Marcellus & Utica Shale Story Links: Wed, Jan 24, 2018
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye over the break that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Lower Burrell to be “thumped” to test for natgas fracking sites; Rex Energy appoints new CFO; January cold weather affects electric generation mix in Northeast; Oklahoma drilling accident deadliest since start of shale boom; water supply shortage limits Sabine Pass LNG export operation; private equity investment going up for o&g; the rigs no one is watching; Singapore’s rising natgas ambitions; and more!
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In December MDN told you that Dominion’s $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project had asked permission from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to begin clearing trees along the path of the pipeline in all three states where the pipeline will run: West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina (see 
Residents in western Lawrence County, PA had a bit of a scare when they noticed a red glow in the sky Saturday night. They took to social media to speculate what it might be. Some called 911 to report what may be a big fire. Turns out it was flaring from a couple of Hilcorp Energy Marcellus Shale wells. The wells are already drilled and producing, so why did they flare? Flaring–or burning of natural gas at the wellhead, is a safety precaution to prevent explosions from too much pressure in the well. A Hilcorp rep said what likely happened is that compressors that compress and send the gas down the pipeline sometimes get moisture in them, and with the freezing cold temperatures, that moisture can freeze and lock up the compressors. Instead of gas building up to dangerous pressures because it can’t flow on down the pipe, the automatic flaring mechanism kicked in to burn off some of the gas–creating the red glow in the night sky. It’s good to see technology–especially safety technology–working as designed…
It’s looking more and more like co-tenancy legislation will pass this year in West Virginia (see 
Increasingly, large industrial plants, commercial operations and institutions like hospitals are putting their chips on CHP technology–combined heat and power. CHP, also known as cogeneration, is the concurrent production of electricity and useful thermal energy (heating and/or cooling) from a single source of energy. It is a small power plant that can both generate electricity and generate heat (or cooling) at the same time. Nothing gets wasted. The heat that comes from generating electricity is reused. Very efficient. CHP is not a particularly “new” technology. What is new is that more and more facilities are beginning to use it, because of the abundance of cheap, clean-burning natural gas. We wrote about CHP in November when we pointed out a new CHP installation at Lancaster General Hospital (see 
The Brunner Island Power Plant is located in York County, PA, but straddles Lancaster County. It is a huge 1,490 megawatt coal-fired electric generating plant, and has been the target of environmentalists for years. In February 2017, MDN told you that the new owners of the plant are investing $100 million to retrofit the plant so it can, at least part of the time, burn Marcellus Shale gas (see 
A graduate student from New York University, majoring in energy policy, as done us all a favor. He has done a deep dive into the world’s biggest and best onshore natural gas field: the Marcellus/Utica (i.e. Appalachia) to plumb the reasons for its incredible success. Did you know that Marcellus/Utica production has grown a massive 85% since 2014? Or that our region produces more natural gas than all other regions in the U.S.–combined?! Our grad student said, “It is worthwhile to have another look into why Appalachia matters today more than ever to the United States energy economy.” And so he did (below). The secret of Marcellus/Utica’s success? It is “the world’s most innovative gas field.” Let’s find out how and why…
Natural gas has replaced King Coal as the #1 fuel source to generate electricity. According to our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), in 2018 natural gas will generate 33% of all electricity generated in the U.S. In 2019 it goes up to 34%. Coal, on the other hand, will generate 30% of all electricity in 2018 (as it did in 2017), and go down to 28% in 2019. Power plant operators will bring 20 gigawatts (GW) of new natural-gas-fired generating capacity online in 2018. That’s the largest increase in natural gas capacity since 2004. Almost 6 GW of this new capacity (30%) will be added in one state: Pennsylvania! That’s another 6 GW powered by Marcellus Shale gas–an important new market for our gas. Here’s the EIA forecast that natgas will remain our primary source of electricity generation for at least the foreseeable future…
Those evil, nasty frackers just LOVE having sex. Sex, sex, sex, all the time. Everybody knows it. When shale workers arrive in town, the incidence of gonorrhea (i.e. “the clap”) goes up. So says a laughable, totally made up “research study” recently published in the so-called Journal of Public Health Policy. This is not the first time we’ve heard this particular anti-fossil fuel argument–that shale causes sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). We’ve highlighted this anti lie a number of times over the years (
My heart breaks for my fellow New Yorkers. Who could possibly have thought 10 years ago that a decade later there would still be no shale drilling in New York State? MDN’s “right hand man,” Chris Acker, was awake at the stroke of midnight last night and snapped the screenshot below, marking the exact 10-year anniversary for NY’s frack ban. The ban first started as a “temporary” moratorium–as these things always do. “Just give us a little more time to get the regulations right.” The “little more time” turned from months into years, and years have accumulated into (now) decades. It’s the standard liberal/anti playbook: Delay, Deny, and then Defend the indefensible actions taken. Our beloved state is rife with corruption–at the highest levels. Everyone knows our governor, Andrew Cuomo, is corrupt. A number of the people around him, some of his closest confidants, are either in jail or on trial. But somehow he escapes the long arm of the law. Cuomo has caved to pressure from his extreme left in directing the Dept. of Environmental Conservation to not only ban fracking, but also block and obstruct pipelines. It is sick and disgusting. Cuomo has stripped Constitutional property rights away from thousands of New Yorkers–and nobody says or does anything. This is how tyranny takes root and grows. NY is a case study. Look at the country of Venezuela today–that’s what NY will be in 30 years. Come back and read it here on MDN 30 years from now (when we’re dead and gone) to see that we were right. At any rate, as long as we have breath, we will continue to fight the good fight against the forces of evil and darkness here in NY…
Last week MDN brought you news that Dominion’s Cove Point LNG export facility along the shore of Maryland has delayed its official start-up until perhaps as late as April (see 
Millennium Pipeline is building a tiny, 7.8 mile pipeline in Orange County, NY that will connect the main Millennium pipeline to the CPV Valley Energy Center gas-fired electric plant. Both projects are currently under construction. Millennium’s project, called the Valley Lateral Project, was opposed by the corrupt Andrew Cuomo Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The DEC refused to grant necessary permits for the federal project, so the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted to overrule DEC and allow it to be built anyway (see