As MDN began reporting last week, Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline, a $4 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada, has quickly become a soap opera. MDN brought you the news that Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline project has been fined by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) for $431,000 for “18 incidents involving mud spills from drilling, stormwater pollution and open burning at Rover pipeline construction sites have been reported between late March and Monday” (see Ohio EPA Slaps Rover Pipe with $431K Fine for Spills, Other Issues). Based on OEPA’s report to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC then told Rover to stop any new horizontal drilling underground (see FERC Slaps Rover Pipeline with Stop Drilling Order). And last Friday, we told you that Energy Transfer is claiming they’ve not been fined by the OEPA (see ET Disputes Ohio EPA Action on Rover, Says there Is No $431K Fine). Oy vey! Gas traders have taken notice of this unfolding drama, and the news surrounding Rover has actually moved the price of gas up. Which seems somewhat incredulous. You mean, a single pipeline has the power to make the national price of natural gas go up or down? How can that be?! Here’s a statistic you don’t often read: Rover Pipeline, when it’s fully functional, will move 14% of all the gas produced in the Marcellus/Utica (using today’s production numbers). That is an incredible statistic–and it has the power to move the price of natural gas–up or down…
