Ohio Univ Gets $1M Grant to Figure out Better Way to Crack Ethane
An Ohio University professor has landed himself (and his research associates) $1 million in grant money to study a better way to turn raw natural gas with lots of ethane in it, directly into ethylene (raw plastics), bypassing the need to separate the raw stream into methane and ethane, and bypassing the need for a huge cracker plant to crack the ethane into ethylene.
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Utility giant National Grid, which services Long Island (part of New York City) with natural gas service, is threatening New York State that if the state does not approve Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project by May 15th, they will, as Consolidated Edison has just done in Westchester County, impose a no-new-natural gas customers moratorium for the New York City area. Which would block development of the new $1 billion Belmont Park Arena.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Utica shale gas well in Washington Township contained; Food & Water Watch scrambles as Stevens blows its cover; Wolf says nat. gas tax has a chance; not ready to fast track legal marijuana; Governor’s proposed severance tax will impact jobs, reduce competitiveness; Shell to build innovation center at Potter Township cracker plant site; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Exxon plans $10 billion Texas natural gas export terminal; Protesters in custody after tampering with Enbridge pipelines in Itasca County; NATIONAL: The United States expands its role as world’s leading ethane exporter; Schumer offers clean energy lawyer for FERC — sources; America is producing the “wrong” kind of oil; Pipelines on alert after Chinese cyberwar warning; As top Dem on Senate Energy Committee, Manchin prepares to tout region’s resources; Activist threatens Halcon Resources with proxy fight unless board changes; Freezing cold means love-hate relationships with EVs; INTERNATIONAL: Equinor’s profit soars in 2018; BP’s full-year profit doubles on high production; 5 things to watch in natural gas.
It’s good to step back every now and again and look at who is drilling, how much they are drilling, and where they are drilling. We have such a list below for the 42 active shale drillers in Pennsylvania.
CNX was fracking their Shaw 1G Utica well in Washington Township on Saturday, Jan. 26, when they detected “a strong drop in pressure” and stopped fracking (see 
A startling revelation came from yesterday’s court hearing in the tiny village of Montrose, PA. Some of the landowners from Dimock, PA who have traveled around the country claiming their water had been contaminated by Cabot Oil & Gas (remember the fraud “documentary” called Gasland?) were actually paid up to $5,000 *per month* by green groups to spread their lies.
The pressure is mounting on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo with regard to blocking natural gas pipelines. Except now the pressure is coming from the adults in the room who see through Cuomo’s sleazy politics. None other than the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal has ripped into Cuomo, calling his blockade of new pipelines the equivalent of a “cold weather tax”–not only on New Yorkers, but also those living in New England.
Ethane exports came from nowhere, dead zero, three years ago and took off like gangbusters until mid-last year, in no small part because of Marcellus/Utica ethane exports coming from the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia. But part of the way through last year those exports began to decline–and not because of lack of ethane flowing through the Mariner East pipelines. Nope. They declined due to lack of demand.
When people communicate, that’s a good thing. When a shale well “communicates” with nearby conventional wells, that’s a bad thing. And that’s what happened with a CNX Resources Utica well being fracked in Westmoreland County last week.
A huge crack of sunshine has just shown through the court system with respect to pipeline projects. A case decided on Jan. 25 in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals which technically has nothing to do with either the Williams Constitution Pipeline project nor the National Fuel Gas Company Northern Access Pipeline project (both being blocked by New York State), may be the one court decision to break open the logjam and allow both projects to begin construction.
Speaking of National Fuel Gas Company’s Northern Access Pipeline project, NFG asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last November to extend the project timeline by an extra three years, to give them more time to fight with Cuomo in court and actually get the pipeline built once lawsuits from the state are exhausted (see 
Last week National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Western New York State (operates drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources and pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline), issued its first quarter 2019–everyone else’s fourth quarter 2018–update. Via Seneca Resources, NFG drills wells in northcentral and northwestern PA. Via Empire Pipeline, they build and maintain hundreds of miles of pipelines.
In November, Dominion Energy said that their 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) would be delayed, with a partial startup in 2019 and full startup for everything else in mid-2020 (see