Sen. Pat Toomey Claims Trump Tariffs Will Delay Shell Cracker
Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senator Pat Toomey is a DC swamp dweller–let’s just be honest about it. He’s a Republican, largely in name only. He’s better than a Democrat–but not by much. Toomey is claiming that President Trump’s attempt to stop the flow of foreign steel dumping in our markets by using tariffs (dumping which hurts our own steel industry and isn’t anywhere close to being fair or free trade), will delay incoming material for the Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County and result in the layoff of “hundreds” of workers. A Shell spokesman neither confirms nor denies Toomey’s claims but uses doublespeak to sidestep the issue–meaning Shell likely asked Toomey to be the front guy in shaming the Trump Administration into granting waivers so they can get their cheap, imported steel. Toomey has been an early and repeat critic of Trump. Toomey opposed Trump’s tariffs from the beginning and is currently trying to get a new law passed stripping the President of his constitutional power to impose tariffs…
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Some encouraging words, but also some outright lies, coming from Ling Wen, president of China Energy Investment about China’s planned investment in West Virginia. Wen addressed reporters yesterday in Hong Kong, and some of the conversation turned to China Energy Investment’s 20-year deal to invest $83.7 billion in WV’s shale and petrochemical industries (see 
More fake “research” on drilling, courtesy the anti-drilling Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (EHP). This is the same group of antis who brought us the so-called list of the harmed (in 2013) and last year launched a faux health registry that attempts to link everything from the sniffles to “performance issues” to nearby fracking (see 
KLX Inc. is the “world’s leading provider” of aerospace fasteners, consumables, and logistics services, operating as KLX Aerospace Solutions. Little known fact: KLX also provides oilfield services and associated rental equipment across North America as KLX Energy Services. In particular, KLX operates in the Marcellus/Utica region. KLX Energy Services is actually an umbrella covering seven companies KLX has acquired in the energy services sector. Each unit is in the business of providing technical services and related rental equipment to oil and gas exploration and production companies (i.e. drillers). KLX provides a broad range of solutions and equipment. Here’s the big news: KLX the aerospace company is selling itself to Boeing (yes, that Boeing) for $4.25 billion ($3.25 billion in cash and assuming $1 billion in debt). But Boeing isn’t interested in the oilfield services business, so KLX Energy Services is being spun off into a standalone company. Here’s the details…
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: New director for Utica Shale Academy; Sistersville Tank Works wants more local shale customers; diversifying America’s petchem industry by building in Ohio Valley; why US electric demand will increase; US can help its neighbors by exporting more natgas; new NAFTA deal will help US-Mexican natgas trade; the gas market *should* be panicking, but isn’t; China gives up tariffs on US oil after only 2 months; and more!
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) game of hardball with Energy Transfer over the Rover Pipeline has finally paid off. For months FERC has refused to allow four Rover laterals–feeder pipelines to shuttle gas from where it’s produced into the main Rover pipeline–to start up (see 
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has handed PA drillers a partial victory in their quest to block onerous new drilling regulations, part of something called Chapter 78a. In October 2016, after five years in the making, PA adopted new shale drilling regulations (see 
Sometimes you spot an innocent, off-the-cuff remark that’s not really part of the intended story–but has huge meaning. Such was the case when we spotted a story quoting Ohio House of Representatives member Andy Thompson (Republican, 95th District covering Carroll, Harrison and Noble counties, and portions of Washington and Belmont counties). Thompson, who (to his credit) is not running for reelection after four terms [NOTE: a sharp MDN reader emailed to say Mr. Thompson was term-limited out and could not run again], gave a speech at the Ohio Mid-Eastern Governments Association last week in St. Clairsville. In his remarks, Thompson talked about the work of Shale Crescent USA, an economic development organization formed a few years ago to encourage business growth in the Ohio Valley based on low natural gas prices that allow manufacturers to operate more efficiently–with easy access to half the population of the United States and Canada. Although Thompson’s focus was not on the PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker project potentially planned for Belmont County, he had some VERY interesting remarks about that project and others like it…
Here’s some dots that we’ve not seen anyone else connect. There are two competing pipeline projects that generally run along the same route to shuttle Marcellus/Utica gas to the southeastern U.S. One project is EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which runs 303 miles from West Virginia into southern Virginia. MVP is facing a court case that’s idled three-fourths of the project, leading to a layoff of “thousands” of workers (see 
EQT signed a lease with a landowner in Washington County, PA back in 2007 that allows the company to drill and/or develop surface property–building things like a freshwater (NOT wastewater) pond that can be used for nearby drilling. The landowner’s daughter, who either doesn’t understand drilling (or more likely does understand but doesn’t like it) claims there is an unmarked, single grave somewhere on the property (presumed to be an Indian), using that claim to stop EQT’s work on building the water pond. EQT is patiently playing along, waiting for–even paying for and assisting with–an archaeological dig to see if the grave and other Indian remains can be located. So far, nothing has been unearthed–except for a lot of hot air…
We’ve written, forever, about the quest by Pennsylvania’s teacher’s unions (most of them in the Philadelphia area) who want to raid the coffers of Marcellus drillers via a confiscatory severance tax slapped on top of an existing impact tax slapped on top of corporate income taxes. You can never have too many taxes in education-land. That’s the only way they get paid. Neighboring states like Ohio and West Virginia already have a severance tax. It’s hard comparing apples to apples, but essentially PA drillers pay a bit more than OH drillers, but a whole lot less than WV drillers. The severance tax in OH is 1.25%. In WV the severance tax is a whopping 5%. And yet, amazingly, the teacher’s unions in WV are now clamoring to boost the severance tax even more! They want to boost the tax by 2.5% to 7.5%–which would kill the Marcellus/Utica industry in the state. It would be a death sentence. The West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) is on the case, pushing back against this lunacy…
One more piece of the Obama “legacy”–the onerous, wildly unpopular Clean Power Plan (CPP) that assassinates coal powered energy and mortally wounds natural gas in favor of so-called renewable sources of energy–is now history. Well, it will be history after a few more years of legal wrangling. Let’s say the CPP is well on its way to the garbage can of history, where it belongs. The CPP (see 
MDN editor Jim Willis is taking a rare few days off this week, beginning Wednesday and running through Friday. No new MDN stories will be published on those days.