Moves underway to export fracked natural gas in liquified form from PA.

[JPZenger]

Last edited Tue Feb 26, 2013, 01:55 PM - Edit history (1)

A couple of things are coming together. One is natural gas prices are falling because of an increased supply from fracking. Meanwhile, prices are at least twice as high in other countries.

Another is that Chesapeake Energy (which owns large amounts of natural gas rights in PA) is under severe financial pressure and is selling off assets to pay off their huge debt payments. Yesterday, Chesapeake sold off rights to huge energy fields in Oklahoma to the second largest energy company in China, at a fraction of the official market value. China has an incredible demand for new sources of energy.

http://articles.philly.com/2013-01-10/news/36239830_1_cheniere-energy-fuel-exports-natural-gas-exports

The above Phila. Inquirer article talks about efforts to loosen US federal trade rules on the export of natural gas. Exports are allowed to countries with free trade agreements, but not to other countries.

Excerpt:

"Dominion Resources has proposed expanding its existing Cove Point import facility on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, saying the terminal would be well-positioned to export gas extracted from the Marcellus Shale. Last week, a Maryland judge denied a Sierra Club challenge to expanding the terminal. Dominion wants to export up to 1 billion cubic feet of gas a day from the site.

"We're pretty optimistic," said Daniel E. Donovan, a Dominion spokesman. The project is estimated to cost $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion.

Natural gas must be purified and super-cooled into liquid to be transported by ship. Upon arrival at destination markets, the LNG is converted back into gas."

The facility is south of Baltimore, and is connected to many existing pipelines.

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There also was talk by Corbett a couple months ago about trying to turn a closed refinery in southeast PA. along the Delaware River into a LNG export facility.

This also means more pipelines and larger capacity pipelines in PA, including use of eminent domain to build them.
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Last November, Shell announced they were going to spend $20 billion on LNG projects, mainly in the US.
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Here's a Congressional hearing transcript on the safety and security of LNG facilities, including in Maryland. They are explosive, and are a potential terrorist target.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg35913/html/CHRG-110hhrg35913.htm
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Here's a recent Sierra Club report about exporting of LNG:

http://www.sierraclub.org/naturalgas/downloads/LOOK-BEFORE-YOU-LEAP.pdf

[JPZenger]

1. Pros and cons

On the con side, we have the potential of greatly expanded fracking, and its environmental impacts, explosive hazards from LNG, truck traffic, etc.

One the pro side, we have increased jobs, increased royalty payments to landowners, decreased global climate change emissions around the world (vs. alternative fuels), decreased imbalance in imports-exports to the US, increased security for our western allies who would have less reliance upon Russia for their energy, etc.