Downstream

FERC has denied a request from three environmental groups to rehear a 2017 order authorizing the Mountaineer XPress and Gulf XPress projects, a pair of TransCanada Corp. efforts to increase natural gas pipeline capacity out of the Appalachian Basin by expanding the company’s Columbia Gas Transmission LLC’s system.

Four natural gas pipeline projects were approved by FERC Thursday, but Commissioners continued their struggle to find common ground on their role in determining each project’s potential effects on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

Driven by the Permian Basin, ExxonMobil Corp. reported stronger upstream production and raised its projections in the play, but the solid operational news came as downstream and chemical results pulled first quarter profits down on “challenging industry margin environments.”

The energy sector, an underperformer in the S&P 500 since oil prices peaked in 2014, is facing a reckoning to entice investors after ending 2018 “solidly” in last place, according to Deloitte.

Chevron Corp. has earmarked $20 billion for organic capital and exploratory spending in 2019, a near-$2 billion boost year/year, with $7.6 billion specifically targeting the U.S. upstream.

A phalanx of environmental and community organizations last Thursday asked FERC to reconsider approvals of enhancement work on the Dominion Energy Transmission Inc.’s New Market natural gas pipeline project in New York.

Some of Pennsylvania’s leading private and public sector economic development organizations are stepping-up their efforts to expand markets for natural gas in the state as the upstream and midstream booms of years past are increasingly giving way to more downstream opportunities.

Gas for delivery Wednesday added a few pennies in trading Thursday as double-digit gains in the East, along with some help from firm Rockies quotes, were able to surpass weak pricing in California, Texas, and the Gulf Coast.

The natural gas infrastructure and market dynamics are likely to be altered significantly, operators said Tuesday in Chicago, if the on-going series of east-to-west projects continue to be built from the Marcellus and Utica shales to send new supplies to the Midwest, Canada and Gulf Coast markets.