The Nord Stream pipeline(s) run 760 miles under the Baltic Sea

From an Article by Tsvetana Paraskova, OilPrice.com, November 25, 2019

Russia’s gas giant Gazprom is rushing to hire an engineering contractor to have an underwater natural gas pipeline, which has broken off the seabed in the Arctic, fixed, Russian news agency Interfax reports.

This is the second time a pipeline on the route that crosses the Baydaratskaya Bay has come to the surface in the past two years. As Interfax notes, last year another pipeline had broken off the seabed.

It was not clear if the resurfacing of the pipelines has created major safety hazards or affected gas supply from the fields in the Yamal Peninsula, according to The Barents Observer.

A unit of Gazprom has announced a competitive tender for engineering surveys for the Bovanenkovo – Ukhta 2 line, which transports natural gas from the Bovanenkovskoye field on the Yamal Peninsula via the Baydaratskaya Bay in the Kara Sea to mainland Russia and onto Europe.

Bovanenkovskoye is currently the largest natural gas producing field on the Yamal Peninsula, according to Gazprom. The construction of the Bovanenkovo – Ukhta 2 gas pipeline began in 2012 and the pipeline was brought on line in 2017.

Now with a second line resurfacing, Gazprom has launched a tender for repair works on 9.2 kilometers (5.7 miles) of the pipeline in the bay, Interfax reports, citing tender documents from the Gazprom unit.

Gazprom expects the work to help it have the pipeline placed in a trench of up to 5 meters (16.4 feet) below the seabed. The engineering surveys are planned to take place in 2020 and 2021, according to Interfax.

Gazprom is dominating gas supplies to many European markets, and now it also vies to meet rising Chinese natural gas demand. Russia wants a share of the huge Chinese market and the Russian gas giant looks to supply pipeline gas to China — and this will begin in weeks.

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Russian natural gas pipelines in West Siberia and the Yamal Peninsula

See also: Pipeline problems for indigenous peoples on Russia’s Yamal Peninsula · Global Voices, February 20, 2020

The Yamal Peninsula contains some of the biggest known reserves of natural gas on the planet. This remote peninsula in the Russian Arctic extends for 700 kilometres into the Kara Sea, and now several pipelines, offshore gas fields, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals have made it their home. Those tens of millions of cubic metres of natural gas have attracted Russia’s state-owned gas companies and several international investors; in 2008, Gazprom announced its Yamal Project, to unlock the region’s hydrocarbons on a vast scale. Yamal is also home to 15,000 people, 10,000 of whom are Nenets reindeer herders.

Jim Ratcliffe, CEO of INEOS, now a billionaire

Corporate News Statement from Richard Longden (INEOS), July 3, 2018

INEOS commits to building a new world scale chemical cracker and PDH plant in North West Europe. The €2.7 billion is the biggest capital investment ever made by INEOS.

This is the first cracker to be built in Europe in over 20 years. Jim Ratcliffe, Founder and Chairman of INEOS says, “This is the largest investment to be made in the European chemical sector for a generation. It will be a game changer for the industry and shows our commitment to manufacturing.”

Today INEOS has approved a €2.7 billion capital project to build both a world scale ethane cracker and a PDH (Propane Dehydrogenation) unit in Northern Europe. Both units will benefit from US shale gas economics.

This will be the first new cracker built in Europe for two decades. It will also be one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly plants of its type in the world.

The location of the site will be determined soon and it is likely to be on the coast of North West Europe. A project team has been assigned to consider options and the project is expected to be completed within four years.

Gerd Franken, Chairman INEOS Olefins and Polymers North says, “This new project will increase INEOS self-sufficiency in all key olefin products and give further support to our derivatives business and polymer plants in Europe. All our assets will benefit from our ability to import competitive raw materials from the USA and the rest of the world”

This new investment follows a decision taken by INEOS last year to increase the capacity of its existing crackers.

Jim Ratcliffe adds, “INEOS is going from strength to strength. This new investment builds on the huge investment we made in bringing US shale gas to Europe and will ensure the long-term future of our European chemical plants.”

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NOTE: The name INEOS is derived from INspec Ethylene Oxide Specialities, a previous name of the business. It also stems from one Latin and two Greek words that founder Jim Ratcliffe and his two sons found when searching for a company name. “Ineo” is Latin for a new beginning, “Eos” is the Greek goddess of dawn and “neos” means something new and innovative. As a result, the name Ineos represents the “dawn of something new and innovative”. Jim Ratcliffe, 65, chief executive of Ineos, in May 2018 topped the Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune of £21.05 billion, making him the UK’s wealthiest person.

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See also: Following Spills and Sinkholes, Mariner East Pipeline Opponents Call on PA Governor Wolf to Stop Construction, Sharon Kelly, DeSmog Blog, June 11, 2018

Add More Pipelines?

Large Natural Gas Transmission Pipelines in “Pipelinealachia”

>>> Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV <<<

Pepe Escobar and others have referred to four countries whose names end in  … -stan (Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan) as “Pipelineistan” because they are rich in oil and gas and ripe for the picking. I am going to call, from time to time,  northern Appalachia as “Pipelinealachia” in analogy.

Of course, the gas over there is in conventional deposits and here it must be fracked at considerably greater expense and environmental damage. That’s “because the good stuff is gone” here. Much of it went into the atmosphere, let me remind you.

My attention was focused a few days ago by a lady who is in the unenviable position of having one of the big new pipelines go across her small property, and being within half mile of a second large pipeline. Unfortunately it is on the top of a ridge, and each of the pipelines is projecting a compressor station on that ridge within a mile of her home.

The pipeline bisects her property with a 125 foot right of way, but there is a high road bank where it enters, so they want an access road perpendicular to the pipeline, which will block off her house. To top it all, she is allergic to diesel fumes!

Over two decades ago she retired from Washington, where she had had worked as a technician in her husband’s legal practice, picking up a great deal of law knowledge, and familiarity with court procedure. She has considerable experience reading contracts and is not afraid to dive right in to reading them. As one might expect, the contracts offered to people take as much as possible, without consideration of present or future landowners.

If the pipeline doesn’t get built, the company owns the right of way after taking the lease, and the terms are vague enough that one can think of several other uses it covers. Assuming it is built, no provision is made for abandoning it. The rapid advance of other kinds of energy may make it obsolete (a “stranded asset,” the investors’ worst nightmare). If so, what happens? If it does continue for some projected lifespan, what happens then? Is whatever current landowner married to it “for time and eternity.” Or is it to become a public liability, like so much of the remains of the coal industry and chemical industry, to be cleaned up at public expense? The end of useful life certainly will come.

Some of the lady’s neighbors were glad to get a little cash. It is a poor neighborhood, and they are willing to endure the traffic, the dirt, the contamination for a modest payment. Or perhaps they had a limited concept of what was coming. The ones who bargained received second, even third offers, often with more money, but taking more land or changing the take somewhat. Of course the contracts had the standard “nondisclosure clause” to keep information, including both terms and price from the neighbors.

In such conditions people who refuse to sign are often told “Your neighbors have all signed” or “If you don’t sign, we are going to take it anyway,” even if the company has no right of eminent domain. Essentially, only interstate pipelines which have been vetted by FERC have eminent domain, although in many cases lease men may  say a line which has not been vetted can use law to take the right of way.

Lease taking is an art in applied psychology which is well cultivated. They have tough guys, they have types that can charm, they have legalistic types and so on. Lease takers have been known to threaten old people, to claim the lease doesn’t say what it does, and even to make wild claims about what the law says when in fact it doesn’t.

You are supposed to be able to write-in additional provisions, which supersede the printed page, but I’ve also heard people claim the recorded lease is different from the one they signed. You can demand different terms on a printed page, requiring the land man to come back, too, if you hint you will then sign it. He likely would have to go back to get the boss’s permission to make a change anyway.

This is pretty serious business for the owners that reside on the land, the neighbors and those that follow, the “heirs and assigns,” as the law puts it. You need to cooperate with your neighbors, and get expert help. The land men do it every day and have a big organization behind them with experts of all kinds. You do it once or a few times in your life. You are just a daily hurdle that must be gotten over. Perhaps one of several for the day. Remember, it’s your interest against the company’s.

How long will this extraction boom last? Is it likely to play out? In the view of those playing the game, it can’t be interrupted. It will go on for decades. It can’t. First of all, there is much gas in the world that can be taken out of the ground cheaper. Some is in the Arabic states that are our nominal friends. Far more is in Russia, “pipelineistan,” allied with Russia, and Iran, all of which butt up against each other in the center of the Eurasian land mass, where gas can be piped to Europe and China without fracking or liquefaction.

Secondly, solar and other “renewable” sources of energy are poised for a rapid advance. Hydrocarbon advocates deny the chance of displacement, but it will happen quickly, because it eliminates much of the cause of global warming, provides more and better jobs and eliminates huge, long distance power lines.

Third, the financial scenarios for fracking  are uncertain. The price usually quoted for gas is the Henry Hub price. So what is that? It is a concentration point for gas moving east at Erath, Louisiana, where it interconnects with nine large transmission lines to pipe the gas on east. It serves as the source of figures used for gas price in the New York Stock Exchange and elsewhere. It is not the only transshipment point for gas, however. Marcellus gas is already in the East, and it goes through other hubs, being sold by one party to another.

It’s not just need to pay off debt that forces companies to keep drilling, see here.

Experts are saying the pipelines are needed for transport to markets, but the real objective is to export liquid natural gas. The cost of liquefaction, onloading and cross sea transport, with regasification is needed in addition to the higher cost of fracking.  American businesses will have to compete with foreign countries for gas markets. Your cost may be the price in China, less what it takes to get it over there.

Then there is what I have referred to as the “White elephant in the room,’” i.e. global warming. Can economics drive us over the climate cliff, like in the movie “Thelma and Louise”?

The fact is that fracking is investment driven, not production drawn. Those who put the money together to capitalize the industry take theirs off the top, and they have the means to get publicity and influence legislation. Plenty of money is available to the producing companies, and they spread it around liberally to the benefit of their activities.

Like they said in pirate days, “Devil take the hindmost!”

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

Europe Risks Losing 30 Million Jobs to U.S. Shale Boom

By Priyanka Sharma and Lananh Nguyen, Bloomberg News, July 17, 2014 

The U.S. shale-gas boom is placing 30 million jobs at risk in Europe as companies with greater reliance on energy contend with higher fuel prices than their American counterparts, the International Energy Agency said.

Manufacturers of petrochemicals, aluminum, fertilizers and plastics are leaving Europe to take advantage of booming U.S. production of natural gas from shale rock formations, Fatih Birol, chief economist for the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based adviser to 29 nations, said at a conference in London today.

“Many petrochemicals companies in central Europe are moving out,” Birol said. “Thirty million jobs are in danger.”

The U.S. has become the world’s largest producer of oil and gas as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling help producers extract resources from shale rock. The country’s refineries processed a record volume of crude last week as plants took advantage of cheaper domestic crudes. Chemical makers from Germany’s BASF SE to Brazil’s Braskem SA plan to invest as much as $72 billion in U.S. plants to take advantage of low-cost natural gas feedstock.

West Texas Intermediate crude traded at a discount of $5.85 a barrel to European benchmark Brent at 5:43 p.m. on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London. U.S. August natural gas futures traded for $3.96 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, compared with $6.49/MMBtu for the equivalent U.K. contract on ICE in London.

U.S. refineries are competing for market share and benefiting from margins that exceed those of European competitors by as much as $10 a barrel because of cheaper crude, Hermes Commodities said in a report today.

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Comment: By continuing to ignore all of the environmental impacts and secondary costs of “shale fracking,” the U. S. is sowing the seeds of major societal disruption around the world.  And, how can we in all conscience refuse to adopt very strong programs to abate “climate change” as well as global “plastics pollution.” Our oceans and sea creatures are already plasticized. The future of Earth is in the balance now! Duane Nichols, July 22, 2014.

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Shell C.E.O. Peter Voser Warns Europe to ‘Stay Competitive’

From Report by John Moylan, UK – BBC, June 6, 2013

The head of oil giant Shell has told the BBC that Europe faces a growing struggle to compete with the US economy. Royal Dutch Shell’s chief executive Peter Voser told the BBC’s John Moylan that the challenge in Europe was “to stay competitive”.

Cheap energy released by the process of fracking has revolutionised the US energy market. Gas and oil discoveries in shale rock have led to a boom in gas and oil production in recent years dramatically reducing gas prices.

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UK Shale Gas Bonanza ‘Not Assured’

From Article By Roger Harrabin, UK – BBC, April 26, 2013

Shale gas possibility: Will the UK’s energy strategy follow the US?

Shale gas in the UK could help secure domestic energy supplies but may not bring down prices, Members of Parliament (MPs) report.

The US boom in shale gas has brought energy prices tumbling and revitalised heavy industry, but the Energy and Climate Change Committee warns conditions are different in Britain.

The MPs say the UK’s shale gas developers will face technological uncertainties with different geology. And public opinion may also be more sceptical, they add. The UK is a more densely populated landscape, and shale gas operations will be closer to settlements as a consequence.

What is more, the extent of recoverable resources in the UK is also unknown, so the report concludes that it is too soon to say whether shale gas will achieve US-style levels of success.

Tony Bosworth, from Friends of the Earth, responded: “This does little to back the case for a UK shale gas revolution.”Fracking is dirty and unnecessary – it’s little wonder so many communities are in opposition. We should be building an affordable power system based on our abundant clean energy from the wind, waves and sun.”