This news is a bit dated, but still interesting and is new for us: Last October a group of landowners in Tioga County, NY filed a lawsuit to force the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to quit dragging its feet and set a date to consider the groups application to allow LPG (liquefied petroleum gas, i.e. propane) fracking for a shale well.
Read More “Landowner Group Sues NY State to Allow Propane Fracking”
Three years ago lawsuits filed by some 200 West Virginia residents against Antero Resources were combined into a class action lawsuit (see More People Pile on Antero, Seek to Join Mass “Nuisance” Lawsuit). The lawsuits are called “nuisance” lawsuits because, according to the plantiffs, Antero is a nuisance to them–truck traffic, noise, lights at night, etc.
Read More “Antero “Nuisance” Lawsuit Heard by WV Supreme Court Temp Judges”
There are companies that will purchase landowners’ (rights owners) royalty payments–giving them a lump sum payment up front in return for signing over all future royalty payments to the company buying the rights. Peregrine Energy Partners is one such company and has just purchased an unspecified amount of royalty payments in Greene County, PA.
Read More “Peregrine Energy Buys Royalty Rights in Greene County, PA”
Invenergy blasted out a press release yesterday to announce that their 1,480 megawatt, $1 billion Marcellus gas-fired electric plant, called the Lackawanna Energy Center (located near Scranton, PA) is now fully, 100%, online.
Read More “PA’s Largest NatGas-Fired Electric Plant Officially Online”
Braskem USA, headquartered in Philadelphia had a decision to make in 2016: Locate a new polypropylene plant in their own backyard, at the Marcus Hook refinery site on the outskirts of Philly–or locate it in Texas. They picked Texas because not enough NGLs (propane) were flowing to Marcus Hook due to delays (caused by Big Green lawsuits) in the Mariner East 2 pipeline.
Read More “Delayed ME2 Pipeline Cost PA a $675M Plastics Plant + 1K Lost Jobs”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Supreme Court may consider challenge to MVP, Natural Gas Act; Gov. Tom Wolf comes out as Pennsylvania’s ‘Encourager-in-Chief’ in inaugural address; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: U.S. ethane company with Russian ties set to break into Chinese market from Texas; NATIONAL: EIA’s 2019 Henry Hub price forecast slips to $2.89; little relief seen in 2020; U.S. natgas output, demand seen rising to record highs in 2019; Williams Companies targets LNG upside via Transco expansions; Ex-Halliburton chairman Dave Lesar to start new oil-services company; INTERNATIONAL: Reports of OPEC’s demise have been greatly exaggerated; Yellow Vest protests in France, Canada.
Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Jan 16, 2019”
Each week the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) Oil & Gas Resources division publishes the latest list of permits issued to drillers in the Utica (and/or the Marcellus) for the Buckeye State. Each month the same department issues updated maps for both the Utica and the Marcellus to show where drilling is (and by omission, is not) happening. We have the latest maps below.
Read More “Ohio Utica & Marcellus Maps – Where Does Drilling Happen?”
The mystery is now solved. Last week we incorrectly (based on a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article) reported that FirstEnergy wants to drill a well under (not on) Linbrook Park, located in the Borough of Franklin Park in Allegheny County (see original story here). It’s not FirstEnergy but PennEnergy that wants to do the drilling.
Read More “Big Crowd Turns Out to Support/Oppose Drilling Under SWPA Park”
According to RBN Energy, “U.S. production of natural gas liquids is projected to increase by 17% this year, and by another 10% in 2020.” NGLs cover a variety of hydrocarbons. Two NGLs, propane and butane, are further classified as LPG–or liquefied petroleum gas. Of the four “smaller” LPG export facilities here in the U.S., two-thirds of all exported LPGs last year came from one–Energy Transfer’s Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia.
Read More “East Coast Dominates LPG Exports via Philly’s Marcus Hook”
We’ve been tracking a story since November about a new, smallish (but very important) LNG export plant coming to Bradford County, PA, to Wyalusing (see Big News! Marcellus LNG Export Plant Coming to Landlocked NEPA). In order to build the $800 million facility, a LOT of workers, and housing, will be needed.
Read More “Bradford County Conducts Housing Survey to Prepare for LNG Plant”
At the beginning of each new year the West Virginia legislature fires up its annual 60-day session. WV legislators are part-time and only meet for two months out of the year. (How we wish that were the case here in NY!) For a number of years running, the oil and gas industry’s legislative agenda has pushed certain new bills. This year is different.
Read More “WV O&G Industry Plays Defense as 2019 Legislative Session Begins”
Last June Diversified Gas & Oil burst on the Marcellus/Utica scene when they bought 2.5 million acres of leases with 11,350 mostly conventional gas (and oil) wells in Appalachia from EQT (see Diversified Gas & Oil Adds to Conventional Assets in KY, VA, WV). Since that time Diversified has continued to grow. Ever wonder how it got started?
Read More “Birth of a Drilling Company – How Diversified Gas & Oil Got Its Start”
Our friend Tom Shepstone (Natural Gas Now) is a dangerous man…dangerous to anti-fossil fuelers. He’s dangerous because he’s smart, and because he has the unique ability to expose “the man behind the curtain” pulling the levers and pushing the buttons with respect to fracktivism and those who fund it. Tom has done it again, this time exposing the fraudsters behind a Pennsylvania group called Damascus Citizens for Sustainability.
Read More “Going on Offense: Exposing PA Anti Group & Their Funders”
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Pennsylvania emissions order warily eyed by natural gas industry; Protesters gather in Western New York to rally against the Northern Access Pipeline; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: LNG and natural gas pricing brings Haynesville back to life; Record Haynesville shale output to push 2019 U.S. LNG volume above 40m tons; NATIONAL: US LNG ready to take centre stage in 2019; Climate action relied on natural gas. Then CO2 spiked; How algorithms are taking over big oil; Oil sector primed for major merger and acquisition activity; Natural gas prices spike 13 percent on forecasts for long, severe cold; INTERNATIONAL: 4,000 troops will safeguard 1,600 kilometers of Pemex pipelines.
Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jan 15, 2019”
More drama in the ongoing soap opera of EQT and the Rice brothers’ attempt to take it over. The latest items of interest: The Wall Street Journal ran an article in today’s online edition with a headline that says EQT is “failing.” And one of EQT’s biggest investors, D.E. Shaw, is telling the board that current top management “doesn’t have what it takes” to get the company financially performing again. Ouch.
Read More “WSJ Says EQT is “Failing”, DE Shaw Says EQT Mgmt “Not Up to Task””
In early December, the clown judges of the Fourth Circus Court of Appeals (our name for the Fourth Circuit) put a hold on a permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that allows the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline to get built through areas with so-called endangered and threatened species (see 4th Circus Blocks Permit, Stops All Work on Atlantic Coast Pipe).
Read More “4th Circus Clowns Refuse to Clarify Decision re Atlantic Coast Pipe”