years ago, a landowner and drilling company (at that time) removed a section of the lease that allows the landowner’s property to be pooled (called “unitized” in Ohio) with other properties.
Last week, in addition to the petchem event held in Pittsburgh, Hart Energy held their DUG East (Developing Unconventional Gas) event in Pittsburgh. Although MDN did not attend DUG, MDN friend Rick Stouffer from Kallanish Energy did. Rick caught some interesting news about two of the biggest drillers in the Ohio Utica–Ascent Resources and Encino Energy. One of the eye-opening stats Rick reports is that Encino is sending a full 70% of their Utica production to the Gulf Coast. In addition, most of Ascent’s production goes out of the region too–one-third to the Gulf Coast, one-third to the Midwest, and one-third to the East Coast.
In January 2018, some 18 years ago, MDN told you that EXCO Resources had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 
MDN editor Jim Willis is attending the Northeast Petrochemical Exhibition and Conference in Pittsburgh, so we’re taking the day off from posting new stories. Stay tuned next week for some great news from the conference!
On Tuesday Toby and Derek Rice published a presentation to EQT investors in connection with EQT’s upcoming annual meeting of shareholders on July 10 that “takes no prisoners” (our words), condemning EQT’s current management and most of its board members (see 
If you haven’t already, it’s probably time to get out of New York State. The State is about to implode economically and people will be leaving in even larger numbers than they already are, due to obscene taxes and (now) electric rates that will rival and surpass those in New England to become the highest rates in the Lower 48. NY’s fascist Democrats in the NY “legislature” (i.e. Politburo) are about to pass a law that will be signed by Dictator-in-Chief Andrew Cuomo, a law killing most electric generation from fossil fuels by 2045 (in 25 years). Which means no new natgas-fired power plants will get built in the state from this day forward, and some (most?) of NY’s gas-fired plants in operation will have to close.
A number of Marcellus/Utica pipeline projects are stuck at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Projects that builders are waiting on for a final go-ahead from FERC. What’s the holdup? Leftist Democrat members of FERC insist that unless FERC considers mythical man-made global warming when approving pipeline projects, those projects should not be approved. It almost appears as if Democrat FERC members, including Dick Glick and Cheryl LaFleur are colluding with Big Green groups who have filed a flood of lawsuits insisting on the same thing. The end result is to slow, sometimes stop, progress on approving new projects.
Slowly but surely, more and more union members are beginning to vote Republican. They see their own Democrat Party denying them jobs by rejecting important, big construction projects (pipelines) because of an irrational fear of fossil fuels. This week union members have been picketing a NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) office in Buffalo (exclusive pictures below) to protest the DEC’s rejection of National Fuel Gas Company’s proposed Northern Access Pipeline project.
A “first of its kind” coal-to-liquids plant has been planned for Mason County, WV. The $1.2 billion project will create “ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel, gasoline and other liquids.” The main two ingredients in the process are coal and (you guessed it), natural gas. Which is why we’re interested in this project.
LOLA Energy was birthed near the end of 2015, by former EQT executives using private equity money from Denham Capital (see 
A group of enviro-Nazis has sunk to a new low in their holy mission to block Marcellus Shale drilling. A group of colluding Big Green groups along with sympathetic (and sycophantic) “reporters” (i.e propagandists) from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette are exploiting the pain and suffering of southwestern PA families of children who have cancer in their attempt to stop shale drilling. It’s disgusting and sick.
NJ Transit is planning to build a 140-megawatt natural gas-fired electric plant in Kearny, NJ to power a microgrid that in turn would power rail lines during weather emergencies and power outages. The state is using federal money allocated to improve reliability and resilience of mass transportation during weather events to fund the project.