Oil, Gas, And Fracking News Read 02May 2021 – Part 1

Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666

Here are some selected news articles from the week ended 01 May 2021. Part 2 is available here.

This is a feature at Global Economic Intersection every Monday evening or Tuesday morning.

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Refinery utilization rate highest in 57 weeks; gasoline output at 58 week high; imports of distillates a 35 week low

Oil prices moved higher this week as strong economic reports and rising product demand overshadowed the Covid disaster unfolding in India….after falling 1.6% to $62.14 a barrel last week on rising global Covid cases and on a surprise increase in US crude supplies, the contract price of US light sweet crude for June delivery opened lower and fell over 2% early Monday amid soaring coronavirus cases in major oil importer India but recovered to settle just 23 cents lower at $61.91 a barrel on Monday, as other news, particularly from the U.S., was looking a lot better, lending to traders’ optimism…oil prices continued higher on Tuesday after OPEC and its allies projected a strong recovery in global oil demand this year, and finished with a $1.03 gain at $62.94 a barrel even after OPEC, Russia and other producers agreed to stick to plans to raise output slightly starting May 1…oil prices dipped early Wednesday after the API reported a surprise build of crude supplies, but then surged to the highest level in over a month as declining oil product supplies and signs of stronger demand buttressed expectations for a revival in global consumption, and settled 92 cents, or 1.5% higher, at $63.86 per barrel….oil prices jumped to a six week high with the release of the US GDP report on Thursday morning, and held most of the early gains to end $1.15 higher at $65.01 a barrel, even as India continued to struggle with another rise in Covid-19 cases…oil prices dropped early on Friday as profit-taking and a strengthening U.S. dollar brought a end to the week’s rally, with oil closing $1.43 to $63.58 a barrel as investors unloaded positions after weak Japanese crude import data and on concern about fuel demand in India, but still ending with a gain of 2.3% on the week and of more than 7% for the month…

Natural gas prices also finished higher this week, on record exports and on declining gas field output… after rising 1.9% to $2.730 per mmBTU last week on an outbreak of record cold east of the Rockies, the contract price of natural gas for May delivery opened lower on Monday but gradually reversed course to close 6.0 cents higher at $2.790 per mmBTU, as continuously strong export demand pushed prices into positive territory…prices then jumped 8.3 cents to a nine-week high of 2.873 per mmBTU on record exports and lower gas output on Tuesday, and then rose another 5.2 cents on Wednesday as traders speculated that the much colder-than-usual weather last week might have led utilities to have pulled gas from storage, as trading in the May contract expired with May natural gas priced at $2.925 per mmBTU…with natural gas price quotes now referencing the contract price of natural gas for June delivery, prices reversed on Thursday and fell 4.9 cents to $2.911 per mmBTU, after EIA storage data showed natural gas inventories grew more than expected….natural gas prices then recovered 2.0 cents on Friday settle at $2.911 per mmBTU on forecasts for cooler weather over the next two weeks+, record exports and a small decline in output, and hence managed to end the week more than 7% higher, while the May contract, which had closed last week at $2.818 per mmBTU, posted a 4.0% gain…

The natural gas storage report from the EIA for the week ending April 23rd indicated that the amount of natural gas held in underground storage in the US rose by 15 billion cubic feet to 1,898 billion cubic feet by the end of the week, which left our gas supplies 302 billion cubic feet, or 13.7% below the 2,200 billion cubic feet that were in storage on April 23rd of last year, and 40 billion cubic feet, or 2.1% below the five-year average of 1,938 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have been in storage as of the 23rd of April in recent years….the 15 billion cubic feet that were added to US natural gas storage this week was more than the average forecast of a 9 billion cubic foot addition from an S&P Global Platts survey of analysts, but measured well below the average addition of 67 billion cubic feet of natural gas that have typically been injected into natural gas storage during the same week over the past 5 years, as well as well below the 66 billion cubic feet added to natural gas storage during the corresponding week of 2020…

The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA

US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending April 23rd showed that because of a big increase in our oil imports, we had surplus oil to add to our stored commercial crude supplies for the seventh time in ten weeks and for the 15th time in the past forty weeks….our imports of crude oil rose by an average of 1,211,000 barrels per day to an average of 6,616,000 barrels per day, after falling by an average of 448,000 barrels per day during the prior week, while our exports of crude oil fell by an average of 7,000 barrels per day to an average of 2,541,000 barrels per day during the week, which meant that our effective trade in oil worked out to a net import average of 4,075,000 barrels of per day during the week ending April 23rd, 1,218,000 more barrels per day than the net of our imports minus our exports during the prior week…over the same period, the production of crude oil from US wells was reportedly 100,000 barrels per day lower at 10,900,000 barrels per day, and hence our daily supply of oil from the net of our trade in oil and from well production appears to total an average of 14,975,000 barrels per day during this reporting week…

US oil refineries reported they were processing 15,018,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending April 23rd, 253,000 more barrels per day than the amount of oil they used during the prior week, while over the same period the EIA’s surveys indicated that a net of 194,000 barrels of oil per day were being pulled out of the supplies of oil stored in the US….so based on that reported & estimated data, this week’s crude oil figures from the EIA appear to indicate that our total working supply of oil from net imports, from storage, and from oilfield production was a rounded 150,000 barrels per day more than what our oil refineries reported they used during the week….to account for that disparity between the apparent supply of oil and the apparent disposition of it, the EIA just plugged a (-150,000) barrel per day figure onto line 13 of the weekly U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet to make the reported data for the daily supply of oil and the consumption of it balance out, essentially a fudge factor that they label in their footnotes as “unaccounted for crude oil”, thus suggesting there must have been a error or errors of that magnitude in this week’s oil supply & demand figures that we have just transcribed…..furthermore, since last week’s EIA fudge factor was at +887,000 barrels per day, there was a 1,038,000 barrel per day balance sheet difference in the unaccounted for crude oil figure from a week ago, which renders the week over week supply and demand changes we have just transcribed meaningless….however, since most everyone treats these weekly EIA reports as gospel and since these figures often drive oil pricing and hence decisions to drill or complete wells, we’ll continue to report them as they’re published, just as they’re watched & believed to be accurate by most everyone in the industry….(for more on how this weekly oil data is gathered, and the possible reasons for that “unaccounted for” oil, see this EIA explainer)….

Further details from the weekly Petroleum Status Report (pdf) indicate that the 4 week average of our oil imports fell to an average of 6,034,000 barrels per day last week, which is now 10.7% more than the 5,448,000 barrel per day average that we were importing over the same four-week Covid impacted period last year… the 194,000 barrel per day net withdrawal from our crude inventories included a 207,000 barrel per day withdrawal from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, space in which has been leased for commerical purposes, which was slighly offset by a 13,000 barrel per day addition to our commercially available stocks of crude oil….this week’s crude oil production was reported to be 100,000 barrels per day lower at 10,900,000 barrels per day because the rounded estimate of the output from wells in the lower 48 states was 100,000 barrels per day lower at 10,500,000 barrels per day, while a 3,000 barrel per day decrease in Alaska’s oil production to 442,000 barrels per day did not impact the rounded national total….our prepandemic record high US crude oil production during the week ending March 13th 2020 was at a rounded 13,100,000 barrels per day, so this reporting week’s reported oil production figure was 16.8% below that of our production peak, yet still 29.3% above the interim low of 8,428,000 barrels per day that US oil production fell to during the last week of June of 2016…

Meanwhile, US oil refineries were operating at 85.4% of their capacity while using those 15,018,000 barrels of crude per day during the week ending April 23rd, up from 85.0% the prior week, and the highest refinery utilization rate in 57 weeks, reflecting the refinery utilization level during the last week before the pandemic related slowdown…while the 15,018,000 barrels per day of oil that were refined this week were 17.7% higher than the 12,761,000 barrels of crude that were being processed daily during the week ending April 24th of last year, they were still 8.7% below the 16,446,000 barrels of crude that were being processed daily during the week ending April 26th, 2019, when US refineries were operating at a still low 89.2% of capacity…

With this week’s increase in the amount of oil being refined, the gasoline output from our refineries increased by 243,000 barrels per day to a fifty-eight week high of 9,629,000 barrels per day during the week ending April 23rd, after our gasoline output had decreased by 229,000 barrels per day over the prior week…while this week’s gasoline production was 43.0% higher than the 6,735,000 barrels of gasoline that were being produced daily over the same week of last year, it was still 3.5% lower than the March 13th 2020 pre-pandemic high of 9,974,000 barrels per day, and 3.0% below the gasoline production of 9,927,000 barrels per day during the week ending April 26th, 2019….meanwhile, our refineries’ production of distillate fuels (diesel fuel and heat oil) increased by 71,000 barrels per day to 4,626,000 barrels per day, after our distillates output had decreased by 89,000 barrels per day over the prior week… but since the onset of the pandemic last year didn’t appear to impact distillates’ production, this week’s distillates output was still 7.1% lower than the 4,982,000 barrels of distillates that were being produced daily during the week ending April 24th, 2020…

With the increase in our gasoline production, our supply of gasoline in storage at the end of the week increased for the eighteenth time in twenty-four weeks, and for 22d time in 41 weeks, but only rose by 92,000 barrels to 235,074,000 barrels during the week ending April 23rd, after our gasoline inventories had increased by 85,000 barrels over the prior week...our gasoline supplies managed to increase this week because the amount of gasoline supplied to US users decreased by 227,000 barrels per day to 8,877,000 barrels per day while our imports of gasoline fell by 98,000 barrels per day to 1,021,000 barrels per day, and while our exports of gasoline fell by 73,000 barrels per day to 604,000 barrels per day….but even after four straight inventory increases, our gasoline supplies still were 9.4% lower than last April 24th’s gasoline inventories of 259,565,000 barrels, and about 3% below the five year average of our gasoline supplies for this time of the year…

Even with the increase in our distillates production, our supplies of distillate fuels decreased for the 9th time in 19 weeks and for the 23rd time in thirty-five weeks, falling by 3,342,000 barrels to 139,049,000 barrels during the week ending April 23rd, after our distillates supplies had decreased by 1,073,000 barrels during the prior week….our distillates supplies fell by more this week because the amount of distillates supplied to US markets, an indicator of our domestic demand, rose by 476,000 barrels per day to 4,330.000 barrels per day, while our imports of distillates fell by 27,000 barrels per day to a 32 week low of 135,000 barrels per day, and while our exports of distillates fell by 108,000 barrels per day to 908,000 barrels per day….after this week’s inventory decrease, our distillate supplies at the end of the week were 2.1% below the 141,972,000 barrels of distillates that we had in storage on April 24th, 2020, and just about at the five year average of distillates stocks for this time of the year…

Finally, with the big jump in our oil imports, our commercial supplies of crude oil in storage rose for the 11th time in the past twenty-four weeks and for the 26th time in the past year, but only by 90,000 barrels, from 493,017,000 barrels on April 16th to 493,107,000 barrels on April 23rd…after this week’s nominal increase, our commercial crude oil inventories were close to the most recent five-year average of crude oil supplies for this time of year, and at about 42% above the average of our crude oil stocks as of the fourth weekend of April over the 5 years at the beginning of this decade, with the disparity between those comparisons arising because it wasn’t until early 2015 that our oil inventories first topped 400 million barrels….since our crude oil inventories had jumped to record highs during the Covid lockdowns of last spring, our commercial crude oil supplies as of April 23rd are now 6.5% less than the 527,631,000 barrels of oil we had in commercial storage on April 24th of 2020, but still 4.8% more than the 470,567,000 barrels of oil that we had in storage on April 26th of 2019, and also 13.1% more than the 435,955,000 barrels of oil we had in commercial storage on April 27th of 2018…

This Week’s Rig Count

The US rig count rose for the 29th time over the past 33 weeks during the week ending April 30th, but is still down by 44.5% from the pre-pandemic rig count….Baker Hughes reported that the total count of rotary rigs running in the US was up by 2 to 440 rigs this past week, which was also up by 32 rigs from the pandemic hit 408 rigs that were in use as of the May 1st report of 2020, but was still 1,489 fewer rigs than the shale era high of 1,929 drilling rigs that were deployed on November 21st of 2014, the week before OPEC began to flood the global oil market in their first attempt to put US shale out of business….

The number of rigs drilling for oil was down by 1 to 342 oil rigs this week, after falling by 1 the prior week, still leaving us with 17 more oil rigs than were running a year ago, but less than 21% of the recent high of 1609 rigs that were drilling for oil on October 10th, 2014….at the same time, the number of drilling rigs targeting natural gas bearing formations was up by 2 to 96 natural gas rigs, which was also up by 15 natural gas rigs from the 81 natural gas rigs that were drilling a year ago, but still just 6.0% of the modern era high of 1,606 rigs targeting natural gas that were deployed on September 7th, 2008…in addition, a rig started drilling in the Permian basin in Midland county Texas that was classified as ‘miscellaneous’ this week, while a “miscellaneous” rig also continued to drill in Lake County, California, thus matching the “miscellaneous” rig count of two a year ago..

The Gulf of Mexico rig count was up by 2 to 13 rigs this week, with 12 of those rigs now drilling for oil in Louisiana’s offshore waters and 1 rig continuing to drill for oil in Alaminos Canyon offshore from Texas…that was 3 fewer Gulf of Mexico rigs than the 13 rigs drilling in the Gulf a year ago, when all 16 Gulf rigs were drilling for oil offshore from Louisiana…since there are no rigs operating off of other US shores at this time, nor were there a year ago, this week’s national offshore rig totals are equal to the Gulf rig counts…however, in addition to those rigs offshore, a rig continued to drill through an inland lake in St Mary parish Louisiana, while a year ago there were no rigs deployed on inland waters…

The count of active horizontal drilling rigs was up by 1 to 398 horizontal rigs this week, which was also up by 24 rigs from the 374 horizontal rigs that were in use in the US on May 1st of last year, and less than a third of the record of 1372 horizontal rigs that were deployed on November 21st of 2014….at the same time, the directional rig count was up by 4 rigs to 23 directional rigs this week, which was the same number of directional rigs that were operating during the same week a year ago….on the other hand, the vertical rig count was down by 4 to 19 vertical rigs this week, but those were up by 8 from the 11 vertical rigs that were in use on May 1st of 2020….

The details on this week’s changes in drilling activity by state and by major shale basin are shown in our screenshot below of that part of the rig count summary pdf from Baker Hughes that gives us those changes…the first table below shows weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major oil & gas producing states, and the table below that shows the weekly and year over year rig count changes for the major US geological oil and gas basins…in both tables, the first column shows the active rig count as of April 30th, the second column shows the change in the number of working rigs between last week’s count (April 23rd) and this week’s (April 30th) count, the third column shows last week’s April 23rd active rig count, the 4th column shows the change between the number of rigs running on Friday and the number running on the Friday before the same weekend of a year ago, and the 5th column shows the number of rigs that were drilling at the end of that reporting week a year ago, which in this week’s case was the 1st of May, 2020..

As you can see, there were again just a few changes this week, with all of those in the South….checking first for the details on the Permian basin in Texas from the Rigs by State file at Baker Hughes, we find that that four rigs were pulled out of Texas Oil District 8, which is the core Permian Delaware, and that three rigs added in Texas Oil District 7C, which encompasses the southern counties of the Permian Midland….since the Texas Permian was thus down by 1 this week, that means that the rig that was pulled out of New Mexico must have been targeting the farthest west reaches of the Permian Delaware to accounting for the national loss of two Permian rigs….elsewhere in Texas, we had single rigs added in Texas Oil District 1, Texas Oil District 3, and Texas Oil District 4, one of which was an oil rig that was added in the Eagle Ford, while the other two had to be natural gas rigs targetting a Texas basin not tracked by Baker Hughes, since the two Louisiana additions were oil rigs offshore, and other than the ‘miscellaneous’ rig addition, all other Permian changes also involved oil rigs..

Local woman testifies on environment – Martins Ferry Times Leader – Jill Hunkler of Barnesville testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Environment on Thursday – Earth Day 2021 – opposing government subsidies to the natural gas and oil industry. Also speaking were representatives of Harvard University and Stockholm Environmental Institute’s Climate Policy Program, along with Swedish youth activist Greta Thunberg, who is known around the world for her efforts. Hunkler has long opposed the fossil fuel industry and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” – a process that uses high-pressure water, sand and chemicals to fracture the bedrock and release gases trapped within it. On Thursday, she described her experience of living in Appalachia.“Continuing to subsidize the fossil fuel industry will not only perpetuate the climate crisis, but the plastics pollution, environmental justice and public health crises as well,” she said. “I’m a fracking refugee. I was forced from my home at the headwaters of the historically pristine Captina Creek watershed … after being surrounded by oil and gas infrastructure and its associated pollution, including a compressor station, 78 fracking wells, an interstate and gathering pipelines – all within a 5-mile radius of my home.”Hunkler said air pollution from the industry “hovers in the hollows” of the local region. She said people living in the hills have health issues as a result, and that residents must deal with unsafe roadways due to industry traffic, air and noise pollution and spring and well water contamination. She also referred to the 2018 well pad explosion near Powhatan Point and a 2017 brine truck spill outside Barnesville.“I never imagined that my quiet country and healthy way of life would disappear. The negative health impacts we experienced were too much to bear,” she said. “Belmont County is the most heavily fracked within the state, with over 595 producing wells.” Hunkler is also worried about fracking wastewater being transported via barges on the Ohio River and opposes the PTT Global Chemical America ethane cracker plant proposed for the Dillies Bottom area along the river and Ohio 7.“In the years since the fracking boom began, Belmont and other Eastern Ohio gas producing counties haven’t gained jobs,” she said. “In fact, we have lost more than 6,500 jobs according to the data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the region’s population has declined by more than 13,000 people according to research by the Ohio River Valley Institute.” In answer to a question from U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, Hunkler said she had experienced odors, headaches, body aches, rashes and mental confusion. She said little action from the state came in response to complaints.“Now the petrochemical industry wants to invade and create even more toxic air pollution. The industry will require even more fracking in our region to make feedstock for plastics. The regulatory agencies are already failing to protect communities from air pollution from fracking, and now they have granted air permits to the PTT Global Chemical ethane cracker plant,” she said, adding she fears the facility would emit tons of hazardous contaminants into the air if constructed. She also expressed concerns about the proposed Mountaineer Natural Gas Liquids storage facility planned near the Ohio River in Monroe County, which would develop salt caverns to store materials such as ethane in proximity to the Ohio River.

Tomechko v. Garrett – Ohio’s Seventh District Holds Adverse Possession of Shallow Gas Covers All Gas – Tomechko involved a 60.24-acre tract in Beaver Township, Noble County, originally owned by Herbert Garrett and John Garrett as tenants in common.[2] Herbert died in 1965 and devised his interest to his wife, Mary. In 1977, Mary conveyed it to Coralee Garrett, the wife of John Garrett, but reserved “one-half interest all the minerals in and under” the property and other lands (hereinafter, the “1977 Reservation.”).[3] …[…]…The amended complaint asserted, inter alia, that the 1977 reservation of “all minerals” did not actually include oil and gas, and that the shallow gas production adversely possessed all the oil and gas on the tract.[12] With regard to the question of whether “all minerals” in the 1977 deed included oil and gas, the trial court relied uponSheba v. Kautz and held that, because oil and gas development was common by this point, “all minerals” included oil and gas.[13] As to adverse possession, the trial court held that, as to the shallow rights, adverse possession was established because the Tomechkos’ actual production met the exclusivity requirements.[14]However, because the deep rights were not produced, exclusivity was not established, and adverse possession was not established as to the deep oil and gas on the property.[15] On appeal, the Seventh District agreed with the trial court: the reservation of “all minerals” in the 1977 deed included oil and gas.[16] In short, oil and gas development was common by 1977 and because there was no language compelling otherwise, oil and gas was included. As to adverse possession, however, the Seventh District disagreed. Acknowledging that neither party cited any cases addressing the “vertical limits of an adverse possessor’s rights to minerals[,]” the Seventh District discussed Diederick v. Ware, 288 S.W.2d 643, (C.A. Ky. 1956). The Kentucky court held that two wells producing on a 56-acre parcel that met the requirements for adverse possession “modified the subterranean structure under the large tract of land and this constituted constructive possession of all of the minerals underlying the entire 56-acre estate.”[17] The Kentucky court said this was because of the “fugacious nature of oil and gas and how it alters property and the strata upon withdrawal of oil and gas by drilling.”[18] Finding the facts before it similar enough, the Seventh District drew the same conclusion: “The Court finds that appellee possesses the deep rights in this case based upon the adverse possession of the shallow rights, the permeating nature of the drilling and production of oil and gas, and the lease with Trans Atlantic which provided for drilling to all strata.”[19]

Utica Oil Production to Inch Forward in May, Gas Output to Decline – Oil production from the Marcellus and Utica-Point Pleasant shale plays is expected to increase slightly in May, while natural gas output is anticipated to decline, according to the latest report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.The EIA’s monthly survey of oil and gas drilling production in the country’s shale plays shows that oil production in Appalachia – considered eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia – should increase by 1,000 barrels per day throughout May.The region encompasses the Utica-Point Pleasant and Marcellus shale ranges, rock formations that produce mostly dry and natural-gas liquids.According to the EIA, the region’s wells produced 127,000 barrels of oil per day in April. That number is projected to increase to 128,000 barrels in May.Natural gas production, however, is expected to continue to decline as warmer months set in across this part of the country.EIA reports that natural gas output should drop to 34.14 billion cubic feet per day in May, a decline of about 65 million cubic feet from April.That’s still less a drop from earlier this year, the EIA reports. In March, natural gas production was estimated to decline by 260 million cubic feet per day, while production was expected to be down by 118 million cubic feet per day in February.Of the seven major shale plays in the United States, just two – the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, and the Haynesville in Texas and Louisiana – are expected to increase natural gas production in May, according to EIA.In addition to Appalachia, only the Permian is expected to increase oil production in May, the EIA reported.Meanwhile, drilling activity in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties remains quiet. This week, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources reported a single permit issued to Hilcorp Energy Co. to deepen its Elkrun-Baker 7H well in order to drill a new horizontal leg. Hilcorp continues to be the most active driller in the northern tier of the Utica-Point Pleasant formation

CNX Still Sees Utica Shale in Longer-Term Growth Plan – CNX Resources Corp. got a lift from stronger first quarter commodity prices as it continued executing on a broader seven-year plan it laid out in 2020. The company said free cash flow (FCF), up for the fifth consecutive quarter, came in at $101 million. It has also increased its full-year FCF guidance to $450 million from a previous target of $425 million. Between 2020 and 2026, the company is aiming to generate $3 billion in FCF. The gains helped the company to cut net debt by $70 million and repurchase 1.5 million shares at a total cost of $18 million under an existing buyback program. COO Chad Griffith said the Appalachian pure-play producer also expects costs to continue coming down as unused firm transportation (FT) capacity comes off the balance sheet and interest expenses are reduced. He said $10 million of unused FT would roll off this year, along with a modest amount in 2022, and another $20 million from 2023-2025 as contractual obligations expire. CNX turned five Marcellus Shale wells to sales during the first quarter and plans to bring another 13 online in the coming weeks at an average cost of $650/lateral foot. That compares to deep Utica Shale well costs in southwest Pennsylvania of $1,420/lateral foot. Griffith said the company brought online two deep Utica wells during the quarter. CNX has only four additional Utica wells planned in southwestern Pennsylvania through 2026, It also plans about a pad every year in the Utica window of central Pennsylvania. However, Griffith said the company is “excited about the deep Utica’s potential as either a growth driver if gas prices improve, or as a continuation of our business plan years into the future,” as costs for the wells continue to decline.CNX produced 140.6 Bcfe in the first quarter, up from 134.4 Bcfe in the year-ago period. The company said its average realized commodity prices during the first quarter, including hedges, were $2.73/Mcfe, up from $2.59 in the year-ago period. Revenue also increased over the same time to $473 million, compared with $416 million in the year-ago period.

CNX’s chief excellence officer talks about the driller’s big moves in ESG – CNX Resources Corp., one of the region’s largest natural gas producers, unveiled initiatives that will dramatically reduce methane emissions and prevent leakage into the air. CNX (NYSE: CNX) was the first in the Marcellus and Utica Shale to employ all-electric hydraulic fracturing machinery, which removed diesel emissions and saved money during the natural gas drilling and completions process. It recycles 98% of its produced fluids that eliminate water withdrawals and disposal, as well as using pipelines instead of trucks. It has reduced scope 1 and scope 2 tier emissions, two measures of emissions in the industry, over 90% since 2011. Now, said CNX Chief Excellence Officer Olayemi Akinkugbe, it’s moving ahead with plans to make even further gains: The team, along with commercially available technology, have developed a method to minimize methane leaks from blowdown and pneumatic devices that CNX says makes up about half of its emissions. Instead of using gas on this equipment to move things along, it’ll be using compressed air. Pipelines are cleaned and maintained via a process known as pigging that allows work to go on even while the pipeline is maintained. But the traditional process requires venting of a portion of the pipeline during the pigging process, which allows an amount of methane to escape into the air. Instead, CNX’s innovation is to capture the methane before it escapes into the air and put it back into the pipe. That’s good for the environment and good for CNX’s bottom line because methane is sellable natural gas. “We’ve designed a system that allows us to have zero emissions from pigging, and we’re building around that right now,” Akinkugbe said. “Our goal is to make it the standard operational protocol for the team, where emissions from pigging could be a thing of the past for CNX.” That’s a significant development, not only because of the emissions at the well pad, but also because CNX is virtually alone among the larger gas companies because it owns its own midstream pipeline and compression system that brings natural gas from the well pad to the transmission pipelines or processing plants. And innovation for that whole chain is very much key to the whole process, he said.

Ohio Valley Natural Gas Counties Get Small Piece Of National Economic Pie – An analysis of natural gas production in the Ohio Valley finds that the biggest gas producing counties in the region suffered economically over the past decade compared to the rest of the country, although natural gas production was high. The report released Wednesday by the Ohio River Valley Institute, a nonprofit think tank, shows that 22 counties in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania produced more than 90% of the region’s natural gas, but saw declines in their share of income, population, and jobs between 2008 and 2019. Personal income and job growth in those counties lagged far behind the national average, and population declined.The report includes Belmont, Carroll, Guernsey, Harrison, Jefferson, Monroe, and Noble Counties in Ohio. The West Virginia counties include Doddridge, Harrison, Marshal, Ohio, Ritchie, Tyler, and Wetzel. Eight Pennsylvania counties are also included. Over 10 years ago, studies from industry and supporters said that natural gas production would boost local economies by providing new jobs and revenue. But according to the report titled, “Appalachia’s Natural Gas Counties: Contributing more to the U.S. economy and getting less in return”, job growth in the 22 counties only increased by 1.7%. Nationally, job growth grew by 10%. “It’s quite evident that not only among the public but even among policy makers, people in a position to know, they really don’t,” O’Leary said. “They really do imagine that there are more jobs and more development going on out there than in fact is the case.”Economic output in the 22 counties increased by 60%but there was little input into local economies. Jobs decreased by 7.5%, population fell by 9.6 %, and personal income decreased by 6.3%. O’Leary said that while money is being invested in the counties to produce gas and gas is being sold to produce revenue, very little of that is landing in the 22 counties. “While the facilities are located in these counties, the people who build them, the material with which they are built, various professional services that are required to do all this, are for the most part acquired from outside of the region,” O’Leary explained.

Infrastructure funding could be ‘opportunity of a lifetime’ to plug thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -By some accounts, Pennsylvania has the worst accumulation of old, unplugged, ownerless oil and gas wells in the nation. There are an estimated 200,000 of them, and the cost to plug them could exceed $6 billion. The state’s orphan well plugging program has been underfunded for decades, but it is primed to take advantage of an influx of cash.Part of President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion proposal to upgrade the nation’s infrastructure would dedicate $16 billion to reclaiming abandoned wells and mines across the U.S.Cementing shut wells that were left behind during more than a century of drilling has emerged as a popular policy in the past year. It bridges environmental groups – who want to cap scattered hazards that leak brine, oil and methane, a powerful greenhouse gas – and oil and gas companies – who see it as a growth area for their business as drilling declines.It isn’t certain that every item in the Biden administration’s sweeping infrastructure proposal will end up in final legislation before Congress or that a broad infrastructure bill will pass.But “there appears to be bipartisan coast-to-coast support for stimulus for orphan well plugging and remediation,” said Adam Peltz, a senior attorney at the Environmental Defense Fund.“There’s good reason for optimism that it will occur at some point this year.”Pennsylvania environmental regulators and the state’s conventional oil and gas industry have spent years drawing attention to the dire need for more funding and studying ways to plug vastly more abandoned wells.The Department of Environmental Protection has lined up 500 priority and nearby wells that could be bid right away when stimulus funding arrives.The federal money, if it comes through, would be “the opportunity of a lifetime,” said Seth Pelepko, environmental program manager at the oil and gas bureau. “A lot of what we do right now is looking for sources of money, looking for partnerships,” he said. Instead, his six-person team could turn to executing a plugging program for the 8,700 verified wells on Pennsylvania’s abandoned wells list and identifying the several hundred thousand wells that are believed to be scattered around the state but not yet on the list. Bills introduced in the U.S. House and Senate in recent weeks would dedicate between $5 billion and $8 billion to plugging orphan wells, with the bulk of the funds dispersed to states through grants administered by the Department of the Interior. Both proposals include initial grants of up to $25 million to states with established well cleanup programs, like Pennsylvania, that can quickly sign contracts to use a surge of funding within months. Even a fraction of the proposed cash would be more money than Pennsylvania’s well plugging program has ever seen.

Third producer makes move toward responsibly sourced natural gas – Another Appalachian natural gas producer will seek environmentally friendly natural gas certification from the two accreditors that EQT Corp. announced a partnership with earlier this month, the third move by a Marcellus and Utica shale producer to commit to methane-reduction standards. Northeast Natural Energy, which has about 100 wells and 115 billion cubic feet of natural gas production along the Pennsylvania border in West Virginia in and around Morgantown, announced early Thursday that it would work toward MiQ and Equitable Origin certification. Those are the same two organizations that struck a deal for certification of methane emissions standards with EQT (NYSE: EQT), the nation’s largest independent natural gas producer. This MiQ/Equitable Origins announcement marks another milestone in the certification of what is being called responsibly sourced natural gas. EQT was the first deal the two organizations made in North America. Thursday’s announcement with Northeast Natural Energy is the first private equity-owned company to reach a deal with MiQ and Equitable Origin. “Our team has always focused on operating with the highest environmental standards in the industry, and we have been exploring new technologies and certifications for several months,” said Northeast Natural Energy CEO Mike John in a statement. It will be using a technology from Baker Hughes subsidiary Avitas, Lumen Terrain, to reach the standards by the fourth quarter of 2021. Equitable Origins is a nonprofit that has started the EO100 Standard for Responsible Energy Development, which provides certification that natural gas producers are focusing on methane reduction and other ESG measures. MiQ, which is a nonprofit venture of the Rocky Mountain Institute and SystemIQ, has a grading program for methane intensity and sets a goal to continue to remove it from natural gas operations. Methane, which is the sellable component of natural gas, is also a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. There’s wide agreement that methane leaks have to be removed, and natural gas producers are seeing the certification not only as a way to meet environmental standards, but also as a potential premium market that is currently a price-sensitive commodity. “Methane abatement in the oil and gas sector is an urgent and vital action in the fight against climate change,” said Georges Tijbosch, senior adviser at MiQ. “The commitment made by NNE and others to diligently monitor and abate methane, which has 84 times the global warming potential of CO2, is a big step in the right direction.”>

Pipeline Developer Takes on New Jersey in Supreme Court Fight –The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case pitting states’ rights advocates against energy companies. New Jersey and backers of the $1 billion PennEast natural gas pipeline face off over developers’ effort to seize state land along the project’s route. It’s the latest in a series of pipeline cases to reach the Supreme Court in the past year, an outgrowth of sweeping litigation surrounding a nationwide expansion of oil and gas infrastructure over the past decade. The justices heard an Atlantic Coast pipeline case a year ago, and fielded a flurry of filings involving Keystone XL last summer. Kirkland & Ellis LLP’s Paul Clement, a former solicitor general and powerhouse Supreme Court advocate who successfully argued the Atlantic Coast case, represents PennEast. The Biden administration is maintaining Trump-era support for PennEast’s arguments, a decision that disappointed many pipeline opponents. Some justices might find it challenging to weigh New Jersey’s asserted state property rights against pipeline lawyers’ claims of broad industry impacts in the case, University of Minnesota energy law professor Alexandra Klass said. “It tees up that issue directly in a way that some of these other cases have not,” she said. “Here is a situation where you have a state who is opposed to this particular pipeline and has actual land, saying a private party can’t use delegated eminent domain authority to take state land.” Backed by Enbridge Inc., Southern Co., and other companies, PennEast would stretch 116 miles across Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Construction hasn’t started, and PennEast faces other permitting and legal hurdles even if it prevails at the Supreme Court. The dispute centers on PennEast’s attempt to use eminent domain authority delegated under the Natural Gas Act to take state-owned lands and conservation easements along the pipeline’s proposed route in New Jersey. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit blocked the effort in 2019, ruling that New Jersey’s sovereign immunity bars a private company from bringing land condemnation proceedings against it. The Supreme Court agreed to review the case after PennEast and its allies across the oil and gas industry argued that the decision would disrupt pipeline development by giving states “veto authority” over federally approved projects. “The scope of that veto is nearly boundless given the extent of state property holdings,” PennEast said in its final brief this month, noting that states generally hold title to streambeds and other land. PennEast spokeswoman Patricia Kornick points to broad support the company has received from industry and labor groups, along with both the Trump and Biden administrations.

U.S. Supreme Court tackles pipeline company’s bid to seize New Jersey land (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday wrestled with a bid by a group of energy companies seeking to seize land owned by New Jersey to build a $1 billion natural gas pipeline, as the state argues that its rights would be trampled. The justices heard arguments in an appeal by PennEast Pipeline Company LLC, a joint venture backed by energy companies including Enbridge Inc, of a lower court ruling in favor of New Jersey’s government, which opposes the land seizure. Other companies in the consortium for the 116-mile (187-km) pipeline from Pennsylvania to New Jersey include South Jersey Industries Inc, New Jersey Resources Corp (NJR), Southern Co and UGI Corp. At issue in the case is a 1938 U.S. law called the Natural Gas Act that lets private energy companies seize “necessary” parcels of land for a project if they have obtained a certificate from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). It effectively gives private companies the power of eminent domain, in which government entities can take property in return for compensation. A ruling in favor of New Jersey would weaken the Natural Gas Act by allowing states to object to any attempts to seize their land. Although some justices appeared sympathetic to the state’s legal arguments, they also seemed cautious about issuing a ruling that would overturn the longstanding understanding of the law and potentially imperil the PennEast project and others like it. Chief Justice John Roberts said that it is “quite extraordinary” that private entities have the power normally vested in the federal government to go to court to seize a state’s land. But Roberts also noted that New Jersey opposes the project, meaning that if it does win the case there would be a “significant practical problem.”

Appeals court rejects environmentalists’ call to halt Pinelands pipeline – A state Appellate Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by two environmental groups to halt construction of a natural-gas pipeline in South Jersey, saying there’s no evidence that the nearly complete project will hurt groundwater quality, damage endangered species or conflict with the principles that govern management of Pinelands preserve.The court dismissed arguments by the New Jersey Sierra Club and the Pinelands Preservation Alliance that the Pinelands Commission, which manages the region, was wrong in 2017 to approve the Southern Reliability Link – a 30-mile New Jersey Natural Gas pipeline that runs east from Chesterfield to near Lakehurst.The court upheld the commission’s arguments that the pipeline would not conflict with the Comprehensive Management Plan, a document that governs land use, development and natural resources protection in the Pinelands, rejecting claims by the environmentalists.A three-judge panel also supported the commission’s conclusions that there was no alternative route for the pipeline through the Pinelands; that building the pipeline through about 10 miles of the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst would be consistent with the base’s functions; and that the pipeline would not damage forested wetlands.And it accepted the commission’s finding that the pipeline poses no threat to the sickle-leaved golden aster, a rare plant, if construction avoided horizontal directional drilling, and used conventional bore drilling instead. “After considering all of NJNG’s submissions, including surveys, maps, and changes to the planned construction, the commission’s staff concluded, ‘that the proposed-natural gas pipeline will be constructed almost entirely within existing rights-of-way and roads, the proposed project will not result in irreversible adverse impact on the survival of the local population of this species,’” the court wrote, in a 39-page opinion.

Leaky collection pipe causes small crude oil leak on West Branch – The state Department of Environmental Conservation responded Monday night to a crude oil spill on a lease along West Branch Road in the town of Allegany. An undetermined amount of crude oil leaked from a rusty 3-inch collection line onto the ground. The smell of crude oil filled the air around the spill on Wednesday. DEC staff and the operator of the lease, who was not identified by DEC staff, worked into the night to stop the flow of oil through a leaking pipe and keep more oil out of the nearby stream. A member of the DEC Oil Spill Response Team was at the scene on Wednesday. The DEC planned to cover the area of the spill in tarps before rain forecast for Wednesday afternoon arrived. The operator has volunteered to clean up the oil spill, according to state Environmental Conservation Police.

Compressor station coming back online after April 6 shutdown – The energy company that owns the natural gas compressor station on the banks of the Fore River plans to start the facility back up, several weeks after the third unplanned gas release at the site since September. Enbridge, the Canadian-based energy company that built the compressor station, notified the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection this week that it may vent gas from the facility between April 29 and May 5 while it brings it back into service. Enbridge spokesman Max Bergeron said in an email that the process will take a few days and involve ” controlled venting of natural gas through a stack specifically designed” for venting. “We are planning to use advanced specialized equipment to minimize the volume of natural gas vented into the atmosphere,” he said. “In order to ensure awareness, we have notified state and local officials of these activities. We are proceeding with public health and safety as our priority.” The compressor station is part of Enbridge’s Atlantic Bridge project, which expands the company’s natural gas pipelines from New Jersey into Canada. Since the station was proposed in 2015, residents have argued it presents serious health and safety risks. On April 6, the compressor unit had an issue and shut off to prevent equipment damage, Bergeron said. The facility then vented natural gas, which Enbridge was required to report to MassDEP. Bergeron said Enbridge has revolved the issue.

Appalachian Natural Gas, Coal Produce Most Methane in U.S., Kayrros Says –New measurements released last week by Kayrros quantifying emissions across the Appalachian Basin show the region is the biggest source of methane in the United States. emissions by basin Kayrros, which uses satellites and other methods to track emissions, said methane from Appalachia exceeds even the country’s most active oil and gas fields in the Permian Basin. But Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Kentucky are home to prolific natural gas and coal production. Methane emissions from the resources combine to outweigh those from other extraction states. Kayrros said recent data show emissions from fossil fuel production in the Appalachian Basin hit 3 million tons (Mt) in 2019 and 2.4 Mt in 2020. Excluding emissions from coal mines, emissions from natural gas produced largely from the Marcellus, Utica and Upper Devonian shales declined from 1.9 Mt in 2019 to 1.4 Mt in 2020. Methane from oil and natural gas production in the Permian declined from 2.7 Mt to 2.0 Mt over the same time. Across both basins, Kayrros said emissions fell by 20% in Appalachia and by 26% in the Permian last year, “largely due to the impact of the Covid pandemic on energy demand.” The company added that the “variation in the percentage decreases can be traced to the differing energy mixes within each basin.” Oil and gas representatives in Appalachia were quick to point out that Kayrros’ measurements also include coal emissions. The company, which monitors and measures energy and natural resource activity worldwide for customers analyzing industrial and environmental performance, did not release specifics on its data. Another analysis released last week by Rystad Energy found that operators in Appalachia had the lowest carbon dioxide emissions intensity of any onshore fields across the country. Rystad found that Scope 1 emissions, or those directly controlled by producers, were 7.1 kilograms per boe in 2020. “Such a level of CO2 intensity performance brings Appalachia to the top quartile among all oil and gas fields globally,” said Rystad analyst Emily McClain. “As the basin becomes more mature and modern, and environmental, social and governance best practices are implemented, we anticipate Appalachia to improve further in its CO2 intensity dimension in the next three to four years.” Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Operators across the basin are working to better monitor and curb their emissions by transitioning to all electric hydraulic fracturing fleets and implementing special measures.

60+ Groups Urge Biden Administration to Suspend Mountain Valley Pipeline Permits – More than 60 conservation and environmental groups are calling on top Biden officials to suspend permits and approvals by the previous Trump administration for the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline, contending it poses a grave threat to clean water, local communities, the environment, and the climate. If the administration follows the groups’ recommendations, it could result in blocking construction of the pipeline.“MVP’s construction impacts to date have already caused irreparable harm to landscapes and clean water – West Virginia and Virginia have assessed MVP more than $2 million in penalties for more than 350 environmental violations, mostly related to improper erosion control and stormwater management, and there are allegations of even more,” the groups write in a letter sent this week. “Yet there is much more high-risk construction still planned.“All this devastation is completely unnecessary,” they further write. “MVP is one of the last mega-gas pipelines promoted as part of the shale gas boom in our nation – a remnant of a dirty and destructive fossil fuel history that should be left in the past. There has never been any genuine documented need for this pipeline.”The groups urge Biden officials take “aggressive action” to implement an executive order President Biden signed on his first day in office to protect public health and the environment, restore science and tackle climate change. Because the Mountain Valley Pipeline project is inconsistent with the order’s goals, the groups argue, an environmental impact statement and other environmental approvals by the previous administration should be reversed and a pending application for a clean water permit should be closely reviewed.The groups note that the project still has to construct several hundred waterbody crossings; 74 percent of its proposed route would pass through more than 225 miles of high landslide risk terrain. That raises concern of more environmental damage.In addition, if completed and operated, the Mountain Valley Pipeline would add nearly 90 million metric tons of carbon pollution per year to the atmosphere – equivalent to the emissions from 23 U.S. coal plants, or more than 19 million passenger vehicles driven every year.

Living with natural gas pipelines: Appalachian landowners describe fear, anxiety and loss – More than 2 million miles of natural gas pipelines run throughout the United States. In Appalachia, they spread like spaghetti across the region. Many of these lines were built in just the past five years to carry natural gas from the Marcellus Shale region of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, where hydraulic fracturing has boomed. West Virginia alone has seen a fourfold increase in natural gas production in the past decade. Such fast growth has also brought hundreds of safety and environmental violations, particularly under the Trump administration’s reduced oversight and streamlined approvals for pipeline projects. While energy companies promise economic benefits for depressed regions, pipeline projects are upending the lives of people in their paths. The region has a long and complicated history with extractive industries, including coal and hydraulic fracturing. However, it’s rare to hear firsthand accounts of the long-term effects of industrial infrastructure development in rural communities, especially when it comes to pipelines, since they are the result of more recent energy-sector growth. For all of the people we talked to, the process of pipeline development was drawn out and often confusing. Some reported never hearing about a planned pipeline until a “land man” – a gas company representative – knocked on their door offering to buy a slice of their property; others said that they found out through newspaper articles or posts on social media. Every person we spoke with agreed that the burden ultimately fell on them to find out what was happening in their communities. One woman in West Virginia said that after finding out about plans for a pipeline feeding a petrochemical complex several miles from her home, she started doing her own research. “I thought to myself, how did this happen? We didn’t know anything about it,” she said. “It’s not fair. None of this is fair. … We are stuck with a polluting company.” If residents do not want pipelines on their land, they can pursue legal action against the energy company rather than taking a settlement. However, this can result in the use of eminent domain. Through this process, residents can be forced to accept a sum that doesn’t take into consideration all effects of pipeline construction on their land, such as the damage heavy equipment will do to surrounding land and access roads. One woman, the primary caretaker of land her family has farmed for 80 years, found herself facing significant legal fees after a dispute with a gas company. “We were the first and last ones to fight them, and then people saw what was going to happen to them, and they just didn’t have – it cost us money to get lawyers. Lawyers ate us up,” she said. The pipeline now runs through what were once hayfields. “We haven’t had any income off that hay since they took it out in 2016,” she said. “It’s nothing but a weed patch.”

Groups ask Virginia environmental officials to reopen Chickahominy Power permit – Three groups are asking Virginia to reopen an air permit issued to Chickahominy Power in 2019 for a proposed natural gas plant in Charles City County, contending that the state’s analysis of the facility’s environmental justice impacts “contains many of the same defects” of a state air permit struck down by a federal court in January 2020. “The similarities are just so shocking,” said Taylor Lilley, an attorney with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which penned the letter along with the Southern Environmental Law Center and Concerned Citizens of Charles City County. “It seems the process was just repeated. And that process was found to be faulty.” While the March 22 letter asked the State Air Pollution Control Board to reopen the permit, Chair Roy Hoagland said at meeting earlier this month that the board “does not have the authority to decide to reopen a permit.” Instead, he said, that authority lies with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The two environmental groups and the Concerned Citizens argue that three “defects” plague the permit drafted by DEQ and approved by the air board in June 2019. First, they say, DEQ relied on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s EJSCREEN tool to determine that the communities surrounding the proposed facility did not have a greater proportion of minorities or low-income residents than Charles City as a whole despite “conflicting evidence in the record.” Second, they contend the agency “rested its environmental justice analysis” solely on compliance with federal and state air quality standards “without evaluating the risks to specific nearby communities.” And third, they say DEQ deferred to a local zoning approval “instead of independently determining whether the proposed location was suitable.” All three of these approaches were challenged in Friends of Buckingham v. State Air Pollution Control Board. In that case the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals eventually struck down an air permit from DEQ and the Air Pollution Control Board that allowed the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to build a natural gas compressor station in the majority-Black Union Hill community in Buckingham County. In its ruling, the 4th Circuit noted that the state had “erred” by failing “to make any findings regarding the character of the local population at Union Hill, in the face of conflicting evidence” and “to individually consider the potential degree of injury to the local population independent of (National Ambient Air Quality Standards) and state emission standards.”

As it takes up another contentious permit, air board wrestles with public engagement – Just months after an eight-hour meeting to consider a controversial air permit for the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, the Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board is readying itself for another marathon session to consider granting an air permit to a compressor station that would be built in Chatham as part of a planned offshoot of the Mountain Valley Pipeline. “This permit may have received as many as 400 comments,” Chair Roy Hoagland told the board at its April 23 meeting. “So take a guess: If you have 50 percent of them, that’s 200 people who would have an opportunity to speak up to three minutes apiece.” Consideration of the so-called Lambert compressor station comes as the air board, smarting from a federal judicial rebuke over its issuance of a permit to the now-canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s Union Hill compressor station, has been working to revamp how it approaches public engagement. In the wake of yet another charged permit decision in June 2019, one related to the proposed Chickahominy Power Station in Charles City County, the board convened an ad hoc Committee on Public Engagement. “The same old, same old we know doesn’t work,” Hoagland told the Mercury over the summer. “Same old, same old may be legal, but it’s not sufficient.” Now, the committee’s work may face its first big test as the Lambert compressor station permit is scheduled to come before the citizen body this June. Officials expect the meeting where the board will render its decision of whether or not to grant the project an air permit to be heated. Mountain Valley Pipeline has been contested by environmental groups and local landowners alike since its inception. Opponents say the 303-mile natural gas pipeline through Southwest Virginia is not only unnecessary as the state and nation move away from fossil fuels but environmentally destructive. Erosion and sedimentation problems have plagued the pipeline’s construction, leading Virginia to eventually collect $2.15 million in fines from developers. And courts have repeatedly stripped the pipeline of necessary permits, citing inadequacies in agency approvals.

Pipeline Run; MVP Opponents Continue the Protests – People who oppose the Mountain Valley Natural Gas Pipeline project are continuing the fight to stop it. This week, three women set out on a relay run through parts of Virginia and West Virginia. They’re protesting the project with their feet, with a goal to highlight the sensitivity of potential water crossings along the pipeline’s route.It’s really hard to put into words all of the experiences we’ve had so far. We’ve been overwhelmed by the incredible community of folks who have come to our side to help us on this journey. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to meet locals who have been fighting this pipeline from the very beginning. Hearing their stores and learning about their struggles, say Sarah HodderGrace Tuttle is with the group POWHR, which stands for, ‘protect our water, heritage rights.’ She says the run is to remind people, the pipeline is still not a done deal and that this is also a fund raiser for communities along the route, affected by the construction project.“The runners blew by their $6,000 fundraising goal before even hitting the pavement. And they’ve thus set a new goal of $10,000 and their first day of running, they encountered roads that were no longer in use and other challenging navigation issues, but it was nothing they were not equipped for what their bravery and some local expertise they were back on the road and continuing with their mission.” Mercedes Walters, Sarah Hodder, and Katie Thompson began running and cycling April 25th along sections of the Mountain Valley pipeline construction path. You can follow the run’s progress at mvpprotestrun.org

Group protests expanding pipeline into NC. Critics say it will dig up burial grounds – A group of activists in Charlotte gathered in Marshall Park on Thursday in protest of extending the Mountain Valley Pipeline from Virginia into North Carolina. “We’re just kind of tired of being pushed aside,” said Crystal Cavalier-Keck, founder of the indigenous advocacy organization 7 Directions of Service.The proposed extension of the Mountain Valley Pipeline would run 40 miles into North Carolina from Virginia.”It’s going through Rockingham County, North Carolina and ending in Alamance County North Carolina,” Cavalier-Keck said. The project would allow for more natural gas transportation for energy companies, but Cavalier-Keck said it would dig up sacred burial grounds.”These are the bones of our ancestors that are being disturbed, that are being dug up,” Cavalier-Keck said.Cavalier-Keck believes it could also contaminate bodies of water in the state.”We know these pipelines corrode over time, these things will leak into the rivers and then you know, after like years people start developing these weird cancers and it’s because we have all these environmental degradations that are happening,” Cavalier-Keck said.Corine Mack, president of the Charlotte NAACP, led the protest against the pipeline at Marshall Park on Thursday.”We must believe in people over money and profit,” Mack said.Activist Freeda Cathcart came all the way from Virginia to speak.”The North Carolina state government needs to do everything you can to fight to protect the water, to fight to protect the families,” Cathcart said.

N.C. regulators again reject proposed Mountain Valley extension – For the second time, environmental regulators in North Carolina have rejected a proposed extension of the Mountain Valley Pipeline into their state. The decision Thursday by the Department of Environmental Quality came less than two months after a federal appeals court sent the case back for additional review, ruling that the department had not adequately explained its reasons for denying a water quality certification for the controversial project. The North Carolina DEQ initially turned down the request for a 75-mile extension of the pipeline, called MVP Southgate, in large part because of uncertainties that remain with the main project, a 303-mile natural gas pipeline under construction from northern West Virginia to Pittsylvania County. Should the main project fail, its extension “would be a pipeline from nowhere to nowhere, incapable of carrying any natural gas,” Daniel Smith, director of the department’s division of water resources, wrote in a letter Thursday that reissued the earlier denial. The letter addressed questions raised by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals about why the state had denied approval outright, rather than issuing a conditional certification based on Mountain Valley regaining all of its permits that were earlier suspended for environmental reasons. Mountain Valley’s next move was unclear Thursday. The joint venture of five energy companies building the main pipeline has previously run into trouble with stream crossings, leading it to change methods of water body crossings that will require different approvals.

North Carolina once again rejects Mountain Valley Pipeline extension — North Carolina environmental regulators have once again denied a request by the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Equitrans Midstream Corp. for a water quality permit for a proposed pipeline extension called MVP Southgate. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Division of Water Resources denied an appeal by MVP that followed a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that said that the state had authority on impact to streams, lakes and wetlands by the pipeline but also had to clarify why the DEQ denied the permit instead of providing a conditional certification. “DWR (Division of Water Resources) concludes that a conditional approval in these circumstances does not provide the reasonable assurance of compliance with water quality requirements,” the DEQ said in a statement late Thursday. MVP Southgate is an extension planned for the Mountain Valley Pipeline that would bring Marcellus and Utica Shale gas from southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia through West Virginia and Virginia and then, with the extension, to North Carolina. MVP itself hasn’t been completed, as it has been mired in regulatory and legal challenges, but it’s expected to be on line by late this year or early next year. But it’s still under a Federal Energy Regulatory Agency stop-work order. In the denial letter issued Thursday, DWR Director S. Daniel Smith noted the concerns over the status of the main MVP. “Mere issuance of federal permits does not provide sufficient assurance that the Mainline Project will in fact move forward and, consequently, that impacts from the Southgate Project will not be unnecessary and avoidable,” Smith wrote. He said that DEQ won’t issue the 401 Water Quality Certification and another authorization on a buffer for Jordan Lake, until they get more information. Mountain Valley Pipeline and Equitrans expressed disappointment with the ruling. “The MVP Southgate project met every North Carolina water quality standard required for state approval, and we strongly disagree with the NCDEQ’s decision to deny,” said spokesman Shawn Day. “A conditional approval, as the state’s hearing officer recommended, would have satisfied the NCDEQ’s concerns about the separate Mountain Valley Pipeline project while recognizing the significant collaborative work by the project team and the NCDEQ staff over the past two years to protect natural resources while meeting North Carolinians’ demand for natural gas.”

Clean-up continues from massive gas spill in Huntersville – Signs of life are returning to Oehler Nature preserve in Huntersville, eight months after the Colonial Pipeline cracked, causing the largest gas leak of its kind in decades. The spot where the massive excavation of the pipe tore through the earth is now beginning to grow grass. But dozens of work trucks exposes pipes and massive frac tanks show the work to clean up the spill is far from complete. New estimates suggest the leak was much larger than initially anticipated. New data from imaging below the surface reveal the leak was at least 1.2 million gallons of petroleum, according to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. On-site Thursday, Angie Kolar, vice president of operational services for Colonial Pipeline, said the impact was greater and deeper than they initially thought. “We’re continuing to use the science and the data to learn more and more information about the site as we proceed,” Kolar said. “We continue to revise our estimate based on the best available data at the time.” For the latest breaking news, weather and traffic alerts, download the WCNC Charlotte mobile app. Colonial Pipeline has installed a network of 241 wells for monitoring and recovery of the product. Kolar said the company remains hopeful that the existing network in place will be sufficient to reach the new depths of the leak. The new discovery is in the same general vicinity as the original, Kolar said. “We may need to tweak it or to install additional wells to capture it, we don’t know that yet,” she said. Meanwhile, the wells continue pumping petroleum from the leak at a rate of 3-5,000 gallons per day, Kolar said. Large blue frac tanks then transport the recovered product off-site. There are air quality monitors lining the property. Scientists are also testing to ensure the safety of drinking well water that supplies the residents. To date the company has performed more than 600 tests on 22 wells, Kolar said. Thus far, they have not discovered any spillage in the water, she said.

Lower 48 Production Down on Maintenance as Natural Gas Futures Press Higher Early –Estimates showing a day/day drop in production helped natural gas futures extend their recent gains in early trading Tuesday. After picking up 6.0 cents in the previous session, the May Nymex contract was up 3.0 cents to $2.820/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET.The latest daily production estimate from Wood Mackenzie Tuesday showed a 2.4 Bcf/d day/day decline in Lower 48 supply, with output dropping to 89.1 Bcf/d from 91.5 Bcf/d as of Monday. “The largest impacts are concentrated in the Northeast, where there is planned pipeline maintenance as well as what appears to be unannounced operator field maintenance,” Wood Mackenzie analysts Nicole McMurrer and Laura Munder wrote in a note to clients. Flows in Northeast Pennsylvania were down 0.6 Bcf/d early Tuesday, according to the firm’s estimates. This coincides with planned maintenance on the Millennium Pipeline, the analysts said. McMurrer and Munder also pointed to maintenance events on the Nexus Gas Transmission and Rockies Express pipelines that were expected to restrict flows on Tuesday in Ohio. Meanwhile, weather models overnight continued to show colder trends for late this week over the Great Lakes and Northeast, according to NatGasWeather.

Natural Gas Futures Prices Start Week on Solid Footing as Exports Still Strong –Natural gas futures struggled to gain traction early Monday, but continuously strong export demand eventually pushed prices into the green. With options and the May Nymex contract’s expiration looming, the prompt month settled at $2.790, up 6.0 cents from Friday’s close. The June contract picked up 5.6 cents to land at $2.874. storage snapshot Spot gas prices were mixed as the East and West coasts put up notable gains, while the rest of the country softened. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. climbed 3.5 cents to $2.605. After last week’s late-season cold snap provided the futures market with a final blast of heating demand and boosted prices, weather models reflected a “quite bearish” pattern for most days through mid-May, according to NatGasWeather. Forecasts showed daytime temperatures mostly in the 60s to 80s across the United States, with only spotty areas of chilly overnight lows. However, export demand has continued to be robust, helping to stave off any significant declines for Nymex futures. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) feed gas came in not far below record highs over the weekend and on Monday, near 11.5 Bcf, according to NGI data. The strong LNG export demand has repeatedly aided in the resilience of Nymex futures. Further strength is likely in the coming months as more of the super-chilled fuel is needed to replenish storage inventories overseas, according to analysts. European stocks, for example, finished the traditional withdrawal season about 11% below the five-year average, but late-season cold expanded the deficit to about 23%.

U.S. natgas hit 9-week high on record exports and lower output (Reuters) – U.S. natural gas futures rose 3% to a nine-week high on Tuesday, buoyed by record exports and declining production, despite forecasts for milder weather and lower heating demand over the next two weeks. Traders also noted that colder than usual April weather last week boosted heating by so much that utilities may have taken the unusual step of pulling gas from storage. The last time utilities pulled gas from storage in April was in 2018. With summer fast approaching, meteorologists forecast demand for air conditioning would exceed heating use over the next two weeks for the first time since last autumn. Most parts of the country, however, will use little air conditioning or heat during that time. On its second to last day as the front-month, gas futures NGc1 for May delivery rose 8.3 cents, or 3.0%, to settle at $2.873 per million British thermal units, highest close since Feb. 23. That increase pushed the front-month into overbought territory with a Relative Strength Index (RSI) over 70 for a second day in a row for the second time this month. The contract was also in overbought territory for two days last week. Data provider Refinitiv said gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states has averaged 91.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in April, down from 91.5 bcfd in March. That compares with a record monthly high of 95.4 bcfd in November 2019. Refinitiv projected average gas demand, including exports, would slide from 89.9 bcfd this week to 86.7 bcfd next week as the weather turns milder. Those forecasts were lower than Refinitiv projected on Monday. The amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants has averaged 11.5 bcfd so far in April, compared with a monthly record of 11.2 bcfd in March.

US gas storage injection measures well below average as East region withdraws: EIA | S&P Global Platts -US natural gas storage fields injected well below the five-year average for the week ended April 23 as cooler weather prompted a net withdrawal from the East region, Energy Information Administration data showed April 29. Storage inventories increased 15 Bcf to 1.898 Tcf for the week-ended April 23, EIA data showed. The build was more than the 9 Bcf addition expected by an S&P Global Platts survey of analysts, but measured well below the five-year average build of 67 Bcf, according to EIA data. Storage volumes now stand 302 Bcf, or 13.87%, less than the year-ago level of 2.200 Tcf and 40 Bcf, or 2.1%, less than the five-year average of 1.938 Tcf. The Midwest and Northeast drove a large share of the demand gains and on certain days inventories flipped to a net withdrawal, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. As a result, inventories in the East region posted a 6 Bcf withdrawal compared to the five-year average build of 17 Bcf for the corresponding week. The NYMEX Henry Hub June contract fell 7 cents to $2.89/MMBtu in trading following the release of the weekly storage report. The prompt-month contract has still managed to gain more than 20 cents over the past two weeks. In its first day holding prompt-month position, the June Henry Hub NYMEX contract saw heavy selling pressure the morning of April 29 along with the rest of the balance-of-2021 strip as a slightly larger-than-expected storage injection last week likely cast a light on possibly over-bought conditions in the near-term futures market. June through August all traded lower by about 7 cents the morning of April 29 following the EIA report, while September through December followed closely behind, dropping 6 cents. Downward pressure has even extended out through 2022, with the entire calendar year next year falling by 2 cents in a collective, albeit slight, downward price correction after several weeks of heating up. Platts Analytics supply and demand model currently forecasts a 45 Bcf injection for the week ending April 30, which would measure nearly 40 Bcf less than the five-year average, further growing the storage deficit. Total demand this week is down by 6.1 Bcf/d to an average 89.6 Bcf/d, with a massive drop in residenial-commercial and industrial demand partly offset by a 1.6 Bcf/d uptick in power burn demand. Upstream, production is once again showing signs of life, with onshore receipts rising by 500 MMcf/d and offshore lending another 100 MMcf/d to the mix. Notably, the sharp increase in net Canadian imports seen during the reference week has gone essentially unchanged, leaving supply in a far more robust position than it was the previous week during a time of falling demand.

Natural Gas Futures Prices Slide After EIA Storage Data Falls Short of Expectations — After a three-day run, natural gas futures screeched to a halt Thursday after the latest round of storage data showed inventories grew more than expected. On the first day in the prompt position, the June Nymex futures contract settled at $2.911/MMBtu, off 4.9 cents day/day. July fell 5.0 cents to 2.961. Spot gas prices also retreated across most of the country. NGI’s Spot Gas National Avg. dropped 9.5 cents to $2.680. The mild weather pattern on tap for the next couple of weeks has done little to aid in the recent price rally along the Nymex curve. However, traders looking to the latest storage data for justification of the rise in prices – or for a reason to pull back – were not disappointed. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) said Thursday inventories during the week ending April 23 rose by 15 Bcf, larger than what the market had been expecting. Ahead of the report, major surveys had clustered around a high single-digit build, though injection estimates were as high as 28 Bcf. The 15 Bcf build was much smaller than historical figures, expanding the deficit to the year-ago level and flipping the surplus to the five-year average to a deficit. However, traders were not impressed and immediately sent prices lower. Another surprise in the latest EIA data was the 6 Bcf withdrawal in the East. “It was much colder than normal over the interior U.S., slightly cool over the East, while warm over the West Coast,” NatGasWeather said of temperatures in the EIA report reference period. Elsewhere, Pacific inventories rose by 7 Bcf, while Midwest stocks increased by 6 Bcf, according to EIA. The Mountain region reported a 1 Bcf increase in stocks. Total working gas in storage as of April 23 was 1,898 Bcf, 302 Bcf below year-ago levels and 40 Bcf below the five-year average, EIA said.

U.S. natgas hits 9-week high on cooler forecast, record exports –(Reuters) – U.S. natural gas futures climbed to a nine-week high on Friday on forecasts for cooler weather and higher heating demand over the next two weeks than previously expected, record exports and a small decline in output. Front-month gas futures NGc1 rose 2.0 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $2.931 per million British thermal units, their highest close since Feb. 22. That kept the front-month in overbought territory with a Relative Strength Index (RSI) over 70 for a fifth day in a row for the first time since August 2020. For the week, the contract was about 7% higher, putting it up for a third week in a row for the first time since February. For the month, the contract was up about 13% after falling around 6% last month. Data provider Refinitiv said gas output in the Lower 48 U.S. states slipped to an average of 91.3 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) so far in April from 91.5 bcfd in March due to routine spring pipeline maintenance. That compares with a record monthly high of 95.4 bcfd in November 2019. Refinitiv projected average gas demand, including exports, would slide from 89.5 bcfd this week to 87.5 bcfd next week and 86.0 bcfd as the weather turns seasonally milder. The forecast for next week was slightly higher than Refinitiv estimated on Thursday. The amount of gas flowing to U.S. LNG export plants averaged 11.5 bcfd so far in April, putting it on track to top the monthly record of 11.2 bcfd in March.

USA Set for Gas Boom –Natural gas production in the United States is set to grow to a new record of 93.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcfd) in 2022 and will continue to rise thereafter, exceeding 100 Bcfd in 2024. That’s according to a new Rystad Energy analysis, which highlighted that the performance of the country’s key gas basins is going to attract increased interest from investors and markets, “with CO2 emissions intensity, capital efficiency, and potential bottlenecks drawing close scrutiny”. United States natural gas output hit a record 92.1 Bcfd in 2019, but production declined to 90.8 Bcfd last year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Rystad outlined. The company said it expects 2021 volumes will fall to 89.7 Bcfd but added that the trend will quickly change as the effect of the pandemic subsides and activity builds up across the country’s major gas basins. Rystad said the Haynesville play will offer the largest gas output growth going forward, risking bottlenecks unless more pipelines are approved. The Haynesville is forecasted to add about 10 Bcfd from 2020 to 2035, growing by 86 percent during that timeframe, Rystad highlighted. The region is projected to account for about 21 percent of the country’s gas production in 2035, compared to 13 percent in 2020, Rystad revealed. The company forecasts that associated gas from the Permian’s Delaware and Midland regions will account for more than five Bcfd of growth from 2021 to 2035, driven primarily by the Delaware, and anticipates a growth of about 16 percent in Appalachian gas production before a final plateau is reached, with the Marcellus and Utica forecasted to add five Bcfd over the next two decades. The company’s analysis showed that the Appalachian basin was best-in-class in the U.S. in 2020 when it comes to CO2 emissions intensity, with 7.1 kg of CO2 per barrel of oil equivalent (boe). The Appalachian region is said to be followed by the Haynesville shale, with a CO2 intensity of 7.5 kg of CO2 per boe, Niobara with 10.6 kg of CO2 per boe, the Permian Basin with 10.9 kg of CO2 per boe, south Texas’ Eagle Ford with 11 kg of CO2 per boe, and the Bakken play with 20.7 kg of CO2 per boe. “Such a level of CO2 intensity performance brings Appalachia to the top quartile among all oil and gas fields globally,”

Public response prompts DOT to host its own public pipeline hearings –The Georgia Department of Transportation says it will hold its own public hearing on the necessity for a petroleum pipeline in Coastal Georgia and its potential benefits to the state. GDOT’s announcement follows public outcry over hearings held by the company proposing to build the pipeline, Houston-based Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. “Due to the fact there were some Georgia citizens who were not happy with the process, we will be holding our own public hearing,” said Jill Nagel, GDOT spokesperson. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners held several hearings in coastal counties and in the Augusta area earlier this month to hear what the public had to say about the proposed Palmetto Pipeline project. The company plans to use the pipeline to transport gasoline, diesel and ethanol products underground for 360 miles, from Belton, S.C., to Jacksonville. The Palmetto line would connect to Kinder Morgan’s existing Plantation Pipeline that runs from Louisiana to Virginia. A preliminary path has the pipeline running through 24 miles of Glynn County, 18 miles of Camden County and 17 miles of McIntosh County. Nagel said the state began planning the hearing after consulting with the Attorney General’s office. Satilla Riverkeeper Ashby Nix was among those put off by public hearings held by the company on the issuance of a certificate of public convenience and necessity. If granted, the certificate could provide Kinder Morgan the power to use eminent domain, if necessary, to build its pipeline. “It’s suspicious when it’s the company and their lawyers taking the comments,” Nix said of the hearings she attended. She and other environmental watchdogs were befuddled after a meeting March 12 in Brunswick. Nix said it was more informational than anything else. Her concern now is that the one meeting that is planned may be difficult to get to for some coastal residents, depending on where it is held. She would like to see at least two meetings to ensure everyone has a chance to comment.

OIL AND GAS: Fla. lawmakers revive push to spare coast from drilling — Wednesday, April 28, 2021 — While Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill continue to fight with each other over President Biden’s energy agenda, Florida’s bipartisan congressional delegation remains united in opposition to drilling off the state’s coastline.

‘They gave people kibbles and bits’: Black Memphis residents are fighting oil pipeline land grab -The only things Karmen Johnson-Tutwiler has left to remind her of her mother are a few photographs and just under a quarter acre of land covered in bramble and wildflowers that backs up to a railroad track. When their mother, Sharon Watson, passed away in 2010, she and her sister inherited it. “She always told me it was important to have a piece of property as your own,” Johnson-Tutwiler said. The land is on the edge of a neighborhood called Boxtown, a community built by formerly enslaved people and annexed by the city of Memphis during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Boxtown is surrounded by industrial facilities, including a Valero oil refinery. Since February 2020, Byhalia Pipeline, a joint venture of Valero Energy Corporation and Plains All American Pipeline, has been trying to gain control of part of Johnson-Tutwiler’s land, which is along the route of the proposed 49-mile Byhalia Connection oil pipeline. The route would run through multiple majority-Black neighborhoods in southwest Memphis, and researchers and activists say a spill could threaten the city’s public water source: an aquifer the size of Lake Michigan. Johnson-Tutwiler does not currently reside on the stretch of land the company wants – .08 of an acre temporarily and .11 of an acre permanently – but it would prevent her or other family members from ever building a house. “That was the only thing that I had that my mom left with us that we could pass down through the lines of the family,” she said. The legal battle over the proposed pipeline has become a flashpoint in a national conversation about environmental justice and eminent domain, a right of the government to seize private property for public use that is increasingly being used by oil and gas companies to take private land. Johnson-Tutwiler and her sister are among at least 10 southwest Memphis families who have already lost or stand to lose some property rights to Byhalia Pipeline. The company has been trying to buy easements, or rights to pieces of property, from Shelby County landowners since 2020. If they refuse, the company has been taking them to court using eminent domain, a power embedded in the Fifth Amendment and conferred to states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The federal government and states have allowed energy companies, including oil and gas pipeline builders, to use it for over 100 years; since fracking was commercialized in 2007, fossil fuel companies have used it more often to build projects including the Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines.

Company asks for pause in Memphis oil pipeline dispute (AP) – A company facing resistance to its plans to build an oil pipeline over an aquifer that provides drinking water to 1 million people has asked for a “mutual pause” in its dispute with city officials in Memphis, Tennessee. Plains All American Pipeline sent a letter to the Memphis City Council about a proposed city law that could make it harder to construct an underground oil pipeline through wetlands and neighborhoods in south Memphis and north Mississippi. Plains is part of a joint venture with Valero Energy to build the Byhalia Connection, which would link the Valero refinery in Memphis with another larger pipeline in north Mississippi. The council’s ordinance would establish a board to approve or deny construction of underground pipelines that transport oil or other potentially hazardous liquids near wells that pump millions of gallons of water daily from the Memphis Sand Aquifer. The ordinance is backed by pipeline opponents who fear an oil spill would endanger the aquifer. The council made no mention of the Plains letter during a vote Tuesday to delay a vote on the ordinance for two weeks. Councilors said they decided to postpone a decision so they could address questions they themselves had and allow input from the mayor’s office and the local water company. In the letter, Plains said Byhalia Connection is willing to suspend development activities and address city council and community concerns “if the City is willing to suspend consideration, adoption, or final reading of the existing or any new ordinance that could affect the pipeline or refinery.” “We very much appreciate your willingness to talk with us and receive our feedback and work to resolve any differences,” the letter said. “It’s in this light that we would like to propose a ‘mutual pause.’” Byhalia has threatened to sue if the ordinance passes. In a statement, project spokeswoman Katie Martin called the proposed law “an example of ill-conceived local government overreach that is preempted by state and federal law.”

$238,450 for gas is ‘gouging,’ Hot Springs exec says— The Hot Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission has paid the $238,450.96 monthly gas bill it received for the Hot Springs Convention Center after February’s winter storm, but filed a complaint against its natural gas supplier with the Arkansas attorney general’s office accusing the supplier of “price gouging.” Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said the bill for February was paid “under protest” April 14. Little Rock attorney Randall Bynum with Dover Dixon Horne PLLC filed a formal complaint on behalf of the convention center with the attorney general’s office April 19, saying the center’s natural gas supplier may have violated Act 367 of 1997. The gas supplier, Symmetry Energy Solutions, denies the allegations, stating that they are “unfounded and reflect a misunderstanding of how the natural gas markets work.” The Hot Springs Convention Center received the bill at the end of March, one month after record cold temperatures gripped the region. It was more than 2,000% what the center usually pays for one month and stemmed from using an independent gas supplier. Arrison told The Sentinel-Record on March 26 that the ad commission would not pay the bill. On Tuesday, he said the commission plans to get back most of the money paid under protest. “The main thing is we want to get our money back,” Arrison said. “Hopefully we get this to a logical conclusion, and if not we will sue, but hopefully we won’t have to.” “Winter Storm Uri severely disrupted natural gas supplies at the very same time that demand was very high because of the record-setting frigid temperatures,” a Symmetry Energy spokesperson said in an email Tuesday. “This high demand coupled with severely limited supply caused the market price of natural gas to rise to unprecedented levels,” the email said.

Suit filed says sand operation polluting –Two Doddridge residents are suing companies in connection with a sand mining and fracking business nearby. The suit was filed in Miller County circuit court on behalf of 86-year-old Lottie Paige and 77-year-old Mary Bennett by Texarkana lawyer Bruce Flint. Named as defendants are 29 trucking and other companies doing business at the River Ridge Sand Flat owned by Performance Proppants. Performance Proppants is named as a defendant. Paige lives on property on Miller County 4 that has been in her family for more than 100 years and Bennett owns property on Miller County 187. Both properties are located near the same road as River Ridge Sand Flat, which Performance Proppants purchased in 2019. “As a result of defendants’ fracking business, 18-wheeler trucks drive right up against plaintiffs’ properties 24 hours per day,” the complaint states. The complaint refers to an article published in the Texarkana Gazette in February 2019 which estimates that 200 trucks per day will travel to and from the sand plant around the clock on Miller County 4. Paige alleges that the fracking and sand mining business has contaminated and dried up her well water. “Defendant’s actions have prevented plaintiff from using any running water, including, but not limited to, flushing her toilets, taking baths and/or showers, and/or getting water from her faucets,” the complaint alleges. Paige has been forced to buy bottled water and consider leaving her home during a global pandemic, it says. Paige and Bennett allege that air pollution created by the plant traffic and activities has caused them to develop asthma. The suit accuses the defendants of negligence and of creating a nuisance which has diminished the plaintiffs’ property values and quality of life. Both women are seeking an award of monetary damages.

Lake Charles industry to pay $5.5 million over contaminating Calcasieu River estuary –Nine Lake Charles area chemical companies and oil refineries have agreed to pay the federal government $5.5 million for their contamination of much of the northern Calcasieu River estuary, the result of improper disposal practices over the past century. The settlement, announced this month by the Justice Department, is the latest in a series of federal and state legal actions against more than a dozen industrial plants in Lake Charles, Sulphur, Westlake and Mossville for polluting the river basin with toxic chemicals and heavy metals, including dioxin and mercury. The amount of the settlement is not for cleaning up the pollution, only for the Environmental Protection Agency’s response, and it’s less than half of EPA’s actual response costs. There’s no estimate available on how much the industries have paid on cleanup, but even today parts of the estuary are still posted with health warnings against eating fish, crabs or shellfish swimming in the water, or even touching underwater sediment. A complaint filed with the settlement details how the companies were responsible for pollutants that flowed from discharge pipes at levels either in violation of federal and state permits or before such limits were set. The chemicals entered the water through accidents and seeped into groundwater from unlined waste disposal impoundments at some plants that began operating as early as 1920. Wilma Subra, a New Iberia chemist and science adviser to the Louisiana Environmental Action Network organization, which represents environmental groups in the area, said Lake Charles area residents first met with EPA and the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality about water contamination in the early 1980s, after blood samples from some residents indicated unsafe levels of dioxin and other chemicals. Dioxin is a highly toxic contaminant created during the manufacture of other chemicals, and is one of the chemicals identified as coming from several of the plants listed in the settlement. “We had residents with levels of dioxin in their blood at three times the national average, and those people were fishing in the estuary, in the main Calcasieu River and in all the bayous,” Subra said. “They still are.” The Louisiana Department of Health has posted health advisories on almost 350 miles of the river.

Several petrochemical companies to pay $5.5 million for years of pollution in area waters (KPLC) – Several petrochemical companies will pay $5.5 million to the federal government for costs incurred while investigating and addressing contamination of the Calcasieu Estuary Site.The pollution occurred over a number of years as the plants released chemicals into area waterways, according to the complaint filed in federal court.As part of the consent decree, the companies do not admit liability. The consent decree was filed on April 12.The $5.5 million will go to the EPA Hazardous Substance Superfund. The complaint states that the federal government has spent more than $13 million cleaning up the site.The Calcasieu Estuary Site encompasses Bayou Verdine, Bayou d’Inde, Coon Island Loop, Clooney Island Loop, Prien Lake, Lake Charles, and the Calcasieu River from the saltwater barrier to Moss Lake.The nine companies (some of which have merged) paying the $5.5 million are:

• · Axiall Corp.
• · CITGO Petroleum Corporation
• · Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations, LLC
• · Bridgestone Americas, Inc.
• · Firestone Polymers, LLC
• · Occidental Chemical Corporation
• · OXY USA Inc.
• · PPG Industries, Inc.
• · Westlake Polymers LLC

Environmental Justice and Refinery Pollution:: Benzene Monitoring Around Oil Refineries Found More Communities at Risk in 2020 – A 2015 federal Clean Air Act rule requires oil refineries to install air pollution monitors at their boundaries to identify benzene emissions escaping into surrounding neighborhoods. Benzene is a well-known carcinogen that contributes to cancer of the blood cells (leukemia) and respiratory ailments, and high concentrations indicate the presence of other air pollutants dangerous to human health.1 Whenever the monitoring results show that benzene levels at refinery fencelines average more than nine micrograms per cubic meter above background levels over a year, the 2015 rule requires the refinery to investigate and take action by cleaning up the emission sources causing the problem. 2 The regulation is designed to keep benzene and other toxins from drifting into communities adjacent to refineries, many of which are lower-income communities of color. Thirteen refineries exceeded EPA’s “action level” in 2020 for the 12 months ending on December 31, 2020, reporting annual benzene concentrations that range from 9.36 micrograms to more than 31 micrograms for the year.3 More than 530,000 people live within three miles of these refineries, with 57 percent being people of color and 43 percent living below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census Bureau and EPA data. 4 The number of facilities over EPA’s action level last year represents more communities at risk from benzene than in 2019, the first year for which data are available, when 11 refineries exceeded EPA’s action level. A refinery owned by the Delek corporation in Krotz Springs, Louisiana, about 45 minutes west of Baton Rouge, topped the 2020 list with benzene concentrations at its fenceline averaging more than 31 micrograms per cubic meter last year. That was more than three times EPA’s action level, and 29 percent worse than the previous year. A public library and a daycare center that serves lowincome children are located a quarter mile from the refinery (see map on page 20.)

Louisiana is home to 5 of the 13 U.S. oil refineries emitting high levels of this carcinogen – A new effort to measure the levels of benzene, a cancer-causing air pollutant, along the perimeters of U.S. refineries found that five of the 13 facilities with the highest levels are in Louisiana. What’s more, the refinery with the worst emissions was Delek USA’s Krotz Springs refinery, located 45 minutes west of Baton Rouge along the Atchafalaya River, according to the report by the Environmental Integrity Project, a national environmental nonprofit. There, fenceline monitors measured an average net concentration of 31.1 micrograms per cubic meter of benzene. That’s more than triple the level allowed before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency steps in.A 2015 EPA rule requires oil refineries to install air pollution monitors on their fencelines to measure how much benzene is escaping into surrounding areas. If the annual average exceeds 9 micrograms per cubic meter, refineries must search for the cause and take steps to fix it.Benzene is a component of oil and gasoline, and Eric Schaeffer, the nonprofit’s executive director, said it’s not surprising to see it leak out of industrial plants.”You’re always going to have some, a little bit of benzene in the air around refineries and chemical plants,” he said. “But it’s also a very potent carcinogen.”Studies have found that lifetime exposure to heightened levels of benzene can cause respiratory issues. Air containing more than 13 micrograms per cubic meter presents a heavily increased risk of cancer such as leukemia.

175 Groups Urge Banks Not to Fund Massive ‘Cancer Alley’ Chemical Plant in Louisiana –Calling a planned petrochemical manufacturing complex in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” a “textbook case of environmental racism,” 175 organizations from around the world sent a letter to financial institutions Tuesday urging them not to fund, underwrite, or invest in the project, which could cost up to $12 billion.The letter – led by the faith-based grassroots group RISE St. James – says that Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group’s 2,400-acre Sunshine Project, which is slated to be built in a vulnerable floodplain amid intensifying climate-driven hurricanes and tropical storms,” presents an unnecessary burden for our already-polluted community.””We are fighting to protect ourselves from Formosa Plastics’ disastrous environmental and human-rights record in the United States and around the world,” the letter states.Residents of St. James Parish – nearly half of whom are Black – and environmental advocates strongly oppose the plant, which, if built as planned, will release carcinogenic chemicals and, according to one environmental watchdog, produce 13.6 million tons of planet-heating emissions annually. Formosa Plastics has also come under fire for failing to follow through on a promise to alter the plant’s layout to lessen the exposure of nearby residents and schoolchildren to toxins, and for its failure to notify the community of the discovery of a burial ground for enslaved Black people.According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the cancer risk in predominantly Black areas of St. James Parish is as high as 105 per million, compared with 60 to 75 cases per million in majority white areas. The EPA’s Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators database reported an 800% cancer hazard increase due to petrochemical facilities in the parish between 2007 and 2018. The Sunshine Project has drawn the attention and condemnation of environmental and racial justice groups,United Nations human rights experts, progressive lawmakers, and others. Last month, Democratic U.S. Reps. Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.) and Donald McEachin (Va.) urged President Joe Biden to deliver on his campaign promises to reduce pollution in frontline communities by blocking the project.

GLDD charged with causing oil spill in 2016 -Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company (GLDD) has been charged with violating the Clean Water Act in connection with an oil spill in 2016. According to the Bill of Information, GLDD negligently discharged and caused to be discharged a harmful quantity of oil into a navigable water of the United States, upon adjoining shorelines, and affecting natural resources. The spill took place on September 5, 2016, on the edge of Bay Long near the Chenier Ronquille barrier island, which is east of Grand Isle. If convicted, GLDD faces a possible term of probation and a fine of up to $200,000 or twice the gross gain to the defendant or twice the gross loss to any victim. “A bill of information is merely a charge, and the guilt of the defendant must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” the official statement reads. The case was investigated by the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General, and the Department of Commerce’s Office of Inspector General.

$302M in BP oil spill money budgeted to restore ecosystems (AP) Texas can get up to $79 million in BP oil spill restoration money, Mississippi nearly $69 million, and Florida almost $74 million for ecosystem recovery projects and programs approved or extended this week. Nearly $80 million more in work crossing state lines is listed among the RESTORE Council”s $302 million worth of projects and programs made public Wednesday as part 2 in a group of proposals that brought $130 million last year to Louisiana, and $26.9 million to Alabama. However, less than half of Wednesday”s total will be provided immediately. Nine of the 20 projects and programs are getting only planning money. The council said it is budgeting $161.5 million in longterm spending to put those plans into action, but they will need more evaluation and later votes. The council, which allocates money from Clean Water Act fines paid by BP and others after the catastrophic 2010 spill, is made up of officials from the five Gulf states and several federal agencies. Gulf-wide programmes OK”d on Wednesday include $11.9 million to continue the Gulf of Mexico Coast Conservation Corps and $927,000 to continue the Tribal Youth Coastal Restoration Programme. “Both seek to enhance the environmental vitality of the area”s natural resources while also building the local coastal restoration workforce and giving young adults the skills and experience needed to find jobs in this field,” the council”s report said. The Nature Conservancy, which runs GulfCorps with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says its grant will create more than 400 jobs for young adults over four years.

US ends oil, gas lease sales from public land through June (AP) – The U.S. Interior Department is cancelling oil and gas lease sales from public lands through June amid an ongoing review of how the program contributes to climate change, officials said Wednesday. The action does not affect existing leases, and the agency has continued to issue new drilling permits during the open-ended review ordered by the White House, said Nada Culver, deputy director of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management. The petroleum industry and its Republican allies in Congress have said the oil and gas moratorium will harm the economies of Western states without putting a significant dent in climate change. There is no end date for the review, but an interim report due this summer could reveal the Biden administration’s long-term plans for lease sales. Sales had been tentatively scheduled in seven states and regions – Nevada, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and the bureau’s eastern region, spokesperson Jeffrey Krauss said. Officials had previously postponed or suspended lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and many of the same states covered in Wednesday’s move.

BLM Scraps 2Q Oil and Gas Lease Sales – The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has announced that it will not hold oil and gas lease sales in the second quarter (2Q) of 2021. The BLM said the decision does not impact existing operations or permits for valid, existing leases, which it said continue to be reviewed and approved. It also noted that it remains committed to managing its programs in a way that restores balance on public lands, creates jobs, and provides a path to align the management of America’s public lands with the nation’s climate, conservation, and clean energy priorities. The decision to scrap 2Q lease sales comes amid the Interior Department’s ongoing review of the federal oil and gas program. This review is assessing, among other issues, whether the current leasing process provides taxpayers with a fair return for extraction of the nation’s oil and gas resources, how to ensure it complies with applicable laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, and the United States’ trust responsibilities, and how it will take into account climate change and environmental justice, according to the BLM. The organization highlighted that, in recent years, courts have found the current leasing process in violation of various governing laws, invalidating both the BLM’s guidance and a number of lease sales. In connection with the review, the BLM said it will analyze and ensure that any future leasing complies with applicable law – including requirements for evaluating greenhouse gas emissions and climate change impacts – to better withstand administrative and judicial review. The BLM stated that the Trump administration conducted a fire sale of public lands and waters, offering more than 25 million acres onshore during the past four years. Just 5.6 million of these were purchased, the BLM highlighted. Offshore, more than 78 million acres were offered for lease to oil, gas, and mineral development, and only five million acres were purchased, the BLM noted. Part of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the BLM manages more than 245 million acres of public land located primarily in 12 Western states, including Alaska. It also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the nation. Last month, the senate voted to confirm Debra Haaland to lead the Department of the Interior.

Before U.S. Senate Committee, Critics Blast Biden’s Moratorium on Federal Oil, Gas Lease Sales –Oil and natural gas industry leaders and politicians railed against President Biden’s decision to freeze oil and gas lease sales on federal lands and waters through at least June during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing on Tuesday. Government officials, meanwhile, defended the pause as a necessary step as they review the program to identify inefficiencies as well as the benefits of the program versus its impact on climate change. “Retaining clarity for continuing operations is important while we aggressively work toward a collective transition plan,” said Occidental Petroleum Corp. CEO Vicki Hollub in her testimony. “To that end, administration action should provide regulatory certainty in the short- and long-term,” rather than a moratorium with no stated end date. In remarks prepared for the hearing, Hollub noted that, like an increasing number of oil and gas companies, the Houston independent, better known as Oxy, is diversifying and committing to using carbon capture technology while working toward a goal of net-zero carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050. However, Hollub said, oil and natural gas will play key roles in the transition between now and then, and drilling on federal land is an important component of the industry’s efforts to meet current energy needs. Federal onshore drilling permits can take up to a year to earn approval, she explained, which requires operators like Oxy “to plan 18 months ahead of drilling operations. This long lead time means that as we evaluate our completions and geology, well design changes often result in the need to re-permit the same areas,” Hollub said. “Lack of clarity or permitting guidance can extend these times, often increasing the cost and the surface disturbance.” Hollub and others who spoke at the hearing argued that the Biden administration review could be conducted without halting lease sales. The moratorium not only complicates matters for operators but also costs state governments income they rely upon, said Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma. From a “small impact on federal lands, the oil and natural gas industry generates about $4.2 billion in federal royalties and leasing revenue” – which is shared with states – “while delivering 288.6 million bbl of oil and 3.4 Tcf of natural gas to meet Americans’ energy needs,” Sgamma said in her prepared remarks. For every dollar spent managing the federal onshore program, Sgamma said the industry “returns 29 times that back to the federal government, an excellent return that funds education, public safety, and other vital health and human services in the West.”Additionally, “we have saved consumers hundreds of billions of dollars by making energy more affordable,” Sgamma said.

U.S. oil lease pause will not hit states’ income near term, official says – (Reuters) – Revenues disbursed to states from federal oil and gas leasing are not expected to decline significantly in the near term due to the Biden administration’s review of the program, an official said on Tuesday. Nada Culver, deputy director of policy and programs for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, told a Senate committee that no timeline had been set for completing the review, but that the agency did “not anticipate a significant effect on income to states and the Treasury in the near future during this current pause.” Most revenues to states come from existing production, Culver said, rather than the new leasing the administration paused earlier this year. “We have thousands of permits available for drilling and millions of acres of land that can be developed right now,” Culver said before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee at a hearing on the oil and gas leasing program.

Emails Show Oil Lobby Mobilized Democratic Governors’ Opposition To Biden Energy Order –Fossil fuel trade groups in Louisiana and New Mexico rallied Democratic governors in opposition to President Joe Biden’s executive order pausing new oil and gas leasing on federal lands and in offshore waters, newly released emails show. The Biden administration paused new leases on Jan. 27 and launched a major review of the federal oil and gas leasing program. Interior Department officials have said the program currently is “not serving the American public well.” The behind-the-scenes lobbying included the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association (LMOGA) introducing top energy officials in Louisiana and New Mexico to each other. LMOGA also provided the Louisiana official with industry talking points about how restricting oil and gas development would hurt the state’s economy, and it helped ghostwrite a letter that Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) sent to Biden arguing, among other things, that confronting climate effects depends on continued offshore fossil fuel development.The communications highlight the growing role regional industry associations play in fighting climate action as pressure mounts on big-name companies and highly visible national groups to put a softer face on regulatory obstruction.Edwards and New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) have both spoken out against the Biden administration’s leasing freeze, publicly and in letters to the president. Louisiana joined more than a dozen other states in suing the administration over the executive order, and Lujan Grisham requested New Mexico be exempt from the pause because of its climate change initiatives and greenhouse gas emission reductions. Both states are major oil and gas producers and rely heavily on revenue from fossil fuel development.“These documents show that the Lujan Grisham and Bel Edwards administrations are valuable assets in the oil industry’s fight against President Biden’s public lands policies,” said Jesse Coleman, a senior investigator with the watchdog group Documented.

Enterprise Products sues Texas municipal utility over $100 mln gas bill –(Reuters) – Oil and gas supplier Enterprise Products Partners on Monday sued CPS Energy, a Texas gas and power utility, alleging failure to pay nearly $100 million for natural gas delivered during the state’s February winter storm. The lawsuit is the latest to emerge from a severe cold snap that drove prices and demand for natural gas and electricity to hundreds of times their pre-storm levels. Houston gas prices https://bit.ly/3noiRVL hit $400 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) from about $4.50/mmBtu a week earlier. Enterprise is suing San Antonio municipal utility CPS Energy over payment disputes for sales during the freeze. The suit, filed in a state court in Harris County, Texas, claims CPS owes $99.7 million for gas after paying $36.5 million towards the month’s fuel bill. “CPS Energy is now engaging in a coordinated plan to avoid paying its bills,” the lawsuit claimed, adding the utility has offered it $38.83/mmBtu for the gas. CPS Energy CEO Paula Gold-Williams said Enterprise had engaged in “egregious price gouging” and that the lawsuit came after it had tried to negotiate the dispute. “CPS Energy is committed to protecting its customers from unconscionable prices charged by certain natural gas suppliers,” Gold-Williams said. A spokesman for Enterprise declined to comment, saying it would let the lawsuit speak for itself. CPS Energy, owned by the city of San Antonio, previously sued grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas seeking to block it from issuing a default for unpaid power charges. Enterprise next month is expected to report first-quarter earnings that analysts say will benefit from the storm-driven gas price run-up. Kinder Morgan last week reported a roughly $1 billion boost to earnings from selling high-priced natural gas to utilities. Enterprise could post an around $475 million profit from the storm in its coming report, analysts from consultancy East Daley Capital said in a note last week.

Pipeline operator Kinder Morgan posts $1 billion windfall from Texas winter storm — Kinder Morgan Inc. surprised investors with a $1 billion dollar windfall from the historic winter storm that crippled Texas and boosted natural gas and power prices. The deadly mid-February storm swelled first-quarter results, President Kimberly Dang said during a conference call with investors on Wednesday. The gain was so outsized that the pipeline operator results surpassed the average estimate by almost three times. Kinder Morgan “was not really on anyone’s list of potential winners from Winter Storm Uri,” said Gabriel Moreen, an analyst at Mizuho Americas LLC. “Shame on us.” Kinder disclosed a $116 million net gain from voluntarily curbing power use during the disaster and reselling it at sky-high prices, which implies an $880 million windfall from gas sales. A Kinder Morgan spokesperson declined to comment on the figures. Power producers and utilities across the Lone Star state incurred billions of dollars in losses when the Arctic blast hobbled the electricity grid and disrupted gas deliveries, pushing prices to unprecedented levels. On the other side of that market, Kinder and drillers such as Comstock Resources Inc. reaped fat profits. Investors and analysts will be closely watching for similar positive surprises among Kinder’s pipeline-sector peers as they disclose first-quarter results in coming weeks. “Our storage assets performed exceptionally well, allowing us to deliver gas into the market throughout the storm,” said Chief Executive Officer Steve Kean. “These storage withdrawals, along with gas we purchased before and during the event, enabled us to deliver significant volumes of gas at contractual or prevailing prices.” Much of the extra gas Kinder sold went to power generators whose normal suppliers were shut down or blacked out as the catastrophe intensified, Kean said. The storm may have long-term ramifications for Kinder if costumers pay up to guarantee uninterrupted gas deliveries, which in turn would elevate the value of the company’s conduits and storage facilities, Moreen said in an interview.

BP likely made at least $1 billion during the Texas power crisis – BP likely made more than $1 billion from its energy trading business when natural gas prices skyrocketed during the February winter storm. The British oil major, which has one of the largest trading hubs in North America, on Tuesday said the business had an “exceptional” first quarter in which the company posted a $2.6 billion profit on $6.1 billion of revenue. Analysts had expected BP to report a first-quarter profit of $1.4 billion. BP said it doesn’t disclose trading numbers, but Citigroup analyst Alastair Syme said he estimates the company made a large profit during the storm. “Gains from trading in gas and power are not quantified, but the move in (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) suggest these easily topped $1 billion,” Syme said in a research note to clients. “Although not mentioned by name, we think positioning around the February storm in Texas, Storm Uri, has been the biggest driver of these gains.” An accounting of the energy industry’s winners and losers has emerged in the weeks since the storm and power grid collapse killed nearly 200 Texans and caused billions of dollars in damage. Vistra, the largest power generator in Texas, on Monday said it took a $1.6 billion financial hit as a result of the storm and crisis. Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan last week said it earned $1.6 billion after it was able to keep natural gas flowing through its pipelines, in large part because it had invested in safeguards to protect equipment from brutally cold temperatures. Natural gas prices skyrocketed as the winter storm plunged Texas into frigid darkness, causing gas production to fall by nearly half during the storm. Operators of gas-fired power plants said inadequate natural gas deliveries brought some of their operations to a halt, resulting in a cycle in which power outages took out more natural gas production that led to more blackouts. Vistra said it was forced to spend $1.1 billion on natural gas in the spot market at a price of $700 per million British thermal units to keep its natural gas-fired power plants operating during the storm. The company typically contracts for gas at about $3 per million British thermal units. BP said it generated surplus revenue of $1.7 billion during the first quarter, helping it to meet debt reduction targets a year ahead of schedule.

Southern Sells Gas Unit That Made $200 Million Off Freeze – Power provider Southern Company signed an agreement to sell its wholesale gas trading and services business after the unit brought in $200 million during the power crisis in Texas earlier this year.The sale of the utility’s Sequent Energy Management unit was disclosed in an earnings presentation Thursday, but the buyer and the terms of the deal were not revealed.“We did sell our wholesale gas trading business in Houston,” Chief Financial Officer Andrew Evans said in an interview with Bloomberg Thursday, adding that the sale reduces Southern’s risk, and was at book value so the company won’t see material gains or losses.Companies have begun to report profits and losses related to the arctic blast in February that caused widespread power outages across Texas. Last week, Kinder Morgan Inc. divulged a $1 billion gain due to wildly profitable gas sales during the freeze. Others weren’t so lucky. Utility Atmos Energy Corp. racked up $2.5 billion in fuel costs during the disaster.Southern, one of the biggest power providers in the U.S., donated about $75 million of the income made during the energy crisis to its community partners, Evans said on a conference call with analysts Thursday.Meanwhile, the Sequent deal was reached Wednesday evening, said Southern Chief Executive Officer Tom Fanning in the interview. The deal has been signed, but hasn’t closed yet. Both Evans and Fanning declined to name the buyer.

TEXAS BLACKOUTS: Energy CEO: ‘We have to fix’ natural gas — Tuesday, April 27, 2021 — Vistra Corp., Texas’ largest power producer, singled out natural gas yesterday as the leading cause of a projected $1.6 billion financial hit to the company after February’s winter storm and power outages.

$7B Gasoline Manufacturing Facility Planned for Texas –The Odessa Development Corporation and Nacero Inc have announced plans to build a $6.5 billion to $7 billion lower carbon gasoline manufacturing facility at a site in Penwell, Texas. The facility will be built in two phases, with phase one producing 70,000 barrels per day of gasoline component ready for blending and phase two increasing that capacity to 100,000 barrels per day, a statement posted on Nacero’s website revealed. The gasoline produced at the facility will contain no sulfur and will have half the lifecycle carbon footprint of traditional gasoline, according to the company, which said the gasoline will be made from a combination of natural gas, captured bio-methane, and mitigated flare gas. Construction of the Penwell facility, which is scheduled to begin before the end of the year, will employ a peak of 3,500 skilled workers during the four years of phase one construction, Nacero revealed. When fully operational, the plant will employ 350 full time operators and maintenance personnel in three shifts with a forecast annual salary of approximately $85,000 per person, the company noted. All of the plant’s electricity will come from renewable sources, according to Nacero, which said the plant will be the first in the U.S. to make gasoline from natural gas and the first in the world to do so with carbon capture and sequestration. The Odessa Development Corporation and the Economic Development Department of the Odessa Chamber of Commerce led negotiations that resulted in Penwell being chosen for the facility. “Ector County is the ideal location for us,” Nacero President and Chief Executive Officer Jay McKenna said in a company statement. “From a geographic and logistics standpoint you can’t beat it. We will be a major new market and beneficial home for the natural gas that is currently flared in the Permian Basin,” he added. Odessa Development Corporation Chairman Tim Edgmon said, “this project proves once again that West Texas in general, and Odessa in particular, leads the nation in energy innovation and production”.

ExxonMobil prepares to lock out hundreds of workers at Beaumont, Texas refinery —Oil workers are heading into a major class battle as ExxonMobil prepares to lock out 650 workers at its Beaumont, Texas, refinery on Saturday unless they capitulate to its demands for further givebacks. The US-based multinational is already hiring potential strikebreakers to man its refining and packaging plant, which is located 85 miles east of Houston. In the face of this, the United Steelworkers (USW) has left the refinery workers isolated and has also signaled its willingness to abandon workers’ elemental demands for improved staffing levels and safety standards. The stage was set for ExxonMobil’s attack by the USW’s betrayal of the 2015 strike by more than 6,550 workers at 15 facilities. Throughout that months-long struggle, the USW kept tens of thousands of other oil workers on the job, including Beaumont workers, despite their willingness to join in a common struggle. It is clear the USW plans to acquiesce to ExxonMobil’s demands. On Wednesday evening, the USW agreed to an “orderly transfer” of the refinery to temporary workers if ExxonMobil locks out union-affiliated workers on Saturday. Union representative Richard “Hoot” Landry said union officials met with the company as early as Monday to discuss the possibility of a transfer. “We are communicating and preparing communications to the company because the union is ready and able to do whatever is necessary to meet with them and work toward a new agreement,” Landry told the Enterprise . USW Local 13 – 243 has 650 members at the oil refinery and adjacent lubricants blending and packaging plant. The complex has a production capacity of 369,024 barrels per day and is in the middle of an expansion project that could make it the largest refining facility in North America. The company and union have been negotiating since January on a contract to replace the agreement the USW forced through in 2015, when the refinery’s expansion began.

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