• | | | | | |

    Atlantic Coast Pipe Radicals Threaten Duke Energy CEO at Her Home

    Protesting something like a pipeline is one thing. March around, show your signs, talk to the press, make a horse’s rear-end of yourself. Whatever. But showing up at someone’s home and blocking their driveway and erecting a 20-foot tall tower and refusing to move until arrested? That’s something else. That kind of “protest” is threatening, menacing behavior. Bullying. And it’s all too easy for people who have crossed that line to tip over into outright violence. A group of criminal protesters did just what we described–blocked the driveway and erected a wall in the driveway–of Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good at her home in Charlotte, NC on Wednesday. Duke is partners with Dominion Energy in the $6.5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project, a natural gas pipeline from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. The criminal protesters showed up at Good’s home to oppose the project. The signs they carried revealed their irrational hatred of fossil fuels, which is what motivated them to protest in the first place. Wackos. Here’s how it went down at Good’s home earlier this week…
    Read More “Atlantic Coast Pipe Radicals Threaten Duke Energy CEO at Her Home”

  • | | | | | | |

    EQT Continues to Fight PA DEP Fine re Wastewater Impoundment

    On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court (an appeals court) heard oral arguments over how to prove whether contaminants in the soil have moved into groundwater. The case dates back to 2014 when the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) slapped EQT with a $4.53 million fine for a leaky wastewater impoundment in Tioga County (see PA DEP Levies Biggest Fine Ever, $4.5M Against EQT). EQT did not say there wasn’t a problem with leaks at the site, but they did say the way the DEP calculated the fine was unreasonable and arbitrary. EQT appealed the fine and the case all the way to the PA Supreme Court, and in early April the Supremes ruled in favor of EQT, saying that the DEP’s levied fine was excessive and that the DEP misinterpreted language in the 1937 Clean Streams Law (see PA Supreme Court Axes DEP $4.5M Fine in EQT Tioga Wastewater Leak). We thought (mistakenly) that was the end of the case. But it’s not. The Supremes ruled on “water to water” contamination in the case, but not on ground to water contamination. PA law allows for companies to be on the hook for each day a contaminant enters the water table. What lawyers argued this week was whether or not, and how, the DEP can prove contaminants in the ground, there because of EQT’s leak, can be proven to have leached into the water on any given day. DEP is calculating a revised $1.1 million fine based on assumptions about how many days the contaminants leaked out of the ground. EQT is forcing DEP to use more than just spitball estimates in calculating the fine…
    Read More “EQT Continues to Fight PA DEP Fine re Wastewater Impoundment”

  • | | |

    PA Dem Senator from Philly Intros Bill to Steal Marcellus Money

    PA State Sen. Vincent Hughes

    Pennsylvania State Sen. Vincent Hughes from Philadelphia is in the back pocket of Big Education. And why not? Hughes has received $635,000+ from Big Education unions over the years. Therefore, Hughes does their bidding, since they pay him to. We previously told you about Hughes attacking the Marcellus industry with slanders, slurs and outright lies in an attempt to paint the industry as greedy because they have resisted a severance tax on top of an existing impact tax (see PA Senator from Philly Slanders Marcellus, Accepts $635K in Union $). Hughes is at it again. He’s just introduced a bill, Senate Bill (SB) 777, that allows the close-to-bankrupt Philadelphia school system to borrow a MASSIVE $5 billion, with a promise to raid Marcellus drillers via an obscene severance tax (on top of the existing impact tax) to pay back the $5 billion. This is what passes for smart around Philly. We suspect Hughes himself is a product of Philly’s failed education system…
    Read More “PA Dem Senator from Philly Intros Bill to Steal Marcellus Money”

  • | | | | |

    Antis Ask Court to Overrule State, Feds and Stop Mountain Valley Pipe

    Apparently the more bizarre your actions, the more likely you are to become a minor celebrity. That’s what’s happening for Grandma Red, Theresa “Red” Terry, who took the bizarre action of climbing a tree on her property and living in the top of it for a month–all in an attempt to stop the tree from being cut to make way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). In the end Grandma Red came down when a judge told her she would begin paying $1,000/day for her bizarre behavior. Now that she’s back on terra firma, Grandma Red is meeting with state officials and attending radical Big Green rallies, showered with praise for her “courageous” action. What’s next? The Tonight Show and The Late Show? Meanwhile, in a well-timed and coordinated attack, Big Green lawyers are asking the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the decisions of state and federal agencies to allow MVP, simply because Big Green doesn’t like the decisions. Big Green argued the court should overturn a decision by the Virginia State Water Control Board to allow MVP to build, crossing streams, and to overturn a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to allow MVP to build pipeline through a tiny sliver of Jefferson National Forest. Twenty years ago these lawsuits would have been laughed out of court because the country followed the rule of law. Today, with courts packed with Obamadroids, you just don’t know…
    Read More “Antis Ask Court to Overrule State, Feds and Stop Mountain Valley Pipe”

  • | | | | | |

    Insider Reveals What’s Really Going On in NY Constitution Pipe Case

    One of the lawyers who filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting the Supremes hear the Constitution Pipeline case has written a column that rips the mask off New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and exposes him for the corrupt autocrat he is. The column is long and uses a number of legal references and arguments, but we can sum it up this way: (1) Cuomo has been caught admitting he has imposed an illegal moratorium on new pipelines; (2) Cuomo’s action in blocking the Constitution and other pipelines usurps federal authority; and (3) Cuomo’s actions in blocking pipelines threatens national energy security. It’s not often we get the inside thinking of one of the key players in a high-profile lawsuit. Read the following and learn…
    Read More “Insider Reveals What’s Really Going On in NY Constitution Pipe Case”

  • |

    NTE Energy Plans 1000 MW Gas-Fired Electric Plant in SC

    NTE Energy, headquartered in Saint Augustine, FL, buys and builds electric generating plants and transmission facilities throughout North America. We’ve reported on a number of NTE projects, including a report from April 2016 when NTE announced three new gas-fired electric plants that will be fed by Marcellus/Utica gas (see NTE Energy Developing 3 NatGas-Fired Electric Plants in CT/NC/OH). You can add one more Marcellus-fired plant to the list. NTE announced earlier this week it will build a mammoth 1,000 megawatt (1 gigawatt) gas-fired plant in Anderson County, South Carolina. The $1 billion project will generate enough electricity to power 1 million SC homes and businesses. The announcement about the project does not specifically mention M-U gas feeding it, but since the mighty Transco Pipeline passes through Anderson and has been reversed to bring M-U gas from north to south, there’s no doubt about the gas that will feed the new plant. You may recall last month we reported on Duke Energy starting operations at a new 750-megawatt gas-fired plant in Anderson County (see Duke Energy SC Gas-Fired Plant Starts Up – Marcellus Connection?). An obvious observation: Big gas pipelines are a magnet for new electric generating plant projects…
    Read More “NTE Energy Plans 1000 MW Gas-Fired Electric Plant in SC”

  • Other Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, May 11, 2018

    The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Energy investment brings hope in rural OH; midstream key to WV economic growth; WVU introduces legal certification for energy sector; Shell execs to speak at Pittsburgh petchem event; NJ gov questions proposed Meadowlands gas-fired power plant; Tellurian lines up partners for Driftwood LNG; Dominion Energy hands out $1 million in grants; Big Oil invests in natgas trucks; researchers blame “climate change” for just about everything, including allergy season; U.S. shale gas heading to Israel; and more!
    Read More “Other Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, May 11, 2018”

  • |

    Gulfport Energy 1Q18: “We Love SCOOP” but Spends 70% on Utica

    In April Gulfport Energy released an initial look at the company’s first quarter operations (see Gulfport 1Q18 Update: Utica Production Up 37%, SCOOP Up 198%). The April operational update did not include financial performance. Gulfport is an “independent” oil and gas driller with significant acreage positions in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio and the SCOOP Woodford and SCOOP Springer plays in Oklahoma. Yesterday Gulfport dropped the other shoe–the financial report for 1Q18. The company reported $90 million of net income for 1Q18 vs. $154 million in 1Q17–a 42% drop. Much of the update focused on Gulfport’s activity in the Oklahoma SCOOP, which seems to have turned Gulfport’s head. However, there is continued strong activity in the Ohio Utica. Gulfport reports drilling 13 wells in the Utica in 1Q18 with an average lateral length of 9,000 feet (11% longer than 2017’s laterals). They averaged just over 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of production in the Utica. And Gulfport CEO Michael Moore said on an analyst conference call, in response to a question, that the company is still spending 70% of its capital budget on Utica drilling in 2018…
    Read More “Gulfport Energy 1Q18: “We Love SCOOP” but Spends 70% on Utica”

  • | | | | | |

    Ohio EPA Continues to Hound 99% Done Rover Pipe re River Drilling

    Rover Pipeline–a $3.7 billion, 711-mile natural gas pipeline that runs from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and on to Canada via the Vector Pipeline–is about 99% done and as of last week, most of it is now up and running (see FERC Allows Rover Pipeline Startup in Michigan, Close to 100% Done). There are still a few spots being worked on, but very few. Even though the project is on the home stretch and will be 100% done by the end of June, Ohio EPA’s Craig Butler continues to hunt Rover like Captain Ahab hunted Moby-Dick. He can’t leave it alone. Obsessed. In February Captain Butler filed a letter with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) claiming that testing done by OEPA found the presence of very low levels of the toxic chemical tetrachloroethene (PCE) at Rover’s underground drilling site at the Tuscarawas River in southern Stark County (see Ohio EPA Continues to Target Rover Pipe in New FERC Letter). OEPA admits they can’t prove the very low levels of the compound actually came from Rover’s drilling activity–but hey, what’s proof got to do with it? Energy Transfer Partners, the company building Rover, responded by saying the PCE comes from sediment at the bottom of the long-polluted Tuscarawas River itself. On Tuesday OEPA filed another letter with FERC (full copy below) disagreeing with ET’s assessment, once again requesting FERC impose all sorts of requirements and conditions on the project–putting OEPA in charge of some of it (which is patently unconstitutional)…
    Read More “Ohio EPA Continues to Hound 99% Done Rover Pipe re River Drilling”

  • | | | |

    PA Agency Seeks to Force Drillers to Hire from State-Approved List

    How do you prove you aren’t biased, racist, chauvinist, etc.? That is, how can you prove a negative? You can’t. But that doesn’t stop the radical left from trying to make you do it. Here’s another question: Where do you think The Almighty State forces companies to hire people from a state-approved list? In Russia? China? Perhaps Cuba? Nope. How about Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of General Services (DGS) wants to force down the throats of shale companies working in the state a requirement that they hire people who DGS, a dunderheaded government agency, says they should hire–or else. Or else what? Or else those companies get “audited” and found in violation and fined out the wazoo. DGS continues to beg state lawmakers to allow it to audit natural gas companies’ efforts to hire businesses owned by women, minorities and veterans. This is nothing new. DGS, and the antis who are stoking this effort, have been agitating for a Communist crackdown on shale hiring since 2012…
    Read More “PA Agency Seeks to Force Drillers to Hire from State-Approved List”

  • | | | |

    Ohio Antis Suffer Big Election Defeats in Youngstown, Statewide

    On Tuesday the voters in Ohio once again roared their disapproval of anti-fracking candidates, and anti-fracking ballot measures. For the seventh time in a row, a radical anti-fossil fuel ballot measure was voted down in Youngstown, OH–by an overwhelming majority (56%). Even so, the hardened radicals behind the ballot measure promise to keep bringing it back until Hades freezes over. These radicals have already cost the taxpayers of Youngstown $188,000 to run the ballot measure. And yet they keep coming back. They fit Einstein’s definition of insanity. Statewide voters shot down the candidacy of anti-fossil fueler Dennis Kucinich, the man who pledged that if elected governor he would institute a total ban on fracking statewide (see Ohio Democrat Candidate for Governor Says He’ll Ban Utica Drilling). Ohioans saw right through that nonsense. Only 23% of Ohio’s Democrats voted for Kucinich in Tuesday’s primary–a total humiliation…
    Read More “Ohio Antis Suffer Big Election Defeats in Youngstown, Statewide”

  • | | | |

    Shale Support Exclusive Frac Sand Supplier for NEPA Facility

    Last September MDN told you that Shale Support Holdings, “a leading provider of frac sand and logistical solutions to the oil and gas proppant market” (headquartered in Texas, with an operations center in Mississippi), was stepping up its presence in the Marcellus/Utica region with a partnership with Tidewater Logistics (see Shale Support Holdings Expands M-U Frac Sand Business via Partnership). The partnership increases Shale Support’s operations in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Because Shale Support can ship sand direct from Mississippi, which is much closer than most other alternatives, the price for frac sand is cheaper for customers. Shale Support has just announced another important deal, to become the exclusive supplier for a major regional frac sand facility in Wysox (Bradford County), PA…
    Read More “Shale Support Exclusive Frac Sand Supplier for NEPA Facility”

  • | | | | | | | |

    Desperate Riverkeeper Files Multiple Lawsuits re PennEast Pipe

    Knowing that the PennEast Pipeline project is about to become reality, a very desperate THE Delaware Riverkeeper (aka Maya van Rossum) has launched a major legal attack against the project–using Big Green money. These are not the first legal filings by Riverkeeper against PennEast. The current strategy appears to be “bury them in legal horse manure.” PennEast Pipeline is a 120-mile pipeline from near Wilkes-Barre, PA to near Trenton, NJ. The planned route passes through Luzerne, Carbon, Northampton, and Bucks counties in PA, and through Mercer and Hunterdon counties in NJ. The pipeline is needed to move PA’s abundant Marcellus gas to markets in NJ. The first “legal maneuver” by Riverkeeper this week was to file a petition for a “Writ of Mandamus” in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to force the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to respond to Riverkeeper’s rehearing request on the PennEast project. At the same time, Riverkeeper filed a “Petition for Review” with the D.C. Circuit Court of appeals challenging all of FERC’s orders related to PennEast. It is a full, frontal legal attack by a small organization fronting for other groups like the William Penn Foundation. The question is, will Riverkeeper’s latest attack work?…
    Read More “Desperate Riverkeeper Files Multiple Lawsuits re PennEast Pipe”

  • | |

    Goldboro LNG in Nova Scotia Negotiating Deal to Sell LNG to Europe

    The Goldboro LNG export facility in Nova Scotia continues its march toward construction. As we reported in February, Pieridae Energy (the builder) has enlisted the help of Morgan Stanley and Société Générale to help raise $10 billion to build it (see Pieridae Energy Hires Morgan Stanley, SG to Help Fund Goldboro LNG). Last May, MDN told you that Pieridae Energy had signed a labor agreement to build the Goldboro LNG export facility along the shore of Nova Scotia, Canada (see Update on Goldboro LNG – Labor Agreement Signed to Build). The U.S. Dept. of Energy approved the plant for exporting to non-free trade agreement counties in February 2016, an indication that Marcellus/Utica gas may flow to the plant (see Goldboro LNG Project Gets Final DOE Approval – Good for Marcellus). If the gas to feed the new export facility does come from the Marcellus/Utica, it will come via the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline. However, Goldboro can also source gas from TransCanada’s pipeline system, from Western Canada. We remain hopeful that M-U gas will be the preferred feedstock. There is new news to report on this project. Pieridae announced earlier this week they are in the midst of negotiating a 10-year contract with a “European utility” to purchase up to 1 million tonnes per year of LNG…
    Read More “Goldboro LNG in Nova Scotia Negotiating Deal to Sell LNG to Europe”

  • Other Energy Stories of Interest: Thu, May 10, 2018

    The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: FERC’s Chatterjee expresses concerns over NY blocking pipelines; SWPA water authority using Marcellus tech to install water pipes; Shell cracker causing delays for other local construction projects; ODNR OKs two new Utica wells in Columbiana County last week; yet another NY town voting to ban solar farms; state regulators imperil energy infrastructure projects; can shale producers keep up with demand?; Trump’s Iran decision continues his efforts to reverse horrible Obama energy policies; how green is my planet?; and more!
    Read More “Other Energy Stories of Interest: Thu, May 10, 2018”

  • | | | | | |

    Orange County, NY Electric Plant to Start Up in June

    As the Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) Valley Energy Center natural gas-fired electric generating plant in Orange County, NY gets ready to begin service, some of the neighbors are not happy with noises coming from the plant. They hope local town officials can meet with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and convince him to lean on the Dept. of Environmental Conservation to revoke permits for the plant that CPV just spent almost a billion dollars to build. We told you a month ago the only sliver of a hope antis have to prevent the plant from starting up is to convince the DEC to block it (see Big Green Begs NY DEC to Revoke Orange Co. Power Plant Permits). It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, but also not likely that the DEC will step in now. At a Wawayanda Town Board meeting last Thursday residents and town leaders discussed the noise issue and what to do about it, which is the focus of the article below. However, one tiny reference in the article is what caught our attention. The plant is waiting for a pipeline “lateral” from the Millennium Pipeline to be completed to flow natgas to the plant, which is what will fire the plant. You may recall the DEC tried to block that pipeline and was overruled by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The DEC took FERC to court and the DEC lost (see Court Rejects NY DEC Attempt to Stop Short Power Plant Pipeline). The short 7.8-mile “Valley Lateral” pipeline is now almost complete. According to the article below (and the thing that caught our attention) is that CPV expects the pipeline to be done and flowing natural gas to the plant in June. When it does, the plant will start up…
    Read More “Orange County, NY Electric Plant to Start Up in June”