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    FERC Gridlock Coming Thx to Rob Powelson (Selfishly) Leaving

    Our sadness that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Rob Powelson is leaving is quickly turning to anger–against Powelson. In June we told you that Powelson will be leaving FERC in mid-August (see Sad News: FERC’s Rob Powelson (from PA) Resigns Effective August). Powelson has been a breath of fresh air and a strong proponent for pipelines. He’s a former utility regulator from Pennsylvania. Smart guy. Nice guy. And now, a selfish guy. It’s predictable and unsurprising that the two Democrats on FERC have sold out to radical elements in their own party and now vote against every new pipeline project that comes along, using mythical man-made global warming as the excuse. With Powleson leaving in August, gridlock will ensue. It’s easy to predict a a string of 2-2 decisions coming, which means important projects will not get approved in a timely manner. Powelson is leaving to further his own career. While we can appreciate that, we think there’s a higher calling for Powelson–to stick around and ensure important projects are not delayed by gridlock. Powelson needs to “take one for the team” and put his own ambitions aside for another year or two. If a string of important pipeline projects are delayed because Powelson leaves, he won’t be remembered fondly. “But,” you may ask, “won’t President Trump just quickly replace him?” “Quickly” is the operative word there. The rumor mill is already in overdrive on who Powelson’s replacement will be. However, most experts who watch this space are predicting the earliest Trump will be able to get someone seated at FERC will be in early 2019. And maybe longer. Meanwhile, important pipeline projects will be in limbo. And that makes us grumpy with Mr. Powelson…
    Read More “FERC Gridlock Coming Thx to Rob Powelson (Selfishly) Leaving”

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    Green Groups Push Fossil Fuel Divestment but Invest in Oil & Gas

    If this doesn’t beat all. In an explosive expose from NBC News (yes, NBC News), some of the biggest names in the Big Green movement, including some in the Marcellus/Utica region, are secretly investing in oil and gas companies while at the same time demanding that banks, investment firms, pension funds, state governments and others divest from the same companies they invest in! In one case, the tax-exempt William Penn Foundation, which backs rabid anti-fossil fuel/divestment groups like THE Delaware Riverkeeper and the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council, actually invests in (yes) oil and gas companies. The profits from William Penn’s fossil fuel investments are then used to fund groups attacking fossil fuel companies. Mind boggling. It’s yet another case of “do what I say, not what I do” when it comes to the left in this country. We’re just amazed that NBC (a big fake news organization) actually reported it…
    Read More “Green Groups Push Fossil Fuel Divestment but Invest in Oil & Gas”

  • Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Jul 25, 2018

    The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: PA health officials hand out potassium iodide pills to those living near nuke plants; Luzerne County can’t find enough uses for shale impact fee money; Marcellus industry finding it hard to fill some jobs; Senators support DOE small-scale LNG export regs; Big Oil rewards shareholders; new horizontal directional drilling software from Technical Toolboxes; oil majors are stepping up their natgas game; use gas flaring to pull water from the atmosphere; Halliburton buys chemical company; Google thinks it can better manage o&g data than o&g companies can; Cuadrilla gets OK to frack first well in UK; and more!…
    Read More “Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Jul 25, 2018”

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    Ohio EPA Takes One More Swipe at Rover Pipe with FERC Notice

    Craig Butler (aka Captain Ahab) has risen up with the Ohio EPA (aka harpoon) one last time to see if he can skewer his great white whale, the Rover Pipeline (aka Moby Dick). According to Energy Transfer Partners, builder of Rover, the Ohio EPA, which Butler heads, has filed a Notice of Violation with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as a backdoor attempt to prevent the final segments of the pipeline from going online. ET says the NOV is baseless. An ongoing delay in blocking several Rover lateral segments from going into service is causing economic harm to ET’s customers (and to ET). This isn’t the first, nor even second time Butler and OEPA have gone after Rover. It’s the upteenth time (see our Butler/Rover stories here). What’s the baseless charge this time? OEPA says Rover disposed of “spent” drilling mud containing low levels of the chemical solvent tetrachloroethene (PCE) without approval. Rover has fired back at OEPA in a letter to FERC, accusing OPEA of recycling the PCE issue after it had already been investigated and addressed…
    Read More “Ohio EPA Takes One More Swipe at Rover Pipe with FERC Notice”

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    FERC Approves Pipeline Under the Potomac River from Md. to WV

    Anti-fossil fuel nutters are on a holy mission to stop a 3.5-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being built under the Potomac River by Columbia Gas, from Maryland to West Virginia (see Maryland Antis Oppose 13th Pipeline Under Potomac as “Dangerous”). The pipeline will be built to feed a larger pipeline project from Mountaineer Gas called the Eastern Panhandle Expansion–a pipeline to deliver Marcellus/Utica natural gas via local distribution channels to a new industrial facility in Berkeley County, WV, and to provide gas to other local businesses and residents in the Tri-State area. Mountaineer began building their project in March (see Mountaineer Gas Begins Work on Morgan County, WV Pipeline). We also reported that in March the Maryland Dept. of the Environment had approved the “Potomac pipeline” project, as it’s called by antis. Here’s the inconvenient truth that mainstream news organizations fail to report: This tiny 3.5-mile pipeline will be Columbia’s 13th pipeline under the Potomac! Yet antis insist THIS is the one pipeline that will explode and contaminate the Potomac and make the water flowing down the muddy Potomac undrinkable for millions. Total BS. Here’s the new (and good) news about the Potomac pipeline: Last week the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved it, so it’s now a done deal and will definitely get built. But FERC was split in its approval, with the Democrats (predictably) citing mythical man-made global warming as a reason to deny it…
    Read More “FERC Approves Pipeline Under the Potomac River from Md. to WV”

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    Do Property Values Along Pipeline Routes Go Down? Not in WV

    One of the oft-repeated canards by antis is that having a drill pad near you, or a pipeline crossing your property, will devalue (lower the value) of your property’s assessment and worth. If you want to sell the property you won’t get as much for it–if you can sell it at all. Who wants to live near a big, ugly drill site, or have an “explosive” pipeline running near the house? Except you can’t even see a drill pad from more than a few hundred feet away after the wells are drilled, and when the pipeline is in the ground and replanted over the top of it–you don’t see or even think about it. Let’s take the later case, of pipelines. Is there evidence that when a pipeline passes through your property, the value goes down? According to property assessors in West Virginia, the answer is “no.” At least not in the short term. Longer term, they say, will have to be watched. IF there are more incidents like the landslide that caused the Leach XPress pipeline to explode, maybe there will be an impact on assessments. But then, if you live in an area where there are frequent landslides, you have bigger valuation problems than a pipeline running through it…
    Read More “Do Property Values Along Pipeline Routes Go Down? Not in WV”

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    Marcellus-Fired Panda Hummel PA Power Plant Now “Complete”

    It takes a long time to build a natural gas-fired electric power plant–especially a big one. We began writing about one of the largest coal-to-gas conversion projects in the country, happening in the heart of PA Marcellus country, back in February 2014 (see Panda Power Building 3rd Marcellus-Fired Electric Plant in PA). Panda Power Funds, a private equity firm located in Dallas, TX announced a partnership with Sunbury Generation to build a whopping 1,124-megawatt Marcellus gas-fired electric plant on the site of a retired coal-fired plant near Shamokin Dam in Snyder County, PA. In early April final testing was underway at the facility, and it was supposed to go online in May (see Marcellus-Fired Panda Hummel Electric Plant Roars to Life in PA). Did it actually go online in May? We don’t know and we don’t spot any stories announcing it as online. However, the main contractor building the project, Bechtel, issued a press release last week to announced that the Hummel Station Power Plant is now “completed.” Done. Finished. We suspect that also means it’s now online. The newly minted plant will provide enough electricity to power more than 1 million homes, using Marcellus gas…
    Read More “Marcellus-Fired Panda Hummel PA Power Plant Now “Complete””

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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?”