Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Nov 13, 2018
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Syracuse’s BlueRock Energy sells big chunk of its business; LNG tanker docks at Cheniere’s Corpus Christi plant as 1st shipment nears; The pre-winter rapid rise in U.S. natural gas prices; The new bear market in oil; Big Data adds up to big savings for upstream players; Toshiba exiting U.S. LNG to focus on core businesses; Ahead of Trump-Xi meeting, record-setting oil exports to China at zero for 2nd month.
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The last time we checked in (June) on a brewing frack ban in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA, a challenge to a local ordinance which allows Apex Energy and Huntley & Huntley to drill and operate wells rested with a county judge. Things have since rapidly progressed. We’re guessing the local judge ruled in favor of allowing the wells to be drilled because the case was appealed to PA Commonwealth Court. Late last week the judges in Commonwealth Court issued a ruling in favor of Penn Township’s “special exception” permits awarded to Apex Energy, allowing them to drill shale wells.
Utility giant Eversource (formerly Northeast Utilities), one of the companies backing the Access Northeast pipeline project, is calling it quits on the project. At least for the foreseeable future. Access Northeast, a proposed ~$3 billion project, would connect four different pipeline systems: Texas Eastern, Algonquin Gas Transmission, Iroquois and Maritimes & Northeast. Eversource desperately needs the gas that would flow through the connected system, but after the Columbia Gas tragedy near Boston in September (see 
Last week MDN brought you the exciting news that New Fortress Energy is planning to build an LNG (liquefied natural gas) liquefaction plant in Wyalusing (Bradford County), PA (see 
Last week MDN picked up on news shared by top management for Energy Transfer that their long-delayed Mariner East 2 pipeline system will be up and running by the end of the year (see 
The battle continues to rage in the lib Dem socialist utopia of Ithaca (Tompkins County), NY over a plan to convert a local coal-fired electric generating plant to use much better-for-the-environment and far-less-polluting natural gas. Yet local antis, who irrationally (and we mean clinically insane) hate fossil fuels, continue to object and preen themselves at county board meetings to object to converting the plant. They object to the conversion because natural gas is a “fossil fuel”–the modern form of eeeeevil in their eyes. And so (once again, demonstrating clinical insanity), they prefer to keep the plant burning coal. The plant will have to burn something. We don’t see any of these same antis volunteering to unhook themselves from the electric grid. The electricity flowing to their homes needs to get generated somehow, and it sure ain’t renewables doing it.
Trout Unlimited (TU), previously outed as an anti-fracking organization (see 
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events. To have your event included (or if you are aware of a worthy event you believe should be on this page), please send the details and/or a link to have it included to the calendar@marcellusdrilling.com email address.
Yesterday the muckety-mucks from Energy Transfer (ET) held a conference call with Wall Street analysts to discuss the company’s third quarter 2018 update. Inevitably on such calls there’s talk about what’s coming up in addition to what happened in the previous quarter. ET is a big midstream (pipeline) company. Among their projects are the mighty Rover Pipeline, which reaches from Pennsylvania, West Virgina, and eastern Ohio all the way into Michigan, and the Mariner East 2 Pipeline, which runs from eastern Ohio all the way through Pennsylvania to the Philadelphia area. Rover flows natural gas, ME2 (and ME2X) will flow NGLs, mainly ethane and propane. According to Tom Long, ET’s Chief Financial Officer, ME2 will be up and running sometime this quarter. Since the end of this quarter is around Christmastime, we prefer to think of ME2 as a Christmas present for Marcellus/Utica drillers.
Last week MPLX (i.e. MarkWest Energy) issued its third quarter 2018 update. MarkWest, since merging into Marathon Petroleum, has become a big, major player in a number of shale plays across the country. Our interest and focus is, of course, on the Marcellus/Utica. Did this recent update yield any interesting insights? It sure did! Gathered and processed volumes in the Marcellus/Utica are up, significantly, for MarkWest. The amount of gas (and NGLs) gathered in the M-U was up a huge 35% from the same period last year (3.1 Bcf/d), and processed volumes at MarkWest plants was up 10% year over year (5.5 Bcf/d). Here’s a look behind the curtain at MarkWest/MPLX.
It must really grate on Big Green supporters that their hero, lib Dem Tom Wolf (who just won reelection as governor of PA), continues to support fossil fuel projects. It must doubly grate on them that Wolf’s Dept. of Environmental Protection, when funding such projects, calls them “clean energy.” We love it! The PA DEP announced yesterday, two days after the big election, that they’ve just awarded $2.6 million in grants to 16 different “clean energy vehicle” projects. When you look at the list, all but $32,077 of that amount is going to fund either CNG or propane-powered vehicles. That is, fossil fuel-powered vehicles (mostly buses and trucks). And the DEP has the *audacity* (in the opinion of Big Green nuts) to call all of these projects “clean energy”! We’re laughing our considerable rear-end off.
It would be great when you are drilling a well, or building a pipeline, that when a state government inspector swings by to check up on the project, they don’t spot any problems. Especially for big projects like pipelines that run hundreds of miles. It would be nice, but not reality. Something always happens here and there. Unforeseen. Like weather with torrential rain, resulting in runoff from a ditch you just dug. The inspector swings by the next day and notices water and dirt where it’s not supposed to be, and voila, a “notice of violation” (NOV) is issued. It happens. That’s the way the world works. For Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), both with segments in West Virginia, NOVs have been and no doubt will continue to be issued. How many NOVs would you imagine have already been issued for each project in WV? How many is “too many” and indicates the project builders are being sloppy?
Last Friday the supremely disappointing U.S. Supreme Court refused to stop a lawsuit brought by lawyers (ab)using a group of 21 children against the United States for not doing enough about mythical man-made global warming (see 
The results of Tuesday’s elections, with the House of Representatives flipping to Democrat control, is a disaster. That is our considered opinion. And not just because we’re died-in-the-wool conservatives and believe in freedom and the rule of law. But for what it portends for the oil and gas industry. Some on our side, the pro-fossil fuel side, think everything’s just fine with Dems in control of the House. They say the oil and gas industry likes “divided government” because it ensures any changes that happen will happen slowly. We’re not convinced. Why? We look at the actual words of those seizing (and we use that word intentionally) power come January. The House, under Democrat tyranny, is gearing up to hold hearings on everything, including so-called “climate change” and Trump’s efforts to roll back egregious Obama regulations related to “climate change.” Dems plan to use the power of subpoena to try and stop efforts to right-size and eliminate unnecessary regulations in agencies like the EPA. We think the oil and gas industry, whether they admit it or not, is in for the fight of its life come January 1. We hope we’re wrong. We fear we are not.
Eni, an Italian oil and gas company (11th largest in the world), recently issued Volume 2 of its annual Global Energy Outlook. It’s titled “World Gas and Renewables Review” (full copy below) and it’s full of interesting statistics about natural gas and the U.S.’s role in producing it. For example, when it comes to estimated reserves–how much natural gas is in the ground that we might conceivably be able to extract–Russia, Iran, Qatar and Turkmenistan (!) all have more natural gas reserves than the U.S. We’re #5 down the list, after Turkmenistan. And yet, when it comes to production, the U.S. is #1. The difference is, of course, fracking.