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FERC Stuck in Slow Mo – Late Approving PA to OH Risberg Project
Seems to us like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) continues to drag its feet on Marcellus/Utica pipeline projects. Yes, our projects get approved, eventually–but not on the schedule FERC itself establishes. Case in point: RH energytrans’ Risberg Line–a 60-mile, $86 million pipeline from Crawford County, PA through Erie County and into Ashtabula County, OH. According to FERC’s own schedule, an OK for the project was due no later than Sept. 27 (see 60-Mile Pipeline from NW PA to NE OH Gets Favorable FERC Review). Didn’t happen. RH energytrans is being diplomatic, saying, “It may take a little longer than we might hope.”
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On numerous occasions we’ve pointed out the lunacy of the “keep it in the ground” gang–those who believe we should end the use of all fossil fuels as soon as possible. Why can’t we do it? For many reasons. Here’s just one: petrochemicals. Did you know that all sorts of products you use every day–things like plastics, fertilizers, packaging, clothing, digital devices, medical equipment, detergents and tires–come from oil and gas? Without oil and gas, we’d quickly descend back into the Stone Age, living short, brutish lives. That point was driven home in a new report titled “The Future of Petrochemicals” (full copy below), part of an International Energy Agency (IEA) series that shines a light on “blind spots” in the global energy system.
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Utica Summit hears update on $6 billion Shell project; Canada pipeline blast risks Washington natural gas shortage; Hello, Michael: Beware the resiliency of the U.S. oil and gas system; Prices soar as natural gas inventories hit decade low; Exxon puts $1 million into quest for carbon tax and rebate; Tokyo Gas looking away from US LNG; AMLO’s fracking stance seen as bad news for meeting natural gas needs; Shell CEO makes case for natural gas, promises company not going ‘soft’ on fossil fuels.
On Tuesday, Enbridge, owner of the Texas Eastern Transmission Company (Tetco) Pipeline, announced it has put part of its Texas Eastern Appalachian Lease (TEAL) natural gas pipeline project in Ohio into service. TEAL boosts capacity along Tetco by 950 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the recently-completed-but-not-yet-online NEXUS pipeline (see 
Each large (over 475 megawatts) gas-fired electric power plant is an economic bonanza. The plants cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build–over a billion dollars for the largest plants. They provide hundreds of jobs during construction, jobs that last several years. They provide millions in tax revenue to local municipalities and schools. And best of all, each one of these plants uses an enormous amount of Marcellus and Utica Shale gas. There are 29 of these incredible projects already built or in various stages of planning and construction in PA, OH and WV. We have the list below.
Nuverra Environmental Solutions (formerly Heckmann) is one of the largest companies in the United States that handles transportation and disposal of shale drilling wastewater and leftover rock and dirt from drilling. The company has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. Those operations are expanding. Nuverra announced last Friday it has purchased, lock, stock and barrel, ClearWater Solutions, an Ohio injection well operator. Purchase price was $41.9 million. Looks like Nuverra has fully recovered from bankruptcy just one year ago.
On Sunday, what will be the tallest and heaviest piece of equipment that’s part of the mighty $6 billion Shell ethane cracker in Monaca (Beaver County), PA was hoisted into place. It’s called a “quench tower” and it looks like a humongous silo. It’s 300-feet high, which translates into about 30 stories. One of the world’s largest cranes had to be reserved a year ago in order to do the lifting. It took all day, but by 3:30 pm, the quench tower was standing upright–yet another monument to the power of the Marcellus Shale.
Antero Resources, one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, is the latest in a string of companies to shed its master limited partnership (MLP) structure. Antero uses an MLP for two different pipeline subsidiaries. The company announced yesterday that one of the subsidiaries will buy out the other, and then convert the merged entity into a corporation. The move simplifies Antero’s midstream operations. Here’s the details.
Our country sacrifices a lot on the altar of so-called safety. Crises are often used as an excuse for “the government” to use a heavy hand in controlling people and actions they (“the government”) deem a threat. Usually it’s a threat to their power. But the justification offered by the government is to protect the well-being of the citizenry. And the citizenry, convinced they are in mortal peril, is only too happy to yield their hard-won rights as free citizens–in the name of “safety.” It’s happening again–this time in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts, where unelected regulators have ordered a private business, National Grid, to cease all work on its natural gas pipeline system following a minor incident of too much pressure.
More bad news for EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for MVP in West Virginia (see 
In the absence of a guaranteed minimum royalty in Pennsylvania–an issue which continues to divide landowners and drillers–individual landowners are left to litigate in order to get what they are fairly due. Such litigation is time consuming and expensive, and without a certain outcome, which is why most landowners don’t do it. In Washington County, PA a couple who signed a lease with Range Resources have just filed a lawsuit against Range in county court alleging Range violated the terms of the lease by deducting post-production expenses.
Reliable One Resources, a wastewater treatment company headquartered in Texas, has just purchased an existing/functioning wastewater injection well in Athens, OH. Reliable does not say in their announcement who sold them the well. They do say they intend to drill a second well next to the first one (which is the big news for us), and that they (Reliable) is in the process of buying “multiple trucking companies” that will hauling wastewater from Marcellus/Utica drillers to their facility.
Williams is expanding its mighty, 10,500-mile Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co (Transco), again. Sometime this month Williams will prefile a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the Leidy South expansion project. The new project will bump up “compression” (either build new compressors or refit existing compressors) and build new “looping” pipeline in Pennsylvania, in order to increase capacity of Transco in the northeast Marcellus region by another 580 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d).
Some of the most important, and slowest, permits issued to drill a new shale well in Pennsylvania are “Erosion and Sediment Control” permits. Well pads and the roads built to access them involve such permits. When sediment/erosion permits are delayed, the whole project is delayed. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection published an updated general permit covering Oil and Gas Development Erosion and Sedimentation Control (ESCGP-3) in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on Saturday, Oct. 6. The new permit is supposed to streamline and make the approval process faster. We’ll see about that.