Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Vallourec sees non-U.S. H2 tube orders increasing

Higher bookings in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia will benefit Vallourec’s deliveries in the second half of 2018, according to company chairman Philippe Crouzet.

“Taking into account the gradual recovery in our main markets and the continued progress in our Transformation Plan, we confirm our positive outlook for the year with Ebitda in the second half of 2018 targeted to be significantly higher than in the first half,” Crouzet says in a report seen by Kallanish, sister publication of Kallanish Energy.

“International oil & gas markets are also showing positive signs of improving activity.” Vallourec’s improved performance in H1 was driven by positive momentum in the U.S. oil & gas market.

The Oil & Gas and Petrochemicals divisions’ revenue accounted for almost 70% of the company’s consolidated revenue in H1. Oil division revenue reached €1.11 billion ($1.29 billion), up 3.5% year-over-year, while Petrochemicals’ revenue rose 64.2%, to €179 million ($209.60 million).

In Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, oil & gas volumes were up y-o-y, along with increased prices, notably in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. These were partly offset by a negative foreign exchange translation impact and a different product mix on some deliveries.

“Overall, tendering activity continues to increase in these regions as anticipated,” Vallourec says.

The higher demand for tubes (pipe) in North America registered by the company in H1 was supported by much higher drilling activity. The average active rig count in the U.S. rose by 23% y-o-y and OCTG prices were raised in the second half of 2017. Vallourec has, beginning in H2 2018, passed on significant OCTG price increases in the region, as planned.

Over the first half of 2018 the company recorded revenue of €1.84 billion ($2.15 billion), up 7.5% year-over-year, driven by the positive momentum in the oil & gas market. Ebitda stood at €18m, improving by €36 million y-o-y.


https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/vallourec-sees-non-u-s-h2-tube-orders-increasing/

U.S. crude rises above $70

Oil prices rose back above $70 a barrel on Monday, with U.S. crude recording its best one-day dollar gain in over a month, after four weeks of losses for the benchmark.

West Texas Intermediate crude ended Monday’s session up $1.44 a barrel, or 2.1%, to $70.13/Bbl, Kallanish Energy reports. While the contract has risen in seven of the previous 10 sessions, it has not posted a gain of more than $1/Bbl since June 27, CNBC reported.

As of Friday, WTI was down more than 7% over the last four weeks, as heavy losses in a handful of trading sessions wiped out a string of modest daily gains for the benchmark.

The contract to deliver international benchmark Brent crude for September was up 83 cents a barrel, or 1.1%, at $75.12/Bbl by 2:08 p.m. ET. The September contract expires today. Trading was heavier for the October contract, which was up 97 cents, or 1.3%, at $75.73/Bbl.

Prices got support after Saudi Arabia announced it would suspend shipments of oil through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, after Houthi rebels in Yemen attacked a pair of oil tankers in the Red Sea. Saudi has led a military coalition against the Iran-aligned Houthis for more than three years.

The U.S. and Iran have lately engaged in a war of words, with Iranian officials threatening to snarl oil exports in the world’s busiest region for crude shipments.

Tension is rising ahead of the first of two deadlines next week for international businesses to wind down ties with Iran under renewed U.S. sanctions.

The situation raises concerns that the world will be short of oil. Those concerns have been amplified as Canada’s Suncor Energy works to fully restore operations at its Syncrude oil sands facility in western Canada, where supplies have been disrupted by a power outage earlier this year.

“It’s just this witches’ brew of supportive factors from Iran to the Syncrude,” John Kilduff, founding partner at energy hedge fund Again Capital, told CNBC.

A Reuters survey indicates the 15-member OPEC oil cartel increased output by 70,000 barrels per day in July. That would mark a slowdown in production growth from June, when the group hiked production by 173,000 Bpd. OPEC is seeking to add supplies to the market to prevent prices from rising too quickly and denting demand.


https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/u-s-crude-rises-above-70/

LNG Exports to the EU Are All About Their Freedom and Our Economy

Tom.jpg?resize=75%2C95Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW

….

….

More LNG exports to the EU are coming and they will help ensure the future freedom of Europeans while continuing the revitalization of our rural America.

Bloomberg News put out a wonderful story yesterday over its news service about what’s happening in the world of LNG exports. BusinessMirror carried it. It’s a must-read if you want to know what’s going to help continue the rural economic revitalization we’ve seen in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and elsewhere. The shale revolution has delivered huge economic benefits to places such as Susquehanna County. The prospects for more such revitalization just got a boost with news the Trump Administration and the EU have made some trade agreements that will ensure more LNG exports from us to them.

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New LNG carrier ship under construction

Here are a few excerpts from this great news story (emphasis added):

Europe will build more terminals to import US liquefied natural gas (LNG), the head of the European Commission (EC) told US President Donald J. Trump during a meeting aimed at averting a transatlantic trade war…

LNG imports from Europe are poised to rise almost 20 percent by 2040 from 2016 levels, according to International Energy Agency (IEA). While Russia has long been the region’s top supplier, it’s now facing significant challenges from both the US and Qatar, rivals with vast natural gas reserves…

The comments by Trump and Juncker come as at least four new US LNG export projects are slated to start-up by 2020. Since early-2016 the US has shipped 41 cargoes of LNG to Europe, according to ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s about 10 percent of US LNG exports.

Europe is looking to step up gas imports with its largest production field in the Netherlands slated to shut and France moves toward shutting nuclear power plants…

After Cheniere began shipping gas two years ago from its Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana—the first to send shale output abroad—the US became a net exporter of the fuel for the first time since the 1950s. This year, Dominion Energy Inc. opened the first export facility on the East Coast, providing a quicker route to European buyers

Many of the continent’s buyers, particularly in Eastern Europe, are eager for alternatives to Russian supply. Gas flow to Europe was disrupted twice, in 2006 and 2009, over a pricing dispute between Russia and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Lithuania and Poland have built terminals to import cargoes of LNG from overseas, reducing their reliance on Russia.

This is all good. And, the Dominion Energy facility on the East Coast they’re talking about is, of course, the Cove Point terminal. It was completed over strong objections from the usual suspects (e.g., Chesapeake Climate Action Network), as environmental extremists funded by wealthy trust-funders fought it tooth and nail. Now, it’s shipping LNG exports to nations who need it. Moreover, it’s well-positioned geographically to serve the EU. More Marcellus Shale gas from Bradford and Susquehanna Counties will be going to places such as France and the Netherlands to heat homes and run factories. More people will be employed both here and there.

Most importantly, the Russians will have competition and no stranglehold on EU. They’ll have to instead do what they can to build up their Boston market with the help of corrupt pandering politicians in New York and New England who don’t want any more pipelines.

The post LNG Exports to the EU Are All About Their Freedom and Our Economy appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/lng-exports-to-the-eu-are-all-about-their-freedom-and-our-economy/

The Marcellus Shale: Energy for the Future Right Below Our Feet

Screen-Shot-2018-07-23-at-4.40.53-AM-75x77.jpgMadison Weaver
External Affairs Intern, Cabot Oil & Gas

… 

Lest we forget, the Marcellus Shale is one magnificent resource for the future and it’s right below our feet; well a mile or more below, actually, but close.

Not all rocks are created equal.

Millions of years ago, a deep basin known as the Appalachian Basin sat where the Marcellus formation is now. Areas that would become Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio and West Virginia were covered by a shallow sea that collected sediments like silt, sand, gravel, clay and minerals as well as microscopic sea creatures like plankton and algae.

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Sediments and organic materials mix underwater where there is very little oxygen, and form a layer across the basin. New layers of sediment are built over older layers. Water, containing minerals, flows through tight cracks between sediments, cementing them together. A new rock is formed, large and far beneath the surface. The sediments and organic materials now far beneath the surface, are exposed to immense heat and pressure. When heated, the organic materials turn into oil and eventually natural gas.

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Marcellus Shale is famously dark in color – often referred to as black shale – because of its high organic content. This is also why the Marcellus is such a prolific producer of natural gas; more organic content means more carbon to create gas. In fact, the deepest parts of the basin where more materials could accumulate are now the thickest parts of the Marcellus formation today.

The entire process took around 390 million years. Now, the Marcellus formation rests around one mile under the surface and can be hundreds of feet thick.

The Marcellus is not only immense in size and rich with organic materials, but the formation has low porosity and permeability which causes it to hold tightly onto gas.

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Porosity determines how large a rock’s pores, or spaces between sediments are.  Permeability tells us how interconnected a rock’s pores are, which is how materials like gas and water flow through rocks. Rocks with no permeability are like Swiss cheese: there are large pores, but the pores are unconnected and gases cannot escape. A bowl of Cheerios, on the other hand, has large holes and lots of permeability where milk can flow.

The Marcellus formation and other shales are similar to the first image – small pores that are barely permeable. Natural gas is formed from organic materials inside these pores, but because shale lacks permeability, the gas stays put.

This is why hydraulic fracturing is so important in retrieving natural gas from the Marcellus. Hydraulic fracturing creates more of these tiny fractures and pores, making the rock more permeable for gas to flow into well bores.

Horizontal well technology, however, is a vital part of Marcellus shale’s incredible production. Horizontal wells are drilled vertically, then are drilled horizontally into the resource containing rock.

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While vertical drilling only reaches one small area of rock deep below the surface, horizontal drilling increases the area that the well touches. The increased area allows for more natural gas resources to be accessed using hydraulic fracturing – up to a mile or more underground and a mile or more horizontal.

Together, horizontal wells and hydraulic fracturing make the Marcellus shale one of the highest producers of natural gas today. They also allow for more gas to be produced from fewer wells and well pads, lessening the number of well pads needed and the cost of construction.

The Marcellus Shale did not just pop up out of nowhere; it has been right below our feet for millions of years, and now we can benefit from the rock’s unique character and rich resources thanks to new technologies.

Reposted from Well Said Cabot.

Editor’s Note: What a great and well-written reminder post of what’s so special about the Marcellus Shale, one of the foundations of the shale revolution.

The post The Marcellus Shale: Energy for the Future Right Below Our Feet appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/the-marcellus-shale-energy-for-the-future-right-below-our-feet/

Monday, July 30, 2018

Landowners Take their Wayne National Forest Case to Washington, D.C

After seven years of inaction, private land and mineral owners adjacent to Wayne National Forest parcels have had enough of the bureaucratic red tape tying up oil and gas permits. As a result, several of them took their case to Washington, D.C. in early July of this year. Representatives from the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) and the Landowners for Energy Access and Safe Exploration (LEASE) met with Senator Sherrod Brown, Senator Rob Portman, Congressman Bill Johnson, Congressman Bob Gibbs, the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of the Secretary, and the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Energy and Mineral Resources, among others. Landowners are demanding that the Bureau of Land Management Eastern States Field Office comply with multiple executive orders and permanent instructions directly from Secretary Zinke to move federal leasing and permitting forward and stop ongoing obstruction by federal bureaucrats, which amounts to a de-facto moratorium on the development of private minerals. “The Wayne National Forest mineral development debate has been and continues to be a private property rights issue. The majority of the surface and minerals are privately owned,” said Becky Clutter, a volunteer board member of the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO) Appalachia Chapter and also the founder of the Landowners for Energy Access and Safe Exploration (LEASE). “Federal bureaucrats are violating mineral owner’s private property rights—it’s been going on too long and property owners want to see this resolved. Individuals who work in these federal agencies have been instructed by recent actions taken by President Trump and Secretary Zinke to move these lease sales and permits along, but they aren’t doing it. It’s more than dereliction of duty, its obstructionism—and private property owners are fed up.” Of the total number of surface acres in the six townships with the preponderance of Wayne National Forest (WNF) acreage in Monroe County, the forest only owns roughly 10% of the total mineral estate in those townships due to the large number of private parcels as well as the severed mineral ownership to private citizens underlying the forest surface. Thus, 10% ownership with its associated bureaucratic red tape is preventing the remainder 90% from development. The Wayne is a scattering of forest parcels mixed in and around privately-owned lands. The forest parcels are not contiguous. Clutter states, “The big green areas on most maps depicting the Wayne’s three ranger units does not accurately reflect the sparse nature of forest parcels compared to privately held lands. Additionally, of the actual parcels that the forest owns, private citizens own most of the mineral estate underlying those parcels.” The landowners are alleging that since the Center for Biological Diversity (a group currently under investigation by the U.S. House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations for potential ties to foreign entitles and non-U.S.-based environmental groups) sued the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, the leasing of federal minerals has slowed and no permits to drill have been issued. Further, they allege that recent guidance from the Department of the Interior is not being translated through the regional Bureau of Land Management offices at the field level. A total of four lease sales have occurred in the WNF dating back to December of 2016. All of the lease sales had parcel specific environmental assessments done which stipulated that no surface disruption from drilling be allowed to occur. All drilling will be done on private property. To date, not a single permit to drill has been issued after these lease sales. Clutter states, “The situation gets even more convoluted as private landowners are now being told that simply because their private property gets included into a drilling unit that contains federal parcels, their private parcels may now be subject to full NEPA review including archeological surveys. The federal government’s intrusion on private property is undeniable.” Clutter goes on to say, “Center for Biological Diversity, with its foreign backers, does not have the best interest of Ohioans in mind. This is evident in its efforts to ban oil and gas production. We are asking members of Congress and the Administration to hold these federal bureaucrats accountable and make them do their jobs—we are demanding that private property rights be restored in and around the artificial boundaries of the Wayne National Forest.” During their DC meetings, NARO and LEASE members also had the opportunity to discuss the problems surrounding Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) and income distributions from the Wayne Nation Forest. NARO Appalachia, representing Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina, is a chapter of the National Association of Royalty Owners (NARO). NARO was established in 1981. The NARO Appalachia chapter began in October of 2008 to provide mineral owners some organized support, education and advocacy. Joseph F. Barone ShaleDirectories.com 610.764.1232 jbarone@shaledirectories.com www.shaledirectories.com

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/landowners-take-their-wayne-national-forest-case-to-washington-d-c/

SHALE INSIGHT 2018 – July 11 Editorial

The Appalachian Basin’s Latest Information

As the world’s top oil and natural gas producer, America’s global energy dominance is further strengthened by world-class shale plays, like the Marcellus. These benefits are real, they’re improving lives, especially for working-class Americans, and they’re strengthening our nation’s ability to compete and win in the global economy. SHALE INSIGHTTM 2018 will continue to advance this conversation in the areas of power generation distribution, pipeline capital investment, energy driven manufacturing all aiding in the effort to alleviate energy poverty. As the nation’s leading industry forum, SHALE INSIGHTTM 2018 will return to Pittsburgh's David L. Lawrence Convention Center on October 23-25 bringing together influential industry executives, decision makers, environmental experts, and political officials. Past keynote speakers have included President Donald J. Trump, New York Times best-selling author, Alex Epstein, Gary R. Heminger, President and Chief Executive Officer, Marathon Petroleum Corporation as well as Fox News Co-Host of the Five, Dana Perino and former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani. Continuing the tradition, SHALE INSIGHTTM 2018 will once again convene innovative thought leaders and provide participants a front row seat for the most important discussion on shale development, featuring some of the most prominent industry and government leaders. Attendees will network with the most influential industry executives and decision makers throughout the two days of technical and public affairs insight sessions, major keynote addresses, and dynamic exhibit hall featuring all the major shale players. With the Appalachian Basin positioned as the centerpiece of the domestic energy revolution, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), the Ohio Oil and Gas Association (OOGA), and the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) remain partners for this year’s SHALE INSIGHTTM conference. Become a sponsor, host an exhibit, or register for the conference today by visiting www.ShaleInsight.com and capitalize on this unique opportunity to gain unprecedented industry access. We look forward to seeing you in Pittsburgh! Joseph F. Barone ShaleDirectories.com 610.764.1232 jbarone@shaledirectories.com www.shaledirectories.com

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/shale-insight-2018-july-11-editorial/

Tailwater Raises $1 Billion for Pipelines

U.S. energy-focused private equity firm, Tailwater Capital, announced Tuesday it has raised $1 billion for its biggest fund to date, betting on growing demand from the midstream sector, Kallanish Energy reports. The firm closed its Energy Fund III with a hard-cap of $900 million and raised a $100 million co-investment for a platform company in the fund. Since its launching in 2013, the firm raised more than $2.7 billion across its funds and co-investments, but the latest fund was the largest. “Tailwater will continue to focus on acquiring and growing midstream assets as well as participating in non-operated upstream opportunities in select basins, through the firm's E&P Opportunity funds,” it said in a statement. The deal shows how private equity firms are looking to invest in pipeline midstream assets amid ongoing bottlenecking and under capacity, straining crude oil areas such as the Permian Basin. Tailwater, which has six platform companies, didn’t specify where it would target investments. Edward Herring, co-founder and managing partner of Tailwater, said Energy Fund III allow the energy buyout firm to continue building leading companies in the midstream sector. “As evidenced by our deployment so far, there are unparalleled opportunities to put capital to work addressing the significant demands for midstream infrastructure,” he said. The portfolio of the Dallas-based firm includes Align Midstream, Copperbeck Energy Partners, Cureton Midstream, Valiant Midstream, amongst others. It also has two upstream platforms – Blackbrush Oil and Gas and Pivotal Petroleum Partners. Joseph F. Barone ShaleDirectories.com 610.764.1232 jbarone@shaledirectories.com www.shaledirectories.com

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/tailwater-raises-1-billion-for-pipelines/

Oil markets slip with drop in U.S. equities market, ship attacks

Brent oil prices increased last week, supported by easing trade tensions and a temporary shutdown by Saudi Arabia of a key crude shipping lane.

In addition, oil prices fell on Friday, weighed down by a drop in the U.S. equities market.

Brent crude futures increase 1.8% last week, its first increase in four weeks.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell about 2.4%, its fourth week of declines.

U.S. stock markets dropped broadly on Friday, depressing oil prices.

Crude futures at times track with equities, Reuters noted.

A government report on Friday said the U.S. economy grew in the second quarter at its fastest pace in nearly four years.

“It’s a strong number that suggests strong energy demand into the end of the year,” said analyst Phil Flynn of Price Futures Group in Chicago, in comments to Reuters.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission reported that hedge funds had cut their bullish wagers on U.S. crude on combined futures and options position in New York and London. The number of contracts, 412,289 in the week of July 24, was the lowest level since late June.

Russia energy minister Alexander Novak said the oil market remains volatile and the market had priced in risk related to U.S. sanctions against Iran.

He said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its supporters were not discussing an option to boost production by more than 1 million barrels per day.

Last week, Saudi Arabia said it was suspending oil shipments through the Red Sea’s Bab-al-Mandeb strait, after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked two ships in the waterway that is a main shipping route for crude oil.

A surprise trade agreement last week between the U.S. and the European Union also supported oil prices.


https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/oil-markets-slip-with-drop-in-u-s-equities-market-ship-attacks/

Environmental Hysteria Apologies? When Will Fractivists Say “Sorry”?

Screen-Shot-2018-02-23-at-6.54.35-PM-487x512.jpgStephen Heins
Energy Consultant
“The Word Merchant”

 

The Sierra Club has basically apologized for its environmental hysteria about a starving polar bear. When can we expect fractivists to say they’re sorry?

There is an original December 2017 National Geographic magazine story about a gut-wrenching video and narrative of a dying polar bear video, which was the most visited piece in the publication’s history.

After 8 months, the National Geographic and the writer of this piece of climate alarmism and scare tactics have publicly APOLOGIZED (caps mine). Just amazing and it raises all sorts of questions about other instances of environmental hysteria

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Photo: Andrew Weith

In all honesty, there have been many examples of the kind of reporting National Geographic did, replete with exaggerations and falsehood, lately. While I don’t have space to include them all, I have been researching the publication of a recent Stanford University study about climate warming and suicide in 2050 in US and Mexico.

First, I noticed that dozens and dozens and dozens of stories in the national enquirers of national media and the “near-tabloid science media” showed up on my Google search. All of this coverage on a highly speculative study looking 32 years into the future.

Here are a few examples of the headlines and media sources. Also, I have included a more complete list of all sources of environmentally prejudicial (a recent Time Magazine cover comes to mind) news sources (emphasis added to illustrate the tenuous junk science nature of the environmental hysteria conclusions involved):

  • The Atlantic Magazine headline: “Climate  Change May Cause 26,000 More Suicides By 2050”
  • USA Today headline: “Global Warming Risk: Rising Temperatures from Climate Change Linked to Rise in Suicides”
  • CNN headline: “Climate Change Study Ties Warming Temperatures to Rising Suicide Risk”
  • MIT Technology Review: “Climate Change Could Drive Tens of Thousands of Additional Suicides in North America”

Ultimately, the following additional news outlets also wrote a piece about the release of Stanford Study:

The Atlantic, USA Today, CNN, MIT Technology Review, Time Magazine, Atlantic Journal Constitution, Nature Journal, ScienceAlert, National Geographic, The Independent (UK), ZME Science, The Guardian, Philly Voice, The News Leader (VA), Scientific American, Fututity, Fortune Magazine, Discover Magazine, MSN, EcoWatch, You Tube, Newser, Nature Climate Change, Science Daily, Reuters, The Mercury News, Weather.com, The World News, Palm Beach Post, Chicago Sun Times, The Huffington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Climate Depot, HealthCentral,  Public Health Newswire, Philanthropy, News Busters, Inverse, Common Dreams, UC Berkeley, E&E News, Press Reader, The Globe and Mail, First Coast News, New Scientist, The Daily Beast, American Public Health Association, Forbes, NOLA.com, Tech Times, Yahoo, Google, Climate Change Dispatch, RealClearEnergy, 2050Kids.com, Global Construction Review, Psychology Today, Grist, The Quint, Chicago Tribune, Carbon Brief, BW Business World, Stanford University, University of Washington, over 35 local TV stations, and many, many small presses and web sites.

It’s nice National Geographic apologized but when will we see the apologies for all the other environmental hysteria out there?

Editor’s Note: Steve’s is complemented by one out today by our occasional guest blogger Paul Driessen who offers the following regarding the recent bee scare:

The Sierra Club… campaigned campaigned incessantly for years on the claim that neonicotinoids would drive honeybees into extinction. For instance, in March 2015 the Sierra Club of Canada launched a nationwide “Protect the Pollinators Tour,” as part of its #SaveTheBees project.

“Ironically, the justification for this chemical madness is the same desire to produce enough food to feed everyone,” it said. “The chemical industry wants us to believe we have no choice; it’s their way or the highway. But the science tells us otherwise – that farmers don’t need these chemicals at all! The science also tells us we’re not just killing bees and pollinators, but other insects too. And we’re also killing birds and aquatic life. The scientists tell us we could be creating a Second Silent Spring. It’s madness.

A year later, the Maryland Sierra Club did its own fulminating, urging the state’s legislature to pass a “Pollinator Protection Act. “Help STOP Pollinator Deaths from Neonic Pesticides!” it exhorted…

In December 2016, the Sierra Club was out raising more money by sounding phony alarms about Trump appointees “denying the science” that supposedly links neonic pesticides to alleged bee declines…

Why would they make such false claims? Well, as Sierra Club officer Bruce Hamilton once admitted: “It’s what works. It builds the Sierra Club. The fate of the Earth depends on whether people open that envelope and send in that check” (or click on the ever-present online Donate Now button).

However, a few weeks ago, a Sierra Club blog post started singing a different tune:

“‘Save the bees’ is a rallying cry we’ve been hearing for years now…. But honeybees are at no risk of dying off.  While diseases, parasites and other threats are certainly real problems for beekeepers, the total number of managed honeybees worldwide has risen 45% over the last half century. ‘Honeybees are not going to go extinct,’ says Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society. ‘We have more honeybee hives than we’ve ever had, and that’s simply because we manage honeybees. Conserving honeybees to save pollinators is like conserving chickens to save birds … honeybees are not all that different from livestock.”

So, Never mind. Finally, after all these years, the Sierra Club (and Xerces Society) admit that honeybees are not going extinct. It would appear as well that neonic pesticides can’t be causing a honeybee apocalypse – because there isn’t one!

This example, combined with Steve’s, demonstrates what frequently is the case with environmental hysteria; when it’s run its course and the headlines have already been embedded in the common mind, the truth comes out. So, when can we expect fractivists to start issuing some well-deserved apologies to those of us promoting natural gas development? Don’t hold your breath but it will happen…eventually.

 

The post Environmental Hysteria Apologies? When Will Fractivists Say “Sorry”? appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/environmental-hysteria-apologies-when-will-fractivists-say-sorry/

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Natural Gas NOW Picks of the Week – July 28, 2018

Tom.jpg?resize=75%2C95Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

Natural Gas NOW readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy. As usual, emphasis is added.

Cruising with Natural Gas

It seems there’s nothing natural gas can’t do:

Princess Cruises announced plans on Monday for construction of two new cruise ships — larger than ever and powered by liquid natural gas.

The California-based cruise line will add the as-yet unnamed ships in 2023 and 2025 to its current fleet of 17 ships, along with with three more ships currently under construction for the company.

A statement Monday named Italy’s Fincantieri as the shipbuilder of the new newest cruise ships, which will be capable of carrying about 4,300 passengers — roughly 700 more than Princess Cruise’s newest ships.

Cantieri_Riva_Trigoso-512x384.jpg

Fincantieri shipyard

As of today, the ships announced Monday would be the fifth- and sixth-largest cruise vessels in the world. Other cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean and MSC Cruises, also have larger ships under construction to be delivered by 2022. Princess Cruises’ new vessels will be powered by liquid natural gas, a first for the company.

Amazing how natural gas keeps winning over the world, isn’t it?

What? DEP Reaches Agreement with Environmental \
Groups Over Mariner East 2 Permits?

This has the smell of a sellout:

In a significant validation of pipeline permits issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the Clean Air Council (CAC), Mountain Watershed Association (MWA), and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network (DRN) settled their appeal of 20 permits issued to Sunoco Pipeline, LLP (Sunoco) for the Mariner East 2 pipeline project. Since the permits were issued, DEP has continued to develop new standards, protocols, and best practices designed to protect the environment during the construction and installation of pipelines.

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DEP sellout?

“DEP is pleased that we were able to reach an amicable agreement with the appellants, resolving all claims related to the issuance of these permits while incorporating new processes to ensure that future pipeline projects learn from the mistakes made by Sunoco in implementing this project,” said DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell. “To be clear, DEP will continue to conduct vigorous oversight to ensure compliance with the conditions of the permits and will issue enforcement actions as necessary.”

The settlement does not alter any of the 20 permits in the appeal. Each permit was lawfully issued after a thorough environmental review involving approximately 35 DEP and County Conservation District staff over the course of nearly two years.

In the settlement, DEP has committed to continue to develop and implement further enhanced procedures for environmental protection associated with the construction of natural gas pipelines in Pennsylvania in collaboration with the appellants.

Does anyone know what that last sentence means? No, of course not. It’s intended to deceive. Nothing good can possibly come from “collaboration” with the likes of these Heinz Endowments toadies.

CO2 A Feature, Not A Bug?

CO2 produced from burning natural gas (and other fossil fuels) has been viewed as the “bug” with respect to these fuels. Natural gas produces less of it than any other fossil fuel but there is still some produced so the intolerant true-believers, of course,  scream “no way.” But, new shale oil technology is going to turn that upside down by using CO2

With North Dakota starting to seriously talk about using carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery that plays right into the expertise of the Regina-based Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC).

Dan MacLean, president and CEO of the PTRC, was at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, N.D., giving a presentation on May 23 regarding the 20th anniversary this year of the organization. However, he was there to talk about the future, not just the past…

There were presentations at the show about using carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery in the Bakken.

“That’s something we’ve been trying to promote for a long time, that CO2 is an important and viable element of enhanced oil recovery. It’s safe and it results in a greener hydrocarbon,” MacLean said.

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When it came to the Weyburn-Midale greenhouse gas project, the PTRC quite literally wrote the book on CO2 usage in enhanced oil recovery and its geological storage.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum spoke at the conference specifically about using carbon dioxide from the state’s several lignite coal power plants for enhanced oil recovery. Asked about his thoughts on that, MacLean said, “We talk to SaskPower regularly. They are looking for new markets for CO2. We are trying to facilitate that through conversations with other oil and gas producers, encouraging them to do field trials of CO2 in their areas. Obviously, there’s a big opportunity in the Viewfield area, in the Bakken there.”

And, Elsewhere on the Technology Front, There’s This

The technology just keeps improving:

The Horizontal Directional Drilling PowerTool (HDDPT) is the latest technology specifically developed for professionals involved in improving the design, engineering and installation of horizontal directional drilling pipelines and utilities. The HDDPT platform lowers construction risks and costs by minimizing excavation complexity and providing superior borehole stability by delivering advanced HDD design insights. As an online pipeline planning tool, HDDPT offers the oil and gas and other industry sectors a trusted software product created by pipeline industry veterans to ensure successful horizontal directional drilling operations.

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Image from Mears Group, Inc. HDD/DP Division

Innovative functionalities include dynamic borehole design; geographic information systems/shape file importation; streamlined data importation; borehole stability and plots; and customized horizontal directional drilling project reporting. The online HDDPT software product is applicable to pipe and conduits for various applications including natural gas, petroleum, water and sewer lines, telecommunications and electric power lines.

This is exciting as it combines software with hardware to improve the capabilities of horizontal drilling equipment for purposes of installing pipelines. It means technology will remain a step ahead of whatever nonsense comes out of our second story above.

Bob Howarth Gives Up Last Vestiges of Being A Scientist

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These two tweets say it all, don’t they?

The Fractivist Press Is All Fake News

One of our readers wrote me to explain just who the fractivist press really is. She directed me to this opinion piece in Al Jazeera by a young writer named Kim Kelly who was frustrated her father was not as opposed to a New Jersey pipeline project as she hoped.

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The 22 mile pipeline route—some 20 miles of the path being under the berry of a public highway—that Kim Kelly supposes will destroy the Pinelands.

It seems her dad was a construction worker who might help the pipeline. What’s interesting though, is that Kim Kelly also writes for several other journals, including Teen Vogue and she never pretends to be anything other than an advocate. Indeed, her latest Teen Vogue piece starts out this way:

In this op-ed, organizer and activist Kim Kelly recounts the history of #OccupyICENYC, details a recent action she helped stage, and explains how young activists could get involved in organizing resistance movements of their own.

This is who the fractivist press really is and it’s a politically correct embarrassment.

Solar Power “Farm” Will Turn 6,750 Acres of Rural Virginia Shiny

Rural Virginians aren’t so happy with this project:

Sustainable Power Group — a Utah-based company that owns and operates more than 150 utility and distributed electrical generation systems across the country — is about to begin construction on what will be one of the biggest solar energy facilities in the U.S. The renewable energy company is in the process of constructing a solar farm in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, a rural area about 60 miles south of Washington, D.C.

Dubbed the Spotylvania Solar Energy Center Project, the proposal is a 500 megawatt facility that will span about 6,350 acres — of which 3,500 acres will be used for solar development. The panel installations will cover well over five miles. Sustainable Power Group, also known as sPower, plans to begin construction in August and be done by late 2019.

However, the project has attracted mounting opposition from residents living in Spotsylvania County. Local residents fear the economic and environmental impacts of such a monumental project.

“Just the sheer, immense scale of this solar power plant — right in the middle of existing residential neighborhoods and farms —  is unprecedented, and there’s no experience to be gleaned from existing solar plants of this size,” said Kevin McCarthy, a member of Concerned Citizens of Fawn Lake and Spotsylvania…

“As proposed, at 10 square miles, 6,500 acres — that’s half the size of Manhattan — this would be the fifth largest solar power plant in the United States – surrounded by thousands of homes and farms. The other four largest solar plants — they’re in the desert southwest, miles and miles from any residential areas,” McCarthy said…

“The environmental risks associated with this could be devastating: contaminated stormwater runoff into local streams, rivers, and eventually the Chesapeake Bay.  Soil erosion, the unknown impacts of the ‘heat island’ effect, the potential damage to, or collapse of, the local aquifer that supplies water to thousands of homes in the area. We’re not talking about the flat, high desert southwest; we’re talking about the forested hills of Spotsylvania,” Charmaine Mueller, another member of Concerned Citizens, said…

But, doesn’t everyone love solar? Who wouldn’t want 6,750 acres of rural Virginia shined up? It’s only 13.5 acres per megawatt, after all, although the real number is closer to 40 acres given solar’s poor capacity factor. And, surely it’s environmental justice to put this out in the sticks among the hillbillies, isn’t it? Moreover, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network doesn’t seem to be complaining, so what’s the problem?

The post Natural Gas NOW Picks of the Week – July 28, 2018 appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/natural-gas-now-picks-of-the-week-july-28-2018/

Saturday, July 28, 2018

FREE Audio: MDN Top 5 Stories for Week of July 23, 2018

Below is an audio recording (“podcast”) featuring the Top 5 stories most read over the past week on MDN. Just... Continue reading

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/free-audio-mdn-top-5-stories-for-week-of-july-23-2018/

California Energy Dreamin’ Demonstrates Futility and Danger of Fractivism

17d9481.jpg?resize=75%2C85Jim Willis
Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)

 

The Golden State is the breeding ground for the dangerous disease of California energy dreamin’ — a pathological obsession with energy political correctness.

Although this story concerns California, it is a preview of what’s coming to New England. Because of ongoing record-high heat in Cali, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) is telling residents to either “voluntarily” stop using electricity, or DWP is going to cut electricity to different communities on a rolling blackout basis. The cancer of anti-fossil fuel hatred has more fully metastasized in Cali than elsewhere in the country, and therefore Cali is an instructive case study.

California, if it were it’s own country (now, there’s a thought!), would be the fifth-largest economy in the world–larger than the United Kingdom, India and Brazil. Cali is the third largest consumer of gasoline and diesel on the planet, behind only China and the United States. And yet Cali persists in blocking new gas-fired electric plants, blocking pipelines, and shutting down existing oil and gas drilling.

They are, in a word, insane. And now their insanity is on display for the world to see.

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California Energy Dreamin’

Because of the heat wave and lack of natural gas supplies, natgas prices in Cali have zoomed to nearly $40/Mcf (thousand cubic feet). Residents now face either “voluntary” reduction in electric use–or forced blackouts. We take no pleasure (well, maybe a little pleasure) in saying Cali is reaping what it has sown.

To prevent Angelenos from suffering long and agonizing power outages in scorching weather, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power says it might have to cut their electricity.

Utility officials said Tuesday that “planned outages” that are advertised to residents beforehand will be needed to upgrade aging infrastructure.

DWP General Manager David Wright raised the idea two weeks after a blistering heat wave that left more than 100,000 customers without electricity at some point, some of whom went days without power. Wright said the practice, standard in the industry, would involve notifying residents in advance that their power would be out during specific hours on a selected day.

Dan Barnes, director of power transmission and distribution, said the utility already does some planned outages for replacing equipment, but usually keeps electricity flowing to Angelenos as it replaces old cables, by switching to another cable while work is underway. Shutting off the power would help crews get the work done more quickly, Barnes said.

Utility spokesman Joseph Ramallo said there were no immediate details about the scope of the planned outages, but that they could affect neighborhoods across the city where electrical upgrades are already planned. Wright said the department would cancel any planned outages if the weather turned out to be hot on the chosen day.

The utility also wants the city to loosen restrictions that prevent its crews from working in the street during “peak traffic hours” in the morning and afternoon. Those rules leave workers with little time to get the work done, Wright said.

“We can work between 9 and 3, but a half-hour for traffic control and a half-hour for a lunch … that’s like five hours of work,” he told the Board of Water and Power Commissioners.

During the power outages earlier this month, many residents complained the DWP had given them little information as they weighed whether to leave their homes or board their pets. City Councilmen Mitch O’Farrell and David Ryu, who represented some of the hardest hit areas, said they were deluged with complaints from frustrated residents.

Wright told board members that as crews were laboring to fix the problems, they could not give precise answers about when power would be restored.

However, the DWP chief said the utility needed to be clearer with residents about where they could find information and what work was being done. He told the board that within the next year, the utility will roll out a new system to send text messages to residents about power outages in their neighborhoods.

Wright said the utility also needed to encourage residents to prepare ahead of time for power outages, especially if they had medical needs that required electricity, by buying a small generator or a phone charger that runs on solar power. That could be crucial in an earthquake or another emergency, he said.

The price of natural gas is zooming in California:

Natural gas prices in Southern California surged to the highest in almost a decade as blistering heat kept air conditioners on full blast, stoking demand for the power-plant fuel.

Gas in the region more than tripled Monday to $39.64 per million British thermal units, a record in Bloomberg data going back to 2008. Power prices also jumped. “Dangerous heat” will descend across Southern California through July 26, with temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) in Los Angeles and approaching 110 degrees in the desert, according to the National Weather Service.

“We expected a rally, but nowhere near that big,” Rick Margolin, an analyst with Genscape Inc., said in an email Tuesday.

Low hydroelectric generation amid dry conditions has also contributed to the price spike, boosting power plants’ gas burn. Meanwhile, gas inventories remain well below normal nationwide after a frosty spring, and pipeline maintenance has kept some supply from reaching the market.

The heat is so intense that California is even pulling liquefied natural gas from the Costa Azul import terminal on Mexico’s West Coast, Margolin said. Restricted access to the Aliso Canyon storage facility after a 2015 leak is also making it difficult to meet demand, he said.

Gas exports to Mexico from the U.S. Southwest, meanwhile, slid after a pipeline compressor station was shut down for repairs. The amount of gas flowing from the region across the border sank 25 percent Tuesday after Kinder Morgan Inc.’s El Paso Natural Gas line reported a mechanical failure at a compressor station in Arizona.

To read a great article on Cali’s insane drive to dump fossil fuels, read this Energy in Depth story: Calls for California to Abandon Fossil Fuels are Counterproductive Nonsense.

Editor’s Note: My son has lived in California for almost two decades and whenever my wife and I visit, I am awed with scenery, the resources and the potential. Then, I look around and see the madness, too. I see the blatant violations, everywhere I look, of the myriad trend-setting laws copied by so many other states. I see the homelessness alongside the disgusting wealth. I see the radical influences. Finally, I see all those Priuses everywhere; expensive status symbol vehicles subsidized by the taxpayer as the perfect illustration of the politically California energy dreamin’ mindset.

Sadly, California is in the grips of this mindset, which is a subset of dead-end socialist ideology. The dead-ending toward a final Venezuelan destiny started with absurd energy policies that gave us Enron and advanced to anti-fossil fuel madness, as Jim notes. It’s emulating Germany’s failed Energiewende with the same results now appearing in the form of duplicative energy systems, skyrocketing energy prices and brownouts and blackouts.  California energy dreamin’ is expensive.

For more great articles on natural gas development every single business day, subscribe to Marcellus Drilling News using this convenient link.

The post California Energy Dreamin’ Demonstrates Futility and Danger of Fractivism appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

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Friday, July 27, 2018

Chesapeake Energy to sell Utica assets in Ohio for $2B

Oklahoma-based Chesapeake Energy announced on Thursday that it is selling its Utica Shale position in Ohio for $2 billion, in a move to reduce the company’s debt, Kallanish Energy reports.

The buyer is Encino Acquisitions Partners, a private oil and gas company with headquarters in Houston.

The assets being sold include 900,000 acres in eastern Ohio, plus 920 operated and non-operated horizontal wells that produced an average of 107,000 BOE per day.

Those wells produced 67% natural gas, 24% natural gas liquids and 9% oil. They produce about 600 million cubic feet of gas equivalent per day.

Chesapeake said about 322,000 acres in the prime Utica commercial window for drilling.

It said the proved oil and gas reserves in the Utica Shale, as of Dec. 31, 2017, were about 480 million BOE (72% natural gas, 23% NGLs and 5% oil).

Chesapeake said it is selling its total acreage in Ohio.

It had purchased significant tracts in eastern Ohio, starting in 2010 under then-Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon, who died in 2016.

The deal is expected to close in fourth quarter 2018.

The announcement “makes Chesapeake a stronger and more competitive company,” said president and CEO Doug Lawler in a statement.

“By divesting our position in the Utica and using the proceeds for debt reduction, we will not only significantly improve the health of our balance sheet, but we will also accelerate progress toward our strategic goals of reducing our debt, improving our margins and reaching sustainable free cash flow,” he said.

He said the Utica was the best company asset to sell and that leaves Chesapeake with five strong assets for future growth, Lawler said.

The deal was his biggest transaction in three years at the reins of Chesapeake, the third largest gas producer in the U.S.

Encino is a 2017 creation of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and a Houston-based management team led by Hardy Murchison.

The pension board plans to invest $1 billion into the partnership and own 98 percent of it, according to a separate statement.

“At EAP, Encino and CPPIB are building a company focused on shareholder returns with top-notch people, carefully managed risk and sustainable, safe operations,” said Hardy Murchison, Encino’s CEO, in a statement.

He added, “With a multi-decade inventory of development projects held by 920 producing wells, the Utica acquisition provides an excellent start for EAP. We are excited to work with Chesapeake’s employees in the Utica and all other stakeholders in the state of Ohio. With a strong balance sheet and a partner of CPPIB's stature, EAP is well positioned for continued growth through drilling and acquisitions.”

“We are pleased to support EAP’s acquisition of these highly attractive Utica Shale assets, which provides CPPIB with meaningful exposure to a leading North American natural gas play and aligns with the growing focus on energy transition,” said Avik Dey, managing director, Head of Energy & Resources, CPPIB, in a statement.

He added, “This transaction represents a unique opportunity to acquire a foundational asset that has a large inventory of wells with a well-established production history and will be managed by Encino, whose management has deep operational and development expertise in the Appalachian region.

“Through EAP, we are continuing to efficiently expand our energy and resources portfolio in key U.S. energy markets as we seek to further diversify the CPP Fund. We look forward to building on our ongoing partnership with Encino to pursue high-quality energy assets in the lower 48 states,” he said.

Chesapeake said it expects to apply $1.9 billion in initial closing proceeds toward debt reduction.

The purchase price includes a $100 million contingent payment based on future natural gas prices.

The deal provides up to $180 million reduction in annual interest expense, the company s id.

The deal provides a reduction of $450 million that Chesapeake would have spent on gathering, processing and transportation for an expected improvement of 50 cents per barrel of oil equivalent.

It also eliminates all future Utica midstream and downstream commitments of about $2.4 billion, Chesapeake said.

It improves Chesapeake’s EBITDA by about 70 cents per BOE in 2019, due to lower cash operating costs and improved oil differentials, assuming flat 2018 commodity prices, the company said.

It said it expects organic replacement of divested EBITDA within one year, driven primarily by oil volume growth in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.

Chesapeake reported that it expects its 2019 oil production volume to grow by 10% from 2018, adjusted for asset sales, with additional oil growth anticipated in 2020.


https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/chesapeake-energy-to-sell-utica-assets-in-ohio-for-2b/

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Sorry, DEP, But Your Environmental Justice Con Game Stinks

Tom.jpg?resize=75%2C95Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW

….

….

Like the word “stakeholder” the environmental justice con game is just another political tool for empowering special interests through proxies never given.

Every time I hear the phrase “environmental justice,” I want to scream “Where’s my damned justice?” The whole concept stinks. The basic theory is that “communities and populations should not be disproportionally exposed to adverse environmental impacts.” The fundamental premise is that “historically, minority and low-income Pennsylvanians have been forced to bear a disproportionate share of adverse environmental impacts.”

No proof of that is ever offered, of course, because it’s functionally impossible to isolate and quantify “adverse environmental impacts” relative to their impacts on particular populations. It isn’t that one can’t assemble numbers. That’s easy. The problems with the premise are three-fold and they’re being completely ignored as Pennsylvania blithely implements a politically correct environmental justice con game.

First, one person’s environmental impact is another person’s livelihood in the form of a job. Those jobs are a real priority in minority and low-income communities. “Adverse,” therefore, is in the eye of the beholder.

Secondly, there is a presumption minority and low-income households are somehow impacted individually to a greater extent than other individuals. But a polluted water well, for example, impacts rich and poor alike; e-coli bacteria could care less who they make sick. If I make $100K per year, do I deserve any less attention to my health and rights than the fellow making $20K per year?

Of course not, and putting someone else finger on the scale to remedy a supposed problem by picking winners and losers by any method other than a free-market is an invitation to government bullying. It is a substitution of politics for markets, as if the former were somehow cleaner, when, in fact it’s the least efficient, least fair and dirtiest method of choosing.

Thirdly, the environmental justice con game doesn’t give any more power to minority and low-income folks than they already have; rather, the added power goes to bureaucrats, politicians and special interest groups speaking on behalf of those people but, more likely, pursuing their own agendas. This is precisely why Food & Water Watch is now playing the  environmental justice con game with that proposed SEPTA power plant; it’s a source of power to them to advance their own extremist policies (not to mention find-raise). The minority and low-income are just excuses.

The Pennsylvania environmental justice con game, outlined here, is a joke. The advisory board includes members from the radical Fair Shake Environmental Legal Services, there Sierra Club, a “riverkeeper” group, environmental law firms, similar organizations and but one voice for economic development, that being a waste management and incineration services company.

The whole thing its a cruel joke on minority and low-income communities who want jobs and higher incomes not the realization of some trust-funders aesthetic vision of what’s best for them. As one of our more avid readers notes:

I believe this phony ideology behind “environmental justice” was hatched to overturn the gravity feed power generation pipeline that had been planned for Storm King Mountain near West Point back in the 70’s. That trial was a watershed moment because environmentalism and it’s spawn “environmental justice” became a nascent tool in the anti-growth, de-growth toolkit. Something similar to what is called “environmental justice” today is what decided that case in favor of the anti who objected the pipe would ruin his view of the mountain. Never mind it would have prevented future brownouts/blackouts in NYC. The prevailing attorney was John Adams who later birthed the NRDC for the Rockefellers. Some environmental justice! The whole notion is an obscene joke and amounts to nothing more than discretionary veto power of one private property owner over another.

That’s well said. My view, as I’ve expressed here before, is that if there really were anything real by the name of “environmental justice” it would be about how the rich have used environmental excuses to limit growth and destroy economic opportunity for such amorphous things as the treasured view of a Patagonia jacketed hiker along the trails through the lands pastoral poverty where I grew up. It would be about how the DRBC is denying Pennsylvanians in Wayne County the same rights as Pennsylvanians a few miles away in the SRBC region, all for the purpose of appeasing wealthy special interests such as the Rockefeller family.

Interestingly (and quite laughably, I must add), DEP, in its desire to be as politically correct as possible while selling out Wayne County has helpfully produced an “Environmental Justice Areas Viewer.” It show areas of minority population and low-income by census block groups. Here’s an excerpt of the map for my area of Wayne County:

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There are two things to notice on this map. The first is in the lower left-hand corner, where Canaan Township is highlighted in pink. That means it has the threshold level of minority and low income housing to qualify for the environmental justice con game rewards. Why? Because there are two large prisons (one state and one Federal) in that community, the one responsible for what little growth in population Wayne County has had, But, by God, we’re protect the visual character of that area for those prisoners. They shouldn’t have to look at any damned drilling rigs, after all.

The second thing is the area immediately above which includes the northern part of Mount Pleasant Township and the southern part of Preston Township, both of which includes portions of the DRBC and SRBC regions. They directly adjoin Susquehanna County with gas wells just a couple of miles to the west. They are both prime areas for natural gas development and they’re poor. They need it.

So, what is environmental justice for them? It’s obviously to give them the same rights to develop their natural resources and their economies as their immediate neighbors enjoy. Instead, they are being denied those rights by rich elitist special interests who want nothing for them other than to quietly disappear so they can enjoy a wilderness playground. If a few poor people are needed as gatekeepers and to mow the lawns for a pittance that’s ok, of course. They can stay but the rest of us should learn a new trade and move on, according to the folks to whom the DRBC caters. I call that environmental injustice and it’s being packaged and sold as the opposite.

The post Sorry, DEP, But Your Environmental Justice Con Game Stinks appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

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Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Baltimore sues 26 energy companies for climate reparations

The city of Baltimore has filed lawsuits against 26 oil and natural gas companies seeking climate change reparations, Kallanish Energy reports.

“For 50 years, these companies have known their products would cause rising seas and other climate change-related problems facing Baltimore today,” City Solicitor Andre Davis said in a July 20 press conference.

“They could have warned us,” he said. “They could have taken steps to minimize or avoid the damage. In fact, they had a responsibility to do both, but they didn’t, and that’s why we are taking them to court.”

The Baltimore suits were filed in state court in Maryland one day after a federal judge had dismissed a similar suit filed by New York City.

Suits filed by San Francisco and Oakland in California had been dismissed last June.

Among the companies named as defendants in the Baltimore suits are ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP and Citgo.

The suits also allege eight offenses against the companies.

Baltimore joins 13 other cities and states that have sued for climate reparations.

Baltimore’s waterfront is 60 miles long and rising levels will have a huge impact on the city and its residents, officials said.


https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/baltimore-sues-26-energy-companies-for-climate-reparations/

DEP Says Shale Gas Air Impacts Limited, But Fractivists Deny Reality

Tom.jpg?resize=75%2C95Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

 

Shale gas air impacts are limited, according to a recent study by Pennsylvania DEP, but Clean Air Council fractivists simply deny the reality, of course.

You really don’t need to know a lot more about the Clean Air Council’s lack of intellectual honesty than to read trust-funder Joseph Otis Minott’s statement regarding a recent Pennsylvania DEP air quality study finding shale gas air impacts to be limited. Here’s what Minott had to say:

Joseph Otis Minott, executive director of the Clean Air Council, said the report’s findings “are consistent with other recent public health studies, which demonstrate that unconventional natural gas operations can pose serious risks of harmful health impacts to sensitive and vulnerable populations in the Commonwealth, which includes children.”

No one who bothers to read the report could possibly fail to see how deceptive this comment really is. It speaks volumes about the lack of intellectual honesty among hired-gun fractivists who purposely deny reality. Even the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where Minott’s quote appeared, saw the truth, titling its piece “DEP’s overdue Marcellus Shale air study finds few health risks.”

The easiest way to point out Minott’s lack off honesty is to direct your attention to the full study here and summarize the relevant points from the Executive Summary (emphasis added):

…in July 2012, the Department initiated a long-term, one-year ambient air monitoring project of Marcellus shale development to understand further the impacts of the shale gas industry on Pennsylvania’s overall air quality. The project placed emphasis on characterizing concentrations of criteria and hazardous air pollutants near permanent facilities related to the Marcellus Shale gas industry in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

Washington County was specifically chosen because it was the first county to commence extraction from Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. Also, with the county’s continued natural gas field development, it has significant permanent gathering and treatment infrastructure either in place or in late-term development.

Finally, Washington County has more historic ambient air monitoring stations than most other counties in this region. These stations can provide infrastructure for new air quality monitors as well as historic ambient concentration data for target criteria pollutants…

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While the primary goal of the long-term project was to “determine any chronic or long-term risks to the public from individual or multiple shale gas sources,” there were three basic goals associated with this project.

The first goal included examination of both toxic/hazardous air pollutants (HAP) and criteria pollutants. The second goal was to identify and assess potential increases in ambient concentrations of criteria pollutants in the project area over the duration of the project and to compare observed ambient concentrations to historical data collected both in the project area and other existing monitoring locations within the Commonwealth.

The third goal of the project was to assess and identify potential implications that the observed results may have in other areas of the Commonwealth with varying populations and environmental conditions that might host similar facilities…

The long-term study included four specific air quality monitoring sites in Washington County. The sites included Meddings Road, Welsh Road, Jaspen Way, and Henderson Road. Each site was determined to be sufficient to characterize ambient air concentrations of criteria and/or toxic pollutants and meteorology in the study area potentially affected by emissions from the oil and gas operations.

An additional fifth site located in Arendtsville, Adams County, was established outside of the natural gas development areas of Washington County. This site was to serve as a local background concentration study site. Meteorological measurements were collected from each of the monitoring sites…

Data for target pollutant concentrations was collected at the project sites over a one-year period. The data was analyzed and compared to other sites in the project area and to a historical ambient air monitoring site in the rural setting of Arendtsville, Adams County, where no oil or natural gas production occurs.

The data was processed using validation and usability determinations prior to being analyzed for comparison to primary and secondary National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for criteria pollutants. Toxics/HAP data were validated and quality-assured using United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA or EPA) methods for non-criteria pollutant data collection and consistent with guidance for data analysis for the National Air Toxics Trend Station (NATTS) program.

Criteria pollutant data analysis consisted of employing EPA-required data reduction and analysis methods. Toxics risk/hazard screening was consistent with the Bureau of Air Quality’s methodology for ambient toxic pollutant risk/hazard screening…

Key findings of the long-term ambient air monitoring project include:

  • The primary criteria pollutant monitoring site, Meddings Road, did not report NAAQS-related values for any of the monitored criteria pollutants (e.g., Ozone, NO2, PM2.5, CO) which exceeded the applicable NAAQS or indicated a probable future exceedance based on the data pattern. In addition, the pattern of recorded pollutant concentration measurements did not indicate a localized source impact which would cause an exceedance of any of the NAAQS evaluated.
  • The Meddings Road site measured significantly fewer Air Quality Index (AQI) days less than “Good” than local comparison sites. The site measured 93 days classified as “Moderate” and one day classified as “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups.” In comparison, the Charleroi site measured 195 “Moderate” days and three “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” days. The Florence (a background impact site) measured 160 “Moderate” days and two “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” days.
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  • There was no significant difference in either cumulative estimated Excess Lifetime Cancer Risk (ELCR) or cumulative chronic non-cancer Hazard Quotient (HQ), also known as the Hazard Index (HI), between the four ambient air impact monitoring sites and the background site. The estimated ELCR for each of the five project sites fell between one in one million (1.0E-6) and one in ten thousand (1.0E-4). This is an acceptable range of ambient air inhalation risk for risk assessment screening purposes. Observed concentrations at sites were below levels where a chronic non-cancer hazard would be expected to manifest over a 70-year lifetime of exposure.
  • All four of the project HAP monitoring sites individually had a cumulative ELCR and HQ that were comparable to another historical Commonwealth VOC background concentration ambient monitoring site. This background site is located in Arendtsville, Adams County, in a non-natural gas development area. It is not in the immediate vicinity of any potential stationary source of toxic air pollution…

But, Joe Minott says the study demonstrates “unconventional natural gas operations can pose serious risks of harmful health impacts to sensitive and vulnerable populations.” Sure, Joe, sure. Keep spinning. Keep crying wolf. That’s what they pay you do I guess.

 

 

The post DEP Says Shale Gas Air Impacts Limited, But Fractivists Deny Reality appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/dep-says-shale-gas-air-impacts-limited-but-fractivists-deny-reality/

Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Shale Gas News – July 21, 2018

desRosiers_headshot.jpg?resize=75%2C85Bill desRosiers
External Affairs Coordinator, Cabot Oil & Gas

 

The Shale Gas News, heard every Saturday at 10 AM on 94.3 FM, 1510 AM and Sundays on YesFM, talked about U.S. oil production, New York farms, a new LNG plant and much more last week.

The Shale Gas News has grown again; welcome Gem 104 as our FOURTH station! Gem 104 helps to solidify the Shale Gas News coverage in an important Marcellus region, PA’s northern tier. The Shale Gas News is now broadcasting in Bradford, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Luzerne, Lycoming, Pike, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga and Wayne Counties, as well as in greater central PA. The Shale Gas News is aired on Saturday or Sunday depending on the station.

Every Saturday Rusty Fender and I host a morning radio show to discuss all things natural gas. This week, as guests, we had Wes Carnes, CEO/Owner at WC Welding Services and Bob Legg, Mayor of Old Forge.

NYConnectingNextGenFarmers-512x384.jpg

The Shale Gas News, typically, is broadcast live. On the July 21st show (click above), we covered the following new territory (see news excerpts below):

  • Shale Sends U.S. Oil Production Past 11 Million Barrel Per Day Threshold for First Time. The shale revolution has yielded yet another once unimaginable energy achievement. New U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data show weekly U.S. oil production reached the 11 million barrels per day (b/d) for the first time ever last week. The driving force behind such an unprecedented record? Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, plain and simple. Thanks to continuously evolving technologies, the U.S. shale revolution that took flight in 2008 has transformed the energy market and, as a result, oil production has literally doubled since 2010.
  • Losing Streak Emerges As NYC, Hired Guns Defeated In Climate Change Case By Big Oil. Federal judges continue to reject the efforts of private lawyers who hold a financial stake in lawsuits brought by government officials against the oil industry over the alleged effects of climate change. On Thursday, a New York federal judge dismissed the lawsuit brought by New York City and attorneys at Hagens Berman working on a contingency fee against five of the biggest oil companies in the world, finding that the issue has already been decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • All natural? These fracking byproducts could fight water scarcity. Between 6 and 18 million gallons of freshwater hover above every square mile of land, not counting droplets trapped in clouds. Scientists realized this centuries ago but they never have quite figured out how to bring the water down to earth. The effort required to condense it would consume such vast quantities of energy that it always has appeared to make any effort to capture and use this water uneconomical. But while studying this topic, two of my University of Texas at Austin colleagues and I came up with a concept that might just work: that of using the natural gas that is otherwise flared from oilfields to harvest atmospheric moisture.
  • Texas Now Earth’s Third Most Prolific Oil Producer, Behind Only Russia and Saudi Arabia. The state of Texas has now truly become a global oil superpower. As CNN Money reports, the Lone Star State has now passed Iran and Iraq to become the third largest producer of crude on the planet. Only Russia and Saudi Arabia now produce more oil than the state of Texas. The explosion in Texas energy came after drilling prices plunged, which led to a modern-day black-gold rush in the Permian Basin
  • In N.Y., farmers think about what might have been. SPENCER, N.Y. — When Kevin “Cub” Frisbie wants to see what shale can do for a place, all he has to do is get in his pickup and drive 15 miles south to Bradford County, Pa. There, the pavement on the road smooths out. There are new hotels and a new Dunkin’ Donuts. In front of the family farms, Frisbie, a farmer himself, will notice the new silos and equipment. “All this, there’s just nothing but commerce going on, commerce going on,” he said. Crossing back into Tioga County, N.Y., Frisbie will pass the retired feed mill and the shuttered storefronts of Broad Street. He’ll pass farms that he knows are right on the edge of survival.
  • Duke Energy Plans 1 Bcf LNG Plant in NC Fed by Marc/Utica Gas. Some exciting news from Piedmont Natural Gas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Duke Energy. The company recently announced it plans to spend $250 million to build a 1 billion cubic feet LNG storage facility in southern North Carolina, in Robeson County. Gas is liquefied and stored as backup for residential customers to use during periods of high demand–mainly wintertime. And guess which pipeline (now under construction) will terminate right there, in Robeson County? That’s right, the Atlantic Coast Pipeline–a joint venture between Dominion Energy and Duke Energy.
  • Fracking Acid Leaks from Truck in Ohio, Forces Brief Evacuation.  A spill of hydrochloric acid on Monday in Weathersfield (Trumbull County), Ohio caused a brief evacuation of three hours for 23 homes and several businesses in the area. Nobody was hurt. The acid was stored in a tanker truck. The trucking company, Predator Trucking, is headquartered in Texas but maintains a regional operation in Weathersfield. Predator is a shale subcontractor hauling various liquids, including hydrochloric acid, used in fracking. The truck in question has two chambers that hold 2,500 gallons each. A valve became corroded on one of the chambers and while the truck was parked at the company’s facility, all 2,500 gallons leaked out. It created a vapor cloud and the concern was that it may shift, hence the evacuations, out of “an abundance of caution.”

The Shale Gas News sponsored by Linde Corporation

The post Shale Gas News – July 21, 2018 appeared first on Natural Gas Now.

https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/shale-gas-news-july-21-2018/

Monday, July 23, 2018

U.S. crude rises $1, but posts 3rd straight weekly loss

Oil prices rose Friday as a weakening dollar and lower expected August oil exports from Saudi Arabia supported the market, overtaking concerns about U.S.-China trade tensions and supply increases.

Despite Friday’s gains, crude futures posted a third consecutive weekly decline as supply increases pulled prices lower during the course of the week, Reuters reported.

The expiring U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude contract for August delivery ended Friday's session up $1, or 1.4%, to $70.46 a barrel, while the more heavily traded September contract was trading 10 cents higher, at $68.34/Bbl just before the settle, Kallanish Energy learns.

Brent oil was 47 cents higher, at $73.05/Bbl by 2:27 p.m. ET Friday.

Crude futures got a boost as the U.S. dollar slumped on comments from President Trump that China and Europe are manipulating their currency and the Federal Reserve is hurting economic growth by raising interest rates.

A weaker greenback typically supports oil prices because it makes crude, which is sold in dollars, more affordable to holders of other currencies.

Prices are also finding some support after OPEC’s largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, said it would ease its exports next month.

There was also bullish news from American oilfields, where U.S. energy companies last week cut oil rigs by the most since March. Drillers cut 5 oil rigs in the week ended July 20, bringing the total count down to 1,019, Baker Hughes, a GE company said in its rig survey released Friday.

However, trade tensions continued to weigh on the market, providing a ceiling for any gains, traders said. Trump said in a CNBC interview he was ready to put tariffs on all $500 billion of imported goods from China.

Lower oil demand in the U.S. and China caused by an economic slowdown from their trade dispute would likely weigh heavily on markets.

“The impact on world economic growth of a levy of this magnitude will be severe and will likely have a strong negative impact on markets,” said Olaf van den Heuvel, chief investment officer at Aegon Asset Management, Reuters reported.

Signs of Russia and Saudi Arabia increasing oil production, as well as last week’s surprise build in U.S. crude stockpiles, have also weighed on prices, said Tariq Zahir, analyst at Tyche Capital Advisors, Reuters reported.

“You’re having supply come back on to the markets, so it’s not surprising to see a little bit of weakness,” Zahir said.


https://www.shaledirectories.com/blog/u-s-crude-rises-1-but-posts-3rd-straight-weekly-loss/