Stonewall Gathering Pipeline Finished!

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Great news for West Virginia royalty and mineral owners!  The Stonewall Gathering project is complete and pumping gas out of the Marcellus Shale area.  It takes gas from Doddridge, Harrison, and Lewis counties and transports it to Braxton County where it connects with an existing Columbia Gas pipeline.  That pipeline takes the gas out of state.

It’s a big pipeline, at 36 inches in diameter, and is currently moving about 700 MMcf/day.  It’s highest capacity is expected to be 1.4 billion cubic feet of gas per day.  If it’s like other pipelines, it could probably be pushed a bit higher with some additional compressors.

The most pressing need in the Marcellus shale and Utica shale area is for take away capacity.  There is so much gas in the region that there simply aren’t enough pipelines to transport it all to market.  Consequently, pipeline companies can name their price to transport the gas, and they take a huge chunk of the value of the gas.  When all is said and done, Marcellus shale gas has been netting West Virginia producers more than a dollar less than what gas sells for at Henry Hub.

With more pipelines, the “differential” between Henry Hub and the Marcellus/Utica region will decrease.  That means more money in royalty owners’ and lessors’ pockets.  The Stonewall Gathering pipeline itself will not make a large difference.  Combined with other projects that should be completed in the next few years, though, we will start to see better royalty payments.

Fracking Earthquake Record

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earthquake-hazard-sign-5186792Well this is interesting.  It turns out that fracking activities have been linked to an earthquake that registered 4.6 on the Richter scale.  That’s strong enough that people indoors will feel it, with noticeable shaking of indoor objects and rattling noises.  People outdoors will feel it slightly.

It’s the biggest earthquake caused by fracking that has been clearly linked to fracking to date.

Most fracking earthquakes won’t ever be felt by anybody.  Apparently, bigger fracking projects in the right, er, wrong location could lead to bigger earthquakes.  It wasn’t something we had been concerned about previously, but it appears it’s time to look into it a little closer.  Stay tuned.

 

The Challenges of Converting Power Plants from Coal to Gas

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Here is an interesting article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  FirstEnergy closed down a coal-fired power plant in 2013, and had no plans to re-open it.  In the last few months, however, they have changed their minds.  At least, they have changed their minds about looking at the possibility of re-opening it.

The article states that market conditions have changed.  The price of electricity hasn’t gone up much, but the price of oil and gas has gone way, way down.  Who wants to bet that that one factor alone has reduced costs?

One other interesting point that was made in the article is that building a brand new gas-fired plant would (just a couple years ago) have been cheaper than converting the coal-fired plant to gas.

Five Facts About Fracking

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You won’t hear this phrase on this blog very often: the information in this article blew my mind.  Andrew Follett wrote an article published at the Daily Caller that describes five facts about fracking that haven’t gotten much traction in the news.  Most of them are extremely interesting.  The point about Russia’s economy shrinking because we no longer rely on their oil could have both good and bad long-term effects.  Click on over and read.  It’ll make you think.

Pipeline Negotiation Stories

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Ford Turner at the Reading Eagle, a Pennsylvania newspaper, put together a pretty nice article which illustrates how different attitudes can bring different results in negotiating with a pipeline company.  In writing the story, he interviewed a number of people from his community about their experiences with putting together a deal with the pipeline.  Each person had a different experience.

If you have been approached by someone who represents the Atlantic Coast Pipeline or the Mountain Valley Pipeline, you should definitely take a few minutes to read the article.

Oil Prices Will Not Recover Soon

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In this article in the Wall Street Journal, you can see that the price of oil is not going to jump up any time soon.  Any industry that relies on high oil prices to get by is going to have a bad couple of years.  Luckily there aren’t very many industries that rely on high oil prices.  There are quite a few more industries which do significantly better when oil prices are low.  Also, American consumers benefit greatly when oil prices are low.  It seems that America and maybe the world in general is going to have a pretty hot economy in the next couple of years, just because energy is going to be so affordable.  While this firm may suffer some in the short term, we expect to benefit from an improved economy.  Here’s to shale development and the Saudi war on shale!

Forced Pooling Legislation is Back on the Menu

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The West Virginia Legislature will consider passing forced pooling legislation during the 2016 session.  This will be the sixth time that they’ve considered it.  The legislation has been defeated five times in five years.  Each defeat has led to improvements in the legislation.  This year, backers of the legislation say that it has only changed slightly from last year’s version.  They think that the legislation from last year was pretty good and are willing to push it as is.

Opponents to forced pooling oppose it on principle.  They say that it’s not right to force a property owner to do any particular thing with their property unless they want to.  We agree.  We’re not fans of eminent domain either, for the same reason.  If the government or a company or a private citizen or a group of private citizens wants to use someone’s property, they should either work out an agreement for that property with the owner or find another piece of property to use.  We know there are counter-arguments, but we don’t think they trump the right of a property owner to control their property.

Looking forward to a fun legislative session.

Saudis Already Cutting Back on Spending

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Dollar SignKarma is coming back to bite the Saudis in the butt.  The Saudis are cutting back their budget in 2016.  Their budget deficit is being reduced, but at the expense of spending, not because their income is increasing.  The reduction in spending is going to make the lower classes unhappy, and give the political opposition to the Saudi royal family something to work with.  Things won’t come to a head in 2016, because there just won’t be enough unrest in Saudi Arabia, but if things keep going this way it will come to a head eventually.  It’s going to be an interesting show to watch.

A New Cracker Plant! …..In Louisiana.

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Axiall Corporation is building a cracker plant in Louisiana.  It’s expected to open for business in 2019, so sometime between three and four years from now.  That is, of course, if there are no construction delays or Hurricane Katrinas or any other such thing.  This is great news!  The cracker plant will process natural gas from the Marcellus/Utica plays

While we would prefer to see the cracker plant in Parkersburg, WV get built (and we now wonder why it’s not, seeing as how one can get funded and built over a thousand miles away from the Marcellus/Utica Play) we are excited that there will be a destination for ethane gas.

Of course, we badly need some pipelines heading out of this area.  Gas is trading a $0.59/MCF at Dominion South today.  That’s $1.30 less than the Henry Hub.