Liberty Utilities Floats Plan for 27-Mile Pipeline in Southern NH
All New England states are in desperate need of more natural gas–for both consumers (residences and businesses that use it to heat and cool) and for power generating plants. Yet each New England state in one fashion or another has actively opposed any new interstate pipelines to bring in more gas. Two major pipeline projects were proposed to help alleviate the situation. Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct (NED) was canceled in April 2016 (see NED is Dead – Kinder Morgan Suspends $3.3B New England Pipeline). Spectra Energy’s Access Northeast project has been dormant, although as we reported earlier this week, it may once again have a pulse (see NH Supreme Court Decision Puts New England Pipe Back in Play). A New Hampshire utility company, Liberty Utilities, floated a new plan this week for a teeny tiny new pipeline, called Granite Bridge, that will run underground along Route 101 from Stratham to Manchester. In addition, Liberty proposes building a natgas storage facility in an empty quarry in Epping. We’re not exactly sure where the extra gas will come from that will get stored and then pumped along this new pipeline (Liberty says it’s coming from the “Seacoast”). Our reason for highlighting this story is this: Can ANY state in New England build ANY kind of natural gas pipeline? Even a pipeline project as small and modest as this one? That’s the gajillion dollar question…
Read More “Liberty Utilities Floats Plan for 27-Mile Pipeline in Southern NH”
Private equity firm EnerVest owns a lot of acreage and wells (most of them conventional) in the Marcellus/Utica region. In addition to investing in land and wells, EnerVest also has its own drilling subsidiary, EV Energy Partners (EVEP), with operations and assets in OH, PA and WV. EVEP is an MLP–a master limited partnership. While EVEP is joined at the hip with EnerVest, they are (on paper) two different companies. EnerVest has vast holdings and is in the top 25 oil & gas companies in the nation. Last July the Wall Street Journal ran a story that said EnerVest was worth nothing on paper. EnerVest pushed back on that story saying it wasn’t true–at least not completely true. EnerVest chief administrative officer, Ron Whitmire, said the company’s vast holdings are structured as more than a dozen companies. Although some of EnerVest’s companies are in trouble, the entire pie, according to Whitmire, is not in danger of bankruptcy. Conversely, Whitmire’s comment also meant that at least one or more of the EnerVest companies were/are in danger of bankruptcy. EVEP was one of them, filing in early April (see 
NOTE: Beginning today, we are trying an experiment. There are a number of stories we notice during our daily trawl of the news that catch our interest for one reason or another. We list them in our “best of the rest” each day. Beginning today we are including a note at the end of each brief we share, [inside brackets like this], to let you know what about the story caught our interest, or why the story is worthy of your attention, or what is important to know about the story. Sometimes the note will add extra details not found in the story as reported. Our note at the end of each entry is our brief explanation for “why you should care” about that particular story.
Although Shell has hired a few permanent workers for its mighty $6 billion ethane cracker complex currently under construction in Monaca (Beaver County), PA, the company has just (for the first time) posted a job notification for bulk hiring of permanent positions. The job notice, posted on the BrassRing HR website, provides a detailed job description for “Shell Production Operators” in Monaca–40 of them. The job includes, “monitoring, controlling, starting and stopping equipment (such as furnaces, pumps, compressors, etc.), conducting activities that pertain to unit operation, and taking corrective action when necessary to ensure that all unit conditions and operations are in compliance with safety, environmental, and operating policies and procedures.” In order to qualify, prospects must jump through a several hoops (mechanical aptitude tests). If selected, candidates will go through extensive training from now until the plant opens some 2-3 years from now. Here’s the deets, including the full job description…
It’s about time! One of the favorite tactics of antis to fall back on when they don’t win in court is to simply take the law into their own hands (i.e. anarchy). If the courts or a regulatory body (like FERC, or the PA DEP) refuse to stop a critical energy infrastructure project, like a pipeline, antis take it upon themselves to trespass, illegally, in an attempt to block work on the project. They call it “free speech.” It’s nothing of the sort. To trespass is, by definition, breaking the law. Antis know this. However, such a violation of the law is currently only a misdemeanor–a lessor penalty. The PA Senate has just approved a bill that would make infrastructure trespass for pipelines and other key energy infrastructure a felony, giving antis more incentive to behave themselves. Most Republican Senators (except a few Philly RINOs) voted for the bill. Most Democrat Senators (who prefer to be lawless), voted against it. We can only hope the bill gets adopted–it now goes to the House–although with Wolf as governor, we’re not confident it will get signed into law…
A recent New Hampshire Supreme Court decision may breathe new life into a natural gas pipeline project believed to be dead–or at least on life support. Spectra Energy (now owned by Enbridge) first announced an unnamed pipeline project to shuttle gas from the Marcellus/Utica to New England in July 2014 (see 
A mishmash of national Big Green and local Little Green (funded by Big Green) groups from Pennsylvania have banded together in order to apply pressure on (i.e. bully) a weak-willed governor, PA Gov. Tom Wolf. A coalition of anti-fossil fuel groups, calling themselves Pennsylvania Fracking Health Impacts, has begun protesting Wolf outside of fundraisers and other venues. Their demand? That Wolf enact an immediate moratorium (i.e. ban) on all fracking in the state. One of the useful idiots providing support to the new coalition is actor and fractivist Mark Ruffalo (who plays The Incredible Hulk in Marvel’s Avengers movies). Ruffalo trash-talked Wolf and said that Wolf, “has done nothing to help the many families who have been harmed by fracking. Now I am joining with the Pennsylvanians who are launching this public health impacts campaign to help shine a light on this unjust tragedy and ask when will Governor Wolf act?” Just because Ruffalo is a good actor doesn’t mean he’s smart. Far from it! He’s about as stupid as they come. Talented actor–you can’t take that away from him. But when it comes to actually having a brain? Sadly, he was passed over. The aim of the new group in PA is to see if they might be able to shame and pressure Wolf into shutting down the Marcellus industry. We seriously doubt that will happen, but hey, one never knows when it comes to Lib Dems…
Last week MDN told you that the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had invalidated (vacated) a permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that allows Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) to accidentally kill a few bats and bumble bees (classified as endangered) as it builds the massive $6.5 billion, 600-mile project from West Virginia to North Carolina (see 
On average, New York residents pay 44% more for electricity than neighboring states, like Pennsylvania. In January of this year, New Yorkers (and NY utility companies) were briefly forced to pay a record high of $140.25 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) for natural gas, as opposed to what everyone else was paying (an average of $3.08/Mcf)–which is 46 times as much! Both stats are rooted in the same issue: NY pays WAY MORE for energy than it has to, because Andrew Cuomo is blocking natural gas pipelines into the state from PA. So says a new report titled “Pipelines and their Benefits to New York” (full copy below). The report, published by the Consumer Energy Alliance, examines the benefits of pipelines to New York, highlighting the need for affordable energy supplies to keep the daily lives of families and businesses across New York moving. Without those pipelines, we’re toast. You can’t build windmills and solar farms fast enough to meet the growing demand for electricity–and natgas. Cuomo’s dysfunctional energy policies are blocking all New Yorkers, upstate and downstate, from living even moderately prosperous lives…
Last week Rex Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (see 
UGI, a large utility (and pipeline) company located in Pennsylvania, has announced they will expand a northeastern PA pipeline gathering system. UGI built what they call the Auburn Gathering System between 2011 and 2015–46 miles of pipe, two compressors stations and various other pipeline related facilities located in Susquehanna, Wyoming, and Luzerne counties (near Scranton). UGI spent $215 million to build the system, a system that currently flows 470 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas. Much (most?) of that the gas comes from Cabot Oil and Gas in Susquehanna County. The new news is that UGI will build two new compressor stations, adding to the existing two, which will increase flows through the system by another 150 MMcf/d–all of the increase coming from Cabot. Here’s the good news that more Cabot gas will soon flow through the Auburn System, connecting with two of the biggest pipeline systems in the country–the Tennessee Gas Pipeline (Kinder Morgan) and the Transco Pipeline (Williams)…
New Jersey’s Attorney General, Gurbir Grewal (Democrat), and New Jersey Senator Corey Booker (also a Democrat) continue a coordinated attack on the PennEast Pipeline in an effort to appease their radical/left base of supporters. PennEast is a $1 billion, 120-mile, 36-inch pipeline from Dallas (Luzerne County), PA to Pennington (Mercer County), NJ. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted final approval for the project in January (see 
Lately we’ve wondered what’s been going on in the years-long struggle by Crestwood to create an LPG (liquefied petroleum gas, or propane) storage facility in a depleted salt cavern along the shoreline of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. Last December we brought you the news that Crestwood had won a victory when a chief administrative law judge, part of the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC), ruled against antis who are demanding ongoing, never-ending hearings about the project–a transparent tactic to continue the years-long delay in perpetuity (see