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    Lordstown 2nd Gas-Fired Plant in Jeopardy from Trump Policy

    The outspoken Bill Siderewicz, builder of a string of gas-fired electric generating plants in Ohio and elsewhere, is (surprise!) speaking out. Siderewicz, president of Boston-based Clean Energy Future, is the builder of the Lordstown Energy Center in Trumbull County, a project begun in 2016 and now nearing completion (see Lordstown Energy Center Breaks Ground on $890M Electric Plant). The plant will generate 940 megawatts of electricity when it goes online. In addition to the Lordstown plant, Siderewicz has plans to build a second plant right next to the first. Except maybe now it won’t get built. President Trump’s Dept. of Energy, under Secretary Rick Perry, is hellbent on devising a scheme to “protect” coal-fired and nuclear electric generating plants–in the name of grid resiliency and national security. It’s bogus. We’ve previously written that we do not support it. Neither does Siderewicz. He calls Trump’s energy policy “un-American,” and said, “Everyone [who] has an IQ of more than 25 is upset about this.” Ouch. Tell us what you really think, Bill! The reason he’s upset: If you make the electricity market noncompetitive by favoring certain types of energy sources, there are consequences. Plants like the second Lordstown Energy Center, and the close-to-one billion dollars it takes to build it (and the tax revenues that flow from it) won’t materialize. If you favor coal and nukes, making their more expensive form of electricity artificially cheaper (by using government subsidies), then those who compete freely, like Siderewicz, can no longer compete. The markets are not truly free. And people like Siderewicz decide to not build these important projects…
    Read More “Lordstown 2nd Gas-Fired Plant in Jeopardy from Trump Policy”

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    WV Driller Northeast Natural Energy Grows – Fracking Petri Dish

    Northeast Natural Energy (NNE) is a small-to-midsized driller headquartered in Morgantown, WV. It’s a young company, drilling its first shale well in 2013. In April 2017 MDN reported that NNE had obtained $300 million of investment from two investment firms (see WV Driller Northeast Natural Energy Gets $300M Investment). They’ve put the money to good use. NNE owns 56,000 acres of leases “in the heart of the Marcellus Fairway,” with 44,000 acres in WV and 12,000 acres in southwestern PA. The company has drilled and brought online 57 shale wells. By this time next year the company expects that number to be nearly 100. One of the most interesting things about NNE is its involvement with government and university researchers. NNE drilled several test shale wells near Morgantown. The wells are part of an ongoing laboratory experiment that measures and pokes and prods everything, in an effort to learn more about shale drilling and its impacts. NNE’s test wells are a sort of living fracking petri dish. Reams of data pour in and get analyzed. Our friends at Kallanish Energy have done a deep dive into NNE. Here is a portion of their insightful report on this young and growing driller…
    Read More “WV Driller Northeast Natural Energy Grows – Fracking Petri Dish”

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    Penn Virginia Puts Itself Up for Sale – Again

    Although headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia), Penn Virginia Corporation is an oil and gas driller with (at last check) only a small presence in the Marcellus Shale: 21,700 net acres with no drilled wells. They concentrate on oil drilling the Texas Eagle Ford Shale play. Penn Virginia is one of the Philly area’s oldest companies, started in 1882 by Philadelphia coal barons. It later transitioned into an oil company. MDN told you in March 2015 that Penn Virginia’s top stockholder, the vile corporate raider George Soros, forced the company to put itself up for sale so George can line his pockets with more cash (see George Soros Finally Bullies Penn Virginia into Selling Itself). That didn’t work out so well for old George. Penn Virginia filed for bankruptcy in May 2016 (see George Soros’ Penn Virginia Corp. Files for Bankruptcy). Penn Virginia exited bankruptcy in September 2016. In June 2017, the rumor mill turned white hot with word that the company had put itself up for sale (see “Sources” Say Penn Virginia Putting Itself Up for Sale). Nothing ever came of it. Until now. In a press release issued yesterday by Penn Virginia, the company said the board is evaluating “strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value.” What do those alternatives include? “…a corporate sale, merger or other business combination, one or more strategic acquisitions, or other transactions.” In other words, the company is officially listing itself for sale…
    Read More “Penn Virginia Puts Itself Up for Sale – Again”

  • Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 24, 2018

    The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Baltimore files doomed climate lawsuit day after NYC’s lawsuit is tossed; Columbia Gas spending $29M on gas line replacements in central OH; CNX donates property for bats; federal court rules in favor of WV refinery against EPA; California tells residents to turn the AC off and the lights out; EPA under Scott Pruitt cut $350M in regulations; Halliburton sees slowdown coming in second half of 2018; NYC teen protesters learned about climate change from cartoons; enviro do-goodism the new religious cult of Millennials; how fracking revolution broke OPEC’s hold on oil prices; and more!
    Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Jul 24, 2018”

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    PA’s Largest Gas-Fired Electric Plant near Scranton Partially Online

    Lackawanna Energy Center – click for larger version

    It’s been some time since we’ve checked in on Invenergy’s massive Lackawanna Energy Center, a 1,480 megawatt plant under construction in Jessup, PA (near Scranton). The project will cost “well over $1 billion” according to an exclusive MDN source working on the project. When the plant is done it will be Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas-fired electric generating plant. The plant is being built in three trains or units. The good news is that the first train/unit is done and has been online producing electricity since June–despite the efforts of a local group of antis who seized power of the local town board last November (see Jessup Town Board Continues Effort to Stop Gas-Fired Elec Plant). Cabot Oil & Gas is supplying all of the gas for the plant from neighboring Susquehanna County. The second unit is in the process of going online now, and the third will be online in September. According to Invenergy, the plant is on time and under budget. Here’s more on this exciting new customer for a huge quantity of northeastern PA Marcellus gas…
    Read More “PA’s Largest Gas-Fired Electric Plant near Scranton Partially Online”

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    PA DEP Quietly Releases Air Quality Study, No Impacts from Fracking

    In July 2012, the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced a one-year study that will look at impacts on air quality from Marcellus drilling and the infrastructure (pipelines and compressor plants) that comes with shale gas drilling (see PA DEP Announces 1 Year Study on Air Quality in Marcellus). The study focued on Washington County in western PA, primarily in and around Chartiers Township, home of a gas processing plant. Exactly six years later the results of that “one-year” study were released by the DEP–with no comment or fanfare. With no nothing. A reporter with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noticed the unannounced release on the DEP website. We have a copy of the study/results below. What did it find? In a word–nothing. According to the Post-Gazette, the study found “limited impacts to the air quality around the sites it examined and little risk of healthy residents getting sick from breathing the air nearby.” Which explains why there’s been no fanfare, no calling attention to it. You would think the DEP would want to blow the trumpet about the results of an activity that thousands of state residents are located near. But it’s an election year, and Tom Wolf doesn’t want to rile up his fruitcake environmental base. Here’s more on the report nobody is talking about…
    Read More “PA DEP Quietly Releases Air Quality Study, No Impacts from Fracking”

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    PA DEP Seeks Comments on Pipe Project to Flow Marc Gas to Ohio

    You don’t often read about pipeline projects that seek to flow more Pennsylvania Marcellus gas into the Ohio Utica region. In January, Dominion Energy filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to expand capacity along the existing Dominion Energy Transmission Inc. (DETI) pipeline from Pennsylvania to Ohio (see Dominion Files FERC Request to Expand Pipeline from PA to OH). Why? To flow more gas that will be used to generate electricity for the Midwest market. The project, called the Sweden Valley Project, is projected to cost $48 million and add another 120 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of PA Marcellus Shale gas to the existing flow along DETI. Dominion says all 120 MMcf/d is already contracted and spoken for–by an unnamed customer. The project expands existing capacity by building a tiny three miles of new pipeline, with the new pipeline lying next to existing pipeline (in Greene County, PA). The only greenfield/brand new construction is a 1.75-mile pipeline to connect with the Tennessee Gas Pipeline in Tuscarawas County, OH. The other main part of the project is updating three units a compressor station in Licking County, OH. In the constellation of pipeline projects that disturb earth and disrupt landowners, this one is pretty minor–yet it will deliver big results by flowing an extra 120 MMcf/d of gas west to a new market. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection published a notice in the July 21 PA Bulletin asking for comments on the project in PA–in Greene and Armstrong counties…
    Read More “PA DEP Seeks Comments on Pipe Project to Flow Marc Gas to Ohio”

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    FERC Rejects Riverkeeper re Millennium Eastern System Upgrade

    In August 2016, Millennium Pipeline, which stretches from Corning, NY to just outside New York City, filed an application for what it calls its Eastern System Upgrade (see Millennium Pipe Asks FERC to Approve Eastern System Upgrade in NY). The ESU would add 7.8 miles of extra looped pipeline in Orange County, upgrade a compressor station in Delaware County, build a new compressor in Sullivan County and make some minor tweaks to metering stations in Rockland County. In something of a miracle, the NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation granted permits for the project (see NY DEC Grants Permit for Millennium Pipe Eastern System Upgrade). Predictably, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, hater of all things fossil fuel, moved for a “stay” to block construction and filed a request for rehearing with FERC, and at the same time filed a lawsuit against the DEC’s water permit approval. In March FERC rejected Riverkeeper’s request for a stay, but not the rehearing (see FERC Rejects Riverkeeper Request to Stop Millennium Eastern Upgrade). The other shoe dropped last week when FERC rejected the request by Riverkeeper (and an anti from Orange County) for a rehearing. But not without some drama. In what has become a repeating pattern, the two Democrat members of FERC wanted a rehearing to consider mythical man-made global warming impacts from the project. It’s total horse manure, but there you go. This is how it’s going to be from here on out. The Democrats have politicized everything, even non-controversial pipeline projects like this one…
    Read More “FERC Rejects Riverkeeper re Millennium Eastern System Upgrade”

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    Can the Marcellus/Utica Build Too Many Cracker Plants?

    The Marcellus/Utica region produces a prodigious volume of ethane, a “natural gas liquid” (NGL) that comes out of the ground along with methane. That’s a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good because that ethane can be cracked (chemically) to produce ethylene–or raw plastics. It’s bad because we don’t have any crackers, currently, in our region–and just a small volume of our ethane travels via pipeline to the Gulf Coast or Canada for cracking. So right now ethane is a waste produce for most Marcellus/Utica drillers–something that costs money to dispose of. Shell is currently building a $6+ billion cracker in Monaca (Beaver County), PA, which will go online sometime after 2020. PTT Global Chemical is seriously considering, some say will finally commit, to building our region’s second cracker project in Belmont County, OH. At the Appalachian Storage Hub Conference held in Southpointe in June, an expert said we will see three more cracker plant projects announced within the next 12 months (see Industry Expert Says 3 More Crackers Coming to M-U). Exciting stuff! But, can there be too many crackers in the northeast? That’s the question asked in a recent E&E News report. Experts quoted in the article say that the Gulf Coast has too much of a head start on the northeast. Yet, a big part of the plastics market (the East Coast) is on our doorstep. States in our region take a heavier hand in regulating these plants than states along the Gulf Coast. Given these projects cost $5-$10 billion each to build, and the possibility that building one that doesn’t pan out would sink a company, it’s no wonder these decisions take years to make, and then more years to actually build the plant. Just how many crackers are too many? How much is too much of a good thing?…
    Read More “Can the Marcellus/Utica Build Too Many Cracker Plants?”

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    Williams to Appeal FERC’s Constitution Pipe Decision to Fed Court

    Last Friday MDN brought you the sad news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rejected Williams’ request to rehear an earlier decision to not overrule the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) decision to block the Constitution Pipeline (see FERC Declines to Overrule NY DEC re Constitution Pipe 2nd Time). We personally don’t see many (really any) pathways where the Constitution now gets built. But to their credit, Williams is not giving up. After FERC’s decision last week, the company announced it will appeal that decision to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the judges to overrule the DEC (bypassing FERC). Williams has filed in various courts, including the Supreme Court, to hear the Constitution case. Why not try the D.C. Circuit Court? There’s really nothing to lose. The project is currently as dead as a doornail anyway. So, hats off to Williams for giving it one last try…
    Read More “Williams to Appeal FERC’s Constitution Pipe Decision to Fed Court”

  • Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jul 23, 2018

    The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Naive, miseducated students rally in Pittsburgh re “climate change”; as pipelines come online, more efficient movement of our gas boosts industry; Appalachian storage hub, prosperity’s next step; Molinaro’s call for fracking is hopeful for Upstate NY; a recycled story about Utica fracking causing STDs; Cabot’s Q2 is going to “knock your socks off”; NY ratepayers to fund offshore wind farm, not get access to the electricity; Rice Midstream OKs merger with EQT Midstream; FERC policy throws a lifeline to MLPs; what is digitization and why is it good for o&g; and more!
    Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Jul 23, 2018”

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    FREE Audio: MDN Top 5 Stories for Week of July 16, 2018

    Below is an audio recording (“podcast”) featuring the Top 5 stories most read over the past week on MDN. Just click on the green button to listen. Below the recording is a list of the Top 5 with links to click to read the full stories (available only for subscribers). This list is meant as a way for folks to quickly catch up on the most essential news of the week–“essential” as determined by MDN’s audience of readers. Enjoy!


    Read More “FREE Audio: MDN Top 5 Stories for Week of July 16, 2018”

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    FERC Declines to Overrule NY DEC re Constitution Pipe 2nd Time

    One more thread has broken that holds together hope that Williams’ Constitution Pipeline will ever get built. Perhaps the final thread. Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a ruling denying a rehearing request on the project–the second time they have done so. The Andrew Cuomo-corrupted NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) refused to grant the pipeline project necessary federal stream crossing permits, blocking construction, in April 2016 (see NY Gov. Cuomo Refuses to Grant Permits for Constitution Pipeline). Williams asked the Federal Regulatory Commission (FERC) to overrule DEC and allow construction to begin. In January of this year, FERC denied that request (see Death of the Constitution Pipeline? FERC Refuses to Overrule NY DEC). In February of this year, Williams asked FERC to reconsider their denial. FERC’s response yesterday: No. Meanwhile, Williams had filed a lawsuit in federal court that eventually was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. In April, the Supremes refused to hear the case, shutting down that avenue (see Supreme Court Rejects Constitution Pipe Request to Overrule NY). As we’ve previously written, we now see only two remaining threads of hope–and they are very thin threads at that: (1) NY elects Cuomo’s Republican rival as governor and he reverses course and permits the project (about a snowball’s chance in Hades that Republican Marc Molinaro will win), and (2) President Trump signs an executive order overruling NY. That second thread is about the best chance Constitution now has. And even if Trump were to issue an executive order, we expect NY would go to court to try and stop it, dragging it out for years. As sad as we are to say this, for all intents and purposes, Constitution is dead…
    Read More “FERC Declines to Overrule NY DEC re Constitution Pipe 2nd Time”

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    ME2 Pipe Antis Politely & Completely Skewered at PA House Hearing

    On Tuesday, Pennsylvania State Rep. Chris Quinn (R-Delaware) hosted a House Republican Policy Committee meeting at the Penn State Brandywine Campus (Delaware County) to discuss pipeline safety, construction and siting issues in Chester and Delaware counties. The real aim of the session was to focus on Sunoco Logistics Partners’ Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project–a state-regulated project not under the purview of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Eve Miari of the Clean Air Council and Virginia Marcille-Kerslake from West Whiteland Residents for Pipeline Safety were there to provide an overview of concerns by “the community” with siting and building ME2. MDN friend Garland Thompson, a contributing editor for US Black Engineer & Information Technology magazine, attended the session and wrote a report (below). As usual, Garland does a terrific job in capturing the key points of what was discussed. Spoiler alert: While Garland found Miari and Marcille-Kerslake’s testimony heart-felt, their allegations that nobody was/is in charge of siting a project like ME2, and that Sunoco is not being “transparent” in their building of ME2, were skewered, point by point by point. Here is clear, honest, accurate reporting you won’t get anywhere else…
    Read More “ME2 Pipe Antis Politely & Completely Skewered at PA House Hearing”

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    Progress on US Methanol Plant in Institute, WV – Praxair Providing O2

    US Methanol broke ground last September in Institute (Kanawha County), WV to build its very first methanol production plant (see US Methanol Breaks Ground on First Plant in West Virginia). Methanol plants convert natural gas into methanol, used as a chemical feedstock (raw material) to create other things, like gasoline, antifreeze, plastic bottles–even LED and LCD screens. Methanol plants use a LOT of natural gas, hence our interest. A number of dignitaries attended the groundbreaking in Institute, including colorful WV Governor Jim Justice. Factoid: the plant in Institute is being constructed/assembled from a deconstructed methanol plant from Brazil. The new plant, called Liberty One, was supposed to open in mid-2018. That’s now changed. It’s been a while since we’ve reviewed Liberty One and its progress. It popped up on our radar when we spotted a press release from Praxair, an industrial gas company, announcing they have been selected as a partner to provide Liberty One with oxygen–lots of oxygen–to be used in the plant as part of the chemical process of converting methane into methanol. When we checked the Liberty One project site, we noticed the timeline to complete the plant has changed–from the previously announced mid-2018 to fourth quarter of 2019…
    Read More “Progress on US Methanol Plant in Institute, WV – Praxair Providing O2”