PA DEP Notifies Shell of “Technical Deficiencies” with Ethane Pipe
Shell delivered some good news at last week’s Northeast U.S. Petrochemical conference in Pittsburgh: The Falcon ethane pipeline will get built next year (see Shell Says Falcon Ethane Pipeline to Get Built in 2019). The pipeline won’t actually flow ethane to the Shell cracker in Monaca until 2020 at the earliest, because the cracker plant itself won’t go online until 2020 at the earliest. The 97-mile consists of “two legs,” with about half of the pipeline located in PA, the other half in OH. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) conducted three public hearings on the project earlier this year, in preparation for issuing permits. Antis came out in force and behaved badly, as they typically do (see More of the Same at Final DEP Hearing for Shell Ethane Pipeline). No matter. The pipeline will get built. But not without jumping some hurdles first. On June 1, the DEP issued three letters identifying what it calls “serious technical deficiencies” in Shell’s pipeline plan, for townships in three different counties along the pipeline’s PA route. Shell maintains this type of notification is “common” in the permitting process, and is committed to working with the DEP to address any issues of concern…
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A recent article in the left-leaning Roll Call (official publication for Washington, D.C. swamp dwellers) attempts to paint the Trump Administration as out of step with the people he wants to help in West Virginia. The article says Trump’s strategy to prop up failing coal and nuclear plants is an attempt to boost coal mining jobs in WV, but is running counter to the state’s strategy of embracing the natural gas industry. Perhaps they have a point. However, what’s most interesting about the article is not the ginned up conflict between Trump and WV, but how the article spotlights WV’s two U.S. Senators–Republican Shelley Moore Capito and Democrat Joe Manchin–and their continuing role in trying to make a $10 billion NGL (mostly ethane) storage hub facility become a reality. The storage hub will be a jobs magnet with some estimates that it will create more than 100,000 new jobs in the state. The storage hub will also draw manufacturers looking to locate near ethane crackers, as a source for plastics used in their manufacturing process. Capito, in her comments, attempts to gloss over the rivalry between coal and natural gas, saying “all those rivalries have gone by the wayside.” Er, a, we beg to differ. But leaving aside the coal v. natgas focus of the article, we found two very interesting items. (1) The Dept. of Energy loan guarantee that would cover $1.9 billion of the estimated $10 billion cost to build it is a much bigger deal that we had realized. Why? Because any project that wins such a guarantee has gone through a rigorous review process. Winning such a guarantee is like conferring a triple A rating on the project for others who will consider investing in the project. It gives them confidence that the project has been thoroughly vetted and is low risk. (2) Manchin, in speaking with DOE Sec. Rick Perry, is using an interesting and novel argument to convince Perry the storage hub is a good thing to do. Manchin said when hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast, it knocks out petrochemical industry there, with a cascading effect across the U.S. Cracker plants (fed by the storage hub) in the northeast, are not susceptible to hurricanes. So Manchin’s pitch to Perry is this: Keep the Gulf Coast crackers cooking for products to export to other countries, but let’s build the storage hub (and crackers) in the northeast, so our country’s petchem industry isn’t adversely affected by a major hurricane…
Many (most?) electric generating companies in the U.S. are regulated–highly regulated. They’re guaranteed a certain, predictable level of (low) profits. But in return for guaranteed profitability, every single thing they do is monitored and authorized in triplicate, with one or another government agency reviewing anything and everything that happens. It’s the deal they’ve struck with the regulatory devil. Vectren is one such regulated utility in the great state of Indiana. Vectren operates the F. B. Culley Generating Station, a 369 megawatt (MW) coal power plant located in Warrick County, Indiana. They plan to close the coal-fired plant in 2023. In its place, they want to build a 900 MW natgas-fired plant and a 50-acre solar farm. Building the gas plant and solar farm would cost Vectren (meaning ratepayers) $940 million. The cost is passed on to ratepayers because Vectren is regulated. That’s the way it works. The bargain struck with the devil. The gas-fired plant will be cleaner than coal, more efficient, cheaper to operate, and better for the environment. We suspect Utica/Marcellus gas would help feed the plant. And yet, anti-fossil fuel wackos oppose the plan to switch to cleaner-burning natgas. Would they prefer no electricity?…
Perhaps the proposed legislation by PA Rep. Dan Moul (Republican from Gettysburg) to gut not only the DRBC (Delaware River Basin Commission) of its power to regulate groundwater, but also to gut the SRBC (Susquehanna River Basin Commission), is not so far off the mark after all (see 
In March, MDN brought you the news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had taken “significant action” to address the Trump tax cut legislation enacted last December (see 
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: PA PUC hosts natgas distribution emergency exercise; NY a cautionary tale for other states re shale gas; Chevron, Exxon worry warts over trade war; NERC says grid resiliency keeps on improving, without coal/nuke bailout; US reduces emissions while emissions from all other Paris accord counties goes up; will a hot summer boost natgas prices?; start treating natgas like the national treasure it is; China to be top natgas importer by 2019; regs & taxes causing drillers to leave Canada and drill for oil across the border in the US; and more!
Looks like “Baker Hughes, a GE Company” will soon become just plain old “Baker Hughes” once again. This morning GE released the results of a year-long internal review. GE has its fingers in a lot of pies and wants to pull its fingers out of some of those pies. The results of the review recommend GE dump Baker Hughes (over the next 2-3 years), and also dump its healthcare division. The company will concentrate on three “complimentary” areas: aviation, power and renewable energy. The hope is that by focusing and shedding peripheral business units, the company’s financial performance, and stock price, will improve. Just last week GE was booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average after being a component of that average for over 100 years. The company’s stock was replaced on the DJIA by Walgreens. Truly humiliating. You may recall Halliburton originally wanted to buy Baker Hughes but the Obama Justice Department blocked the deal (see 
As we have reported since late last year, Cabot Oil & Gas, long-known for the incredible amount of Marcellus natural gas they produce from Susquehanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania, is eyeing north central Ohio as a potential spot for “what’s next” after the Marcellus (see 
Seems like a week doesn’t go by that MDN isn’t asked (by someone from Pennsylvania), “Is there any hope of building the Constitution Pipeline through New York?” Our standard response is this: The only way it gets built is (a) NY elects a new governor favorable to the industry–about a 1% chance of that happening, (b) President Trump issues an Executive Order overriding Cuomo’s blockade of Constitution (and other pipeline projects)–maybe a 10% chance of that happening, or (c) the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reconsiders a decision to not overrule NY’s move to block the project–maybe a 15% chance. The U.S. Supreme Court in April refused to consider the Constitution Pipeline case, closing that door (see 
Dominion Energy, a huge company that not only is a “local” utility providing gas and electric through much of the Marcellus/Utica region, but also a midstream (pipeline) company and the builder/operator of the Cove Point LNG export facility, is launching what looks to be a slightly different twist on using OPM–other people’s money–to finance operations. Disclaimer: We’re not high finance experts. It seems to us that Dominion’s new debt financing program, called “Dominion Energy Reliability Investment,” is not the typical way of selling a bunch of notes (IOUs) as others have done. With Dominion’s program, just launched, investors can invest from $1,000 up to $1.25 million at any time, buying and selling their notes whenever. There are no maintenance fees for investing in the notes program, nor any charges for redemption checks. However, these notes/investments are not insured by the FDIC. Buying these notes is not like investing in a money market fund where your investment is insured. However, we seriously doubt there’s any risk of Dominion defaulting. Here’s what Dominion says about their new debt financing program…
Last Thursday EQT held its annual shareholder’s meeting. By all accounts it was a sleepy affair with few people attending–inside at least. Even the current interim CEO, David Porges, didn’t bother to show up, sending along CFO Rob McNally to be the official face of the company. McNally spoke about the past few years as hectic, going from “one transaction to the next.” McNally said “there’s a light at the end of the tunnel” for things to now settle down–once the company splits in two later this year (into upstream and midstream). However, a handful of Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) protesters showed up to mouth off–marching outside EQT HQ where the annual meeting was held. McNally said, in so many words, protests of MVP are no big deal. The company thought there would be protesters, and they even planned for illegal protests in the construction timeline (people chaining themselves to bulldozers, etc.). Just one more day in the life of a fossil fuel company that deals with nutters all the time…
The insidious and well-funded Sierra Club has scored another temporary legal victory in stopping Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) construction throughout West Virginia. One month ago we reported that the Clubbers had claimed a temporary victory in stopping construction work of MVP at four river crossings in WV. At that time (in May), the Clubbers and a mishmash of other radicalized groups filed a motion asking the Fourth District U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to suspend a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that allows MVP to construct the pipeline across streams and rivers in the Mountain State (see