Why natural gas from Putin's Russia has to be imported to New England.

Washington Examiner, opinion by EID’s Steve Everley. Earlier this year, New England — located just a few hundred miles from the Marcellus Shale, one of the world’s largest natural gas fields — was forced to import a cargo of Russian liquefied natural gas. This was necessary because anti-energy activists have convinced local elected leaders to block new energy infrastructure, including pipelines that could bring American gas to the region. This is making households in the Northeast more dependent on imported energy, and forcing them to pay among the highest energy bills in the country. This was no accident. “Keep It In the Ground” is playing politics with working families’ energy bills, based on the “hope” that the handful of energy sources they support will soon be affordable. Even the Boston Globe opined that “Massachusetts’ reliance on imported gas from one of the world’s most threatened places is also a severe indictment of the state’s inward-looking environmental and climate policies.”

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Permalink Reply by Inchworm antenna on March 27, 2018 at 4:13pm

Didn't the great Ronald Reagan say something like: it's not that _____ don't know anything, it's just that so much of what they know is wrong.

Perhaps that why they so often have such a reliance on fake news and fakeumentaries. 

Permalink Reply by Brett on March 28, 2018 at 5:14am

Sounds like Russian collusion to me.

Permalink Reply by Tom Pendergast on April 10, 2018 at 8:04am

Massachusetts could have gotten their gas from Dominion's Cove Point, Maryland LNG export terminal were it not for the Jones Act.

The Boston Globe claims that the Yamal peninsula is "one of the world’s most threatened places" so why is the population increasing there?  It must hold some attraction.  At least more native people have running hot and cold water and are abandoning tents for permanent shelter.  They now have a fish processing plant so they can send their catch to wider markets and improve incomes.  I don't know what they did for fuel before (there are practically no trees) but now they've got natural gas and plenty of electricity.  It seems to me that Yamal is a lot less threatened today than it was before the discovery of natural gas resources there.

Permalink Reply by Bullfrex on April 10, 2018 at 12:08pm

In this case, gas is gas, and where it is produced or consumed has less to do with economics and more about advancing the Progressive Green agenda. The good people of Massachusetts have their elected leaders to 'thank' for higher fuel bills.

Any cargo that may have been delivered from Cove Point to Boston, but was not, did not go unsold.

The Jones Act and it's provisions would be a moot point if pipelines were in place.

Until the political landscape in NY and MA changes, this will be the status quo. 

Permalink Reply by Coffeeguyzz on April 10, 2018 at 2:05pm

I most sincerely hope you folks reading this do a brief followup on the extreme absurdities contained in Mr. Pendergast's post above.

This, apparently, will be the anti fossil fuel peoples' next approach to defuse the immanent catastrophe (precisely, the blame/responsibility)  about to descend upon New England during the next few YEARS' when cold snaps occur in wintertime.

Jones Act???? 

Puhleeze. Read briefly the history, context, purpose of the Jones Act and it will immediately become obvious it is a red herring of the highest order.

Yamal thriving???? You anti fossil fuel folks must be desperate beyond measure!!

Tell Nora her industry sponsor for the anti pipeline report, Engie, is bailing out before the excrement truly hits the fan in the coming winters.

No Northern Pass?

CMP starting to look shaky as more and more Maine folks realize their Massholes neighbors want to save the planet ... just not at THEIR inconvenience.

You Appalachian Basin residents need to learn of the near-catastrophe New England recently experienced NOT so much as the publicized Russian LNG hastily imported into Everett, but the THREE ships carrying desperately needed heating oil for New England's depleted drawdown.

2 million gallons burned will do that.

Get engaged, folks. Learn and speak up on your families' behalf lest New England's plight become your own due to the machinations of fossil fuel haters.

Permalink Reply by Coffeeguyzz on April 10, 2018 at 2:31pm

... and, NO, Massachusetts could NOT have gotten LNG from Cove Point as the commissioning delivery (first one) just left Maryland a few weeks ago ... LONG past the frantic, frigid early weeks in January when it was most needed.

Just another example of Know Nothing posturing to soothe the masses.

Permalink Reply by Tom Pendergast on April 12, 2018 at 5:52am

I don't get how you think my take on Yamal as thriving compared to the time before gas was discovered there could be interpreted to be anti fossil fuel.  It is because there is a vibrant gas industry in Yamal now that people's lives there is so much better than it ever was before.

I think New Englander's welfare would be better too if they had pipeline access to northeast Pennsylvania's gas.  Is that an anti fossil-fuel mindset?

LNG tankers as well as VLCCs are often redirected in midshipment whether a commissioning cargo or not.  That's the nature of trading.

Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on April 13, 2018 at 6:19am

Tom; the reference to 'world's most threatened place' has nothing to do with people or their income/lifestyle.  The paper is talking about the fragile environment in that area and how the Russians went in without any  regard to minimizing the damage to that environment

I am certainly not a tree hugger/NIMBY type but I would greatly prefer that mineral extraction be done with reasonable minimal damage to the environment..

Permalink Reply by Tom Pendergast on April 13, 2018 at 8:40am

200 years ago, the Adirondaks and Appalachian region stretching from New Brunswick/Maine and New England, across Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and most of Ohio, was a vast, unfragmented, pristine forest.  And not particularly hospitable.  I'm glad I live here now and not there then.

I like to compare the Yamal Peninsula to Prudhoe Bay, which you have some familiarity with.  They're both above the Arctic Circle, on the coast, have a lot of permafrost and have small populations of native people.  The hydrocarbons are different, mainly oil in shallow offshore waters of Prudhoe Bay and mostly on-land gas in Yamal, so oil is pipelined down the Trans Alaskan Pipeline to Valdez, whereas most Yamal gas is exported as LNG by ship (there is a Gazprom pipeline from Yamal to Europe as well).

I think most people living in northern Alaska year round would prefer their present lifestyle to the good old days.  If you had a chance to talk to the natives on Yamal, you'd probably get a similar response.

The Globe's claim that " . . . the Russians went in without any regard to minimizing the damage to that environment . . . " is quite simply untrue as you will realize by reading the following link:

http://yamallng.ru/403/docs/ESIA%20ENG%20.pdf

Gazprom, operating on the opposite shore of the Ob River estuary across from the Yamal Peninsula, performed similar environmental and social impact assessments well before construction of their facilities.

Yes, the construction of Sabetta port, the airport and the new railroad linking Yamal to Moscow have permanently destroyed Yamal's pristine environment.  And all forms of life on Yamal are permanently improved.  A brighter future lies ahead.

Before these developments, there was no running water let alone waste-water treatment and no electricity.  Now, people up there enjoy all of these in much improved housing and for the first time, access to good-quality schools and income-producing enterprises.

Permalink Reply by Tom Pendergast on April 14, 2018 at 8:38am

I might add a speculative note on the delicate pristine Yamal environment:  If you look at a detailed map of the peninsula, you'll notice that there are a very large number of small lakes, somewhat like Saskatchewan and Alberta.  Notice how many of them are roughly circular?  They originated as pingoes (lots of those in Alaska) which filled with natural gas over a long period of time and eventually exploded, leaving a crater that eventually filled with water.  Will the large-scale extraction of natural gas now mitigate these events and improve the safety of people and reindeer?

Permalink Reply by Tom Pendergast on April 15, 2018 at 9:24am

Re Cove Point coming to the rescue of Boston:  not possible since the commissioning cargo was in March, not February when the need was greatest.  It might have been possible to export LNG from the Canaport terminal in St. Johns, New Brunswick (owned 75% by Repsol and 25% by Irving).  Irving has 3 onshore LNG storage tanks there so it might have been possible without violating the Jones act.  Of course gas demand was high there too at the time, so it might not have been feasible.

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