Perhaps The Biggest Story Of The Week -- EIA Adds The Anadarko In Weekly Production Report -- The Natural Gas Was Just Too Much To Ignore -- Making America Great Again -- T+207 -- August 15, 2017

I am completely blown away by the US natural gas story. So many things coming together all in the same decade:

• better technology in the oil and gas sector
• oil plays, as they mature, produce more natural gas
• the Marcellus and the Utica are elephants
• the Anadarko now joins the list
• even the oiliest of oil plays, the Bakken, is producing more and more natural gas
• LNG export facilities reviving local economies 
• Panama Canal expansion
• business-friendly administration; energy-friendly administration (Obama-Hillary might have done all they could to ban fracking -- Hillary said she would ban fracking)
• EPA and courts less aggressive on regulating oil and gas
• nuclear facilities being shut down around the world

The Anadarko is this week's poster child for the US energy revolution.

The Keystone XL: I think it's only a news story if it's approved. If it's denied (again), it's simply more of the same ol', same ol'. 

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Freeport LNG Export Terminal, 1 - Sierra Club, 0

From the Oil & Gas Journal:

A federal appeals court in Washington rejected the Sierra Club’s contention that US Department of Energy authorizations for the Freeport, Tex., liquefied natural gas project’s plans to export LNG inadequately considered environmental consequences. Oil and gas groups immediately welcomed the US Appeals Court for the District of Columbia’s Aug. 15 decision.

The organization argued that DOE should have considered indirect environmental consequences under the National Environmental Policy Act from the production and use of the gas that would be liquefied and exported. It also said that DOE should have considered additional variables when it authorized Freeport LNG’s exports to countries not having a free trade agreement with the US under the Natural Gas Act.

The court ruled otherwise in both instances in a decision written by Judge Robert L. Wilkins. He essentially affirmed earlier court findings that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was the lead agency in conducting NEPA environmental reviews for LNG export projects and said the additional analysis the Sierra Club sought from DOE would be impractical and unduly expensive.

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EPA Moves To Remove Another Obama War-On-Coal Regulation

From PennEnergy:

The Environmental Protection Agency says it plans to scrap an Obama-era measure limiting water pollution from coal-fired power plants.

A letter from EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt released Monday as part of a legal appeal said he will seek to revise the 2015 guidelines mandating increased treatment for wastewater from steam electric power-generating plants.

Acting at the behest of electric utilities who opposed the stricter standards, Pruitt first moved in April to delay implementation of the new guidelines. The wastewater flushed from the coal-fired plants into rivers and lakes typically contains traces of such highly toxic heavy metals as lead, arsenic, mercury and selenium.