Appalachian NGL Storage Hub Enters Phase 2 – Built in 2-3 Years?
Last week MDN friend and ace reporter Rick Stouffer from Kallanish Energy hosted a one-day event in Pittsburgh called “Kallanish New Horizons: Appalachin Basin.” One of the speakers was Denise Brinley, senior energy advisor for the Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development. She addressed the topic of an NGL (ethane) storage hub. We’ve written a number of posts on what was originally billed as a $10 billion project, to be located somewhere in the Marcellus/Utica region–most likely West Virginia (see Is the Appalachian NGL Storage Hub Close to Reality?). Brinley tossed out some numbers last week that are different from (contrary to) numbers we’ve seen in the past. For example, she says the facility will cost $2.5 billion to build, not the $10 billion number we’ve seen quoted so often. She also said said such a facility will open in 2-3 years, which is the first time we’ve seen any potential time frame pegged for building it.
Read More “Appalachian NGL Storage Hub Enters Phase 2 – Built in 2-3 Years?”
Continuing on the topic of the NGL storage hub that is today’s lead story (see Appalachian NGL Storage Hub Enters Phase 2 – Built in 2-3 Years?), a number of politicians previously lobbied the U.S. Department of Energy to study the issue of if, and where, a natural gas liquids (NGL) storage hub should be located. Namely, West Virginia’s two U.S. Senators, Shelly Moore Capito and Joe Manchin, were behind the request for a DOE study (see 
Russian native Boris Brevnov, a former Enron executive, and banker Charles Ryan, a Radnor native who was once chief country officer in Moscow for Deutsche Bank, have just landed themselves a sweetheart deal with Philadelphia Gas Works to build a small LNG plant that will export Marcellus gas. The Philadelphia Gas Commission voted to approve a deal yesterday with Liberty Energy Trust. We frankly have mixed emotions about the news. We’re glad to see another LNG export facility, this one in PA (albeit quite small), but unhappy that these particular people are the ones building and operating it. Yes, there’s a lot of history to cover in this story.
This is the kind of news we love to share! Keystone Clearwater Solutions, which was once majority owned by Rex Energy until they sold it to American Water Works in 2015 (see 
Every three years the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection is required, by state law, to produce an update to the state’s so-called Climate Action Plan. The fact that they have such a plan boggles the mind–a plan to address global warming (the operative word being “global”) from one state. To be fair, a number of states and even large cities also have such plans. These plans are all arrogant nonsense. No entity, especially not a single state, can do a darned thing to affect the temperature of Mom Earth, but they pretend they can. And they use the existence of such plans as a manipulative political tool to force policy changes that inflict great economic harm on their citizens–all in the name of saving the planet. They’ve brainwashed our children into believing we’ll die if we don’t give up fossil fuel use. The DEP recently released their triennial update, and it’s as crazy as ever.
It’s kind of unusual, but we suppose not totally unheard of, for a township in the heart of the Pennsylvania Marcellus region in the northeast to essentially reject the Marcellus industry and tell the industry it isn’t wanted in their town. That’s the very loud and clear message just sent by Dallas Township (Luzerne County, near Wilkes-Barre) in adopting new zoning regulations that limit businesses related to the Marcellus industry from operating anywhere but in ~10% of the town. And we’re not talking about drilling–there is no Marcellus drilling in Dallas, in fact none in Luzerne County at all. We’re talking about things like “compressor stations, metering stations, processing facilities, hydraulic fracturing water withdrawal and treatment services.” And such restrictions do impact the industry, especially those related to pipeline infrastructure.
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: LDCs expect little change in natgas use, slight increase in cost in PA this winter; Southwestern completes transformation with close of Fayetteville Shale exit; LNG tanker arrives at Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi plant; MXCC and Eversource energy host first graduation for natural gas field technicians; U.S. coal consumption in 2018 expected to be the lowest in 39 years; Trump’s policies bring not just energy independence, but energy dominance; Why OPEC will send natural gas prices even higher; OPEC oil decision could undercut U.S. natural gas price surge.
In June, Shell said that they plan to build their Falcon ethane pipeline in 2019 (see 
It’s the birth of a brand new pipeline expansion project. Several weeks ago Williams pre-filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to make certain upgrades (all of them in Pennsylvania) to its mighty Transco Pipeline. The upgrades include replacing smaller pipeline with larger pipeline in some areas, adding “looping” in other areas, and upgrading four compressor stations. The changes will flow an extra 582 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas from northeast and southwest PA to “growing demand centers along the Atlantic Seaboard.” Williams is holding two (of four) open houses next week to discuss the project. Below are details about the project and a copy of Williams’ FERC pre-filing application.
We spotted a notice from Energy Transfer, the company building (via its Sunoco Logistics Partners unit) the Mariner East pipeline projects, that seemed odd to us. It was an open season announcement, a time when companies can “sign on the dotted line” to reserve capacity along any of the three pipelines–Mariner East 1 (ME1), Mariner East 2 (ME2), or Mariner East 2X (ME2X). ME1, a repurposed gasoline pipeline built in the 1930s, has been up and running since 2016. ME2 & 2X are due to go online any day now. ME2 and 2X (built side-by-side) are about two years behind schedule. Normally a pipeline company won’t dig one shovelful of dirt or lay an inch of pipeline until/unless customers have already signed up during an open season. And yes, all three pipelines have had open seasons and have signed-up customers eager to use them. So what’s with this new open season? We think we know.
The liberal PA Gov. Tom Wolf administration continues to tinker with (i.e. destroy) the Marcellus miracle in the Keystone State. In August the Wolf Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) finally, after years of work, implemented onerous new regulations to cut down on so-called fugitive methane emissions from *new* drilling and pipelines (see 
Yesterday Kinder Morgan, one of (perhaps THE) country’s largest midstream company, issued guidance (their best guess) for how much money the company will make in 2019. Aimed at investors, of course. Usually these types of things are dry as toast, but we happened to notice the third sentence in the update which says Elba Island, Kinder’s LNG export facility on the coast of Georgia, along with the Gulf Coast Express pipeline project, will both enter service in 2019 and will help lead the company to record revenue–about 10% more revenue next year than was generated this year. Which got us to thinking once again about Elba Island, and the Marcellus molecules that will get exported from it. It also reminded us of a recent email exchange we had with a subscriber who swears that LNG shipments are already departing from the facility.