Disappointing: Trump to Nominate Nuke/Coal Proponent to FERC
Just yesterday we posted an article observing that today, Friday, is Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) member Rob Powelson’s last day on the job (see FERC Commissioner Rob Powelson Leaving Friday – Deadlock Looms). We won’t lie (when do we ever lie?): We’re pretty sore at Powelson, and grumpy that for the foreseeable future no new pipeline projects will get approved due to the two partisan Democrats on the Commission who now vote against every pipeline project. The rumor mill is in overdrive that Trump has already picked a replacement for Powelson–Bernard McNamee, head of the Department of Energy’s Office of Policy. McNamee helped roll out a plan favored by Trump and DOE Secretary Rick Perry to artificially favor and boost nuclear and coal energy sources, at the expense of other sources like natural gas. Boneheaded plan. This is the guy Trump now wants at FERC. Recall that FERC rejected DOE’s boneheaded “save coal and nuke plants” plan. No doubt Trump is looking to stack the deck in his favor by naming McNamee. On the plus side, we suspect McNamee would be a reliable vote in favor of pipeline projects, so it’s not all bad news. But the issue remains that Senate Democrats can and most certainly will delay any confirmation votes on McNamee–likely until after the November election. This is how dirty politicians play the game. We’re not thrilled with McNamee, but we’d rather have him at FERC than an ongoing 2-2 deadlock…
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The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Local natgas projects need to be stopped–from a loon in Ithaca; drilling for miles in the Marcellus – laterals reach new lengths; non-impact uses of impact fee money in PA; WV House panel vots to impeach entire WV Supreme Court; pipeline getting expanded in Maine; trade war spooks oil and gas exports; natgas storage numbers still down, but prices remain the same; energy conference calls climate change “fake”; EU wants US to cut red tape for LNG exports; Nigeria – the next natgas giant?; and more!
Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted a “certificate of public convenience and necessity” (i.e. official approval) for Rover Pipeline to spend $4.7 million to build a new meter station along Rover’s Burgettstown Lateral. The new meter station, to be located in Jefferson County, OH, will connect a pipeline gathering system built and maintained by Utica Gas Services LLC, connecting the gathering system to Rover. The new connection will flow 350 million cubic feet per day of Utica Shale gas into the Rover pipeline system. But here’s the thing: FERC has not yet given Rover permission to begin flowing gas along the Burgettstown Lateral. FERC is playing hardball, withholding permission for Burgettstown and three other laterals until Rover (i.e. Energy Transfer) gets restoration work done along certain portions of the project (see 
Aubrey McClendon, co-founder of Chesapeake Energy and founder of American Energy Partners (renamed to Ascent Resources) was the first to recognize the importance of the Ohio Utica Shale and once famously said the Utica is “the biggest thing to hit Ohio since maybe the plow.” Turns out he was right, God rest his soul. The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), a national group of families, farmers, small businesses, distributors, producers and manufacturers joined together to support America’s energy future, has just released a report that shows from 2006 to 2016, Ohioans saved more than $40 billion (!) on energy costs (natural gas and electricity) because of the Ohio Utica Shale. The report, titled “The Benefits of Ohio’s Natural Gas Production to Energy Consumers and Job Creators” (full copy below), breaks down the savings this way: Ohio residential customers saved close to $15 billion during the 10-year period, while commercial and industrial consumers saved more than $25 billion. But that’s not all. The report also quotes JobsOhio in saying that shale-related investment in the Buckeye State from 2011-2017 was a staggering $63.9 billion. If you add those two numbers together, the amount of money saved on energy (and therefore spent on other things), and the amount of money invested, it totals more than $100 billion of economic impact from shale in Ohio–in ten short years. Put another way, one-tenth of trillion dollars has been spent in Ohio because of shale. Mind-blowing…
Two days ago MDN told you that New York’s tinhorn dictator, Andrew Cuomo, pulled the rug out from under a fully-permitted and permissioned Marcellus-fired electric plant by directing his corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to withhold renewing an air permit previously granted (see 
The mayor of Bloomingdale, OH, in Jefferson County, wants Ascent Resources to “come to the table for more fair arrangements on leases, road use agreements and fixing already-damaged roads.” The mayor and the village council are threatening to sue Ascent if they don’t “come to the table.” In other words, pay up or else. What has Ascent done to anger the mayor and village? Primarily the issue involves RUMAs–road use maintenance agreements. Some roads the village says Ascent uses have been damaged and the village wants them fixed. They also want a new agreement in place to pay for more fixes in the future. The mayor also says Ascent is using pressure tactics in leasing land from village residents. Some one-third of the village is now leased. These problems have been going on for about a year now, and the situation seems to be coming to a head…
Our opinion of FERC Commissioner Rob Powelson has gone down over the past month or so (see 
Deep Well Services, a Marcellus/Utica-born company that specializes in “snubbing” work (completing those super-long laterals you read about), sold itself this past April (see 
Directional underground (i.e. horizontal) drilling has been around and actively used in oil and gas drilling since the 1930s–nearly 80 years now. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has been around for more than 60 years. But the marriage of the two in order to drill in “tight” rock layers, like shale, has only been around for 20 years. In fact, last week marked the 20th anniversary of George Mitchell (Mitchell Energy) successfully blending the two technologies together to drill in the Barnett Shale of north Texas. In 1998, the new technique was a huge success when the first 90 days of gas production from the S.H. Griffin No. 3 well exceeded production of any of Mitchell Energy’s previous wells. The discovery of horizontal fracking led to what is now called the shale revolution. It is not hyperbole to say it changed the planet. Here’s how…
Finally, a New York pipeline story with a happy ending. On Feb. 3, 2017, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a long-delayed project–National Fuel Gas Company’s (NFG) Northern Access 2016 pipeline project (see 
Eclipse Resources, a Marcellus/Utica pure play driller headquartered in State College, PA, is one of the smaller but (in our opinion) more important drillers in our region. Eclipse has drilled the reigning record-holders for longest on-shore lateral wells drilled…in the world (almost 20,000 feet long!). Last week Eclipse issued their second quarter update. Among the items discussed: The company lost $19 million vs. making $11.5 million in 2Q17. They produced an average of 305.5 million cubic feet equivalent per day (MMcfe/d), up a tad from 2Q17’s 287.8 MMcfe/d. Production was 72% natural gas and 28% liquids. They drilled 6 wells with an average lateral length of approximately 15,900 feet. So far the company has drilled 17 “super lateral” wells with an average lateral length of over 18,300 feet–which is why they are an important driller. The company, as we previously reported, is going through a “strategic review process” in which they are looking to combine with, or sell out to, another company (see 
Last week Southwestern Energy, one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus (4th largest natgas producer in the country), issued its second quarter 2018 update. Southwestern drills in two plays: The Marcellus (i.e. Appalachia), and the Fayetteville (in Arkansas). Production in the Marcellus/Utica was 1.8 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d) of natural gas in 2Q18, up from 1.4 Bcfe/d in 2Q17. Largely because of the increase in production in the Marcellus region, Southwestern is raising its full-year production “guidance” (best guess) to 955-970 Bcfe, up from the previous range of 930-965 Bcfe. During 2Q Southwestern drilled 37 new wells, completed 55 wells, and brought 43 wells online–all in the Marcellus region. No mention was made of the Briggs “rule of capture” lawsuit Southwestern appealed to the PA Supreme Court in July. Here’s the full 2Q18 update…
While the Marcellus Shale play is mostly about natural gas, with some natural gas liquids in the southwestern part of the play, the Utica play in Ohio is a different story. Yes, a lot of natgas and NGLs get produced in the Utica, but the Utica also has a lot of oil coming out of the ground. Crude oil. Straight from the Utica/Point Pleasant rock layer. Something that hadn’t dawned on us (until now) is this question: How do Utica drillers get their crude to refineries? With natgas and even NGLs, it’s done mostly via pipelines. When’s the last time you heard about a “gathering pipeline” running to a well pad for crude oil? Yeah, never. So how do drillers get all that oil to refineries? They truck it. Another interesting factoid: those Pilot Flying J truck stops don’t only sell refined petroleum (diesel) to truckers, some of those operations also truck raw crude to refineries. The Pilot Flying J in Canton, OH is one such operation–and they currently have a shortage of truck drivers to haul Utica crude. It’s a “trucker’s market” right now. If you have a Class A commercial driver’s license with Hazmat (hazardous materials) and tanker endorsements, Flying J wants to talk to you, stat…