Daily Energy Blog

With natural gas production in Marcellus/Utica on a steep upward curve, midstream companies are developing plans to rework their existing pipelines or build new ones to help move the region’s gas to market. No stone is being left unturned. Today we conclude our five-part series on moving Marcellus/Utica gas south and west with a look at Columbia Pipeline Group and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners plans, sum up the takeaway capacity being added in the 2014-17 period, and explore whether additional pipeline-network enhancements will be needed after the current round of projects is up and running.

Sitting within or near the Marcellus/Utica shale gas play and facing tightening environmental rules that start kicking in next April, power generators in the PJM (a large region that includes the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia and Ohio as well as parts of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan) and New York electricity markets very likely will burn increasing amounts of natural gas the next few years. But with pressure to rebuild depleted gas inventories after this year’s Polar Vortex winter and the next wave of coal-unit retirements still months away, to what degree will generators in the region turn to gas this summer? In this episode in our gas power burn series, we provide a progress report on gas-inventory rebuilding and look at this summer’s coal-versus-gas dynamics in PJM and New York.

The southern half of the Eastern Seaboard is a logical market for the natural gas surplus that will be flowing out of the Marcellus/Utica in coming years. Annual gas consumption in the fast-growing Maryland-to-Florida region now tops 8.7 Bcf/d and is rising quickly, largely due to the ongoing shift from coal-fired to gas-fired power generation. The region is close to major gas production areas in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, and already has Williams’ Transco mainline, the gas-transportation equivalent of an eight-lane highway, as well as other Trunkline interstate pipes running right through it.  In this episode of our series on moving gas out of the Marcellus/Utica, we look at pipeline projects Williams and others are planning to transport gas to Southeast consumers.

Natural gas production in the Marcellus/Utica region continues to increase sharply. Appalachian gas is already dominating markets in the Northeast – helped by a series of infrastructure projects already largely in place or underway. Now producers in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia need to reach additional customers to their south and west--including potentially the biggest prize of all, the LNG export terminals being developed on the Gulf Coast. Gas pipeline takeaway capacity out of Marcellus/Utica has been added in fits and starts to date, but the need for new southern and western outlets for gas from the region is now evident, and midstream companies are planning long line, bi-directional projects with a combined capacity of more than 9 Bcf/d. In this new series, we consider this next round of pipeline projects out of the Marcellus/Utica.

There is talk that natural gas flaring in the Bakken is peaking and will soon start to decline. But even the most optimistic forecast has the share of gas being flared falling from the current 30% plus to between 5 and 10% by 2020. That goal is still 10 to 20 times the 0.5% share of gas being flared in Texas. Can more be done to reduce Bakken flaring to Texas levels? Today we look at what it would take to slow Bakken flaring to a flicker.

From space the light thrown off by Bakken gas flaring makes sparsely populated western North Dakota look like Minneapolis-St. Paul. But the gathering pipelines, the processing plants and the interstate pipelines needed to transport Bakken gas to market are finally being built, and within a few years the glow of gas flaring in the region is expected to dim. Today we continue our review of gas flaring in the Bakken with a focus on increased efforts to move Bakken gas to processing plants and consumers.

Despite the challenges they would likely face, as many as four companies are exploring the possibility of exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the Canadian Maritimes [1] to Europe, Latin America and Asia. Their thinking is, with Marcellus natural gas production expected to continue increasing, with Sable Island and Deep Panuke gas just offshore, and Europe little more than a week’s boat ride away, LNG exports from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick may well make economic sense. But LNG export terminals are among the most capital-intensive projects; also, piping Marcellus gas through New England—a region with serious wintertime gas-delivery constraints—to the Maritimes would require major pipeline upgrades. Today we look into the LNG project plans and the pipeline expansion needs in more detail.