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ETP Update: Rover Fully Online by June 1, Mariner East 2 Online 3Q18

Yesterday Energy Transfer Partners held its quarterly conference call with stock analysts to discuss first quarter 2018 results. On the phone call we got some updated information about timing for two critical Marcellus/Utica projects: Rover Pipeline and Mariner East 2 Pipeline. As recently as last week MDN was under the impression that Rover–a $3.7 billion, 711-mile natural gas pipeline that runs from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and on to Canada via the Vector Pipeline–would be 100% done sometime by the end of June. Not so according to ET’s CFO Thomas Long, who said on yesterday’s call that Rover will be fully done and in service by June 1! That is really good news. That means the full capacity of 3.25 billion cubic feet per day of Marcellus/Utica gas will flow to the Midwest, Michigan and Canada within the next three weeks. As for Mariner East 2 (ME2), that project was knocked off its original schedule following an extended shutdown of construction by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environment Protection. ME2 is actually two pipelines, not one. The first ME2 pipeline, according to Tom Long, will be up and running sometime by the end of September this year. The second ME2 pipeline, referred to as ME2X, will be done by “mid-2019.” Here’s a couple of excerpts from the conference call, along with the full ET 1Q18 update…
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Atlantic Coast Pipe Radicals Threaten Duke Energy CEO at Her Home

Protesting something like a pipeline is one thing. March around, show your signs, talk to the press, make a horse’s rear-end of yourself. Whatever. But showing up at someone’s home and blocking their driveway and erecting a 20-foot tall tower and refusing to move until arrested? That’s something else. That kind of “protest” is threatening, menacing behavior. Bullying. And it’s all too easy for people who have crossed that line to tip over into outright violence. A group of criminal protesters did just what we described–blocked the driveway and erected a wall in the driveway–of Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good at her home in Charlotte, NC on Wednesday. Duke is partners with Dominion Energy in the $6.5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project, a natural gas pipeline from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. The criminal protesters showed up at Good’s home to oppose the project. The signs they carried revealed their irrational hatred of fossil fuels, which is what motivated them to protest in the first place. Wackos. Here’s how it went down at Good’s home earlier this week…
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EQT Continues to Fight PA DEP Fine re Wastewater Impoundment

On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court (an appeals court) heard oral arguments over how to prove whether contaminants in the soil have moved into groundwater. The case dates back to 2014 when the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) slapped EQT with a $4.53 million fine for a leaky wastewater impoundment in Tioga County (see PA DEP Levies Biggest Fine Ever, $4.5M Against EQT). EQT did not say there wasn’t a problem with leaks at the site, but they did say the way the DEP calculated the fine was unreasonable and arbitrary. EQT appealed the fine and the case all the way to the PA Supreme Court, and in early April the Supremes ruled in favor of EQT, saying that the DEP’s levied fine was excessive and that the DEP misinterpreted language in the 1937 Clean Streams Law (see PA Supreme Court Axes DEP $4.5M Fine in EQT Tioga Wastewater Leak). We thought (mistakenly) that was the end of the case. But it’s not. The Supremes ruled on “water to water” contamination in the case, but not on ground to water contamination. PA law allows for companies to be on the hook for each day a contaminant enters the water table. What lawyers argued this week was whether or not, and how, the DEP can prove contaminants in the ground, there because of EQT’s leak, can be proven to have leached into the water on any given day. DEP is calculating a revised $1.1 million fine based on assumptions about how many days the contaminants leaked out of the ground. EQT is forcing DEP to use more than just spitball estimates in calculating the fine…
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PA Dem Senator from Philly Intros Bill to Steal Marcellus Money

PA State Sen. Vincent Hughes

Pennsylvania State Sen. Vincent Hughes from Philadelphia is in the back pocket of Big Education. And why not? Hughes has received $635,000+ from Big Education unions over the years. Therefore, Hughes does their bidding, since they pay him to. We previously told you about Hughes attacking the Marcellus industry with slanders, slurs and outright lies in an attempt to paint the industry as greedy because they have resisted a severance tax on top of an existing impact tax (see PA Senator from Philly Slanders Marcellus, Accepts $635K in Union $). Hughes is at it again. He’s just introduced a bill, Senate Bill (SB) 777, that allows the close-to-bankrupt Philadelphia school system to borrow a MASSIVE $5 billion, with a promise to raid Marcellus drillers via an obscene severance tax (on top of the existing impact tax) to pay back the $5 billion. This is what passes for smart around Philly. We suspect Hughes himself is a product of Philly’s failed education system…
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Antis Ask Court to Overrule State, Feds and Stop Mountain Valley Pipe

Apparently the more bizarre your actions, the more likely you are to become a minor celebrity. That’s what’s happening for Grandma Red, Theresa “Red” Terry, who took the bizarre action of climbing a tree on her property and living in the top of it for a month–all in an attempt to stop the tree from being cut to make way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). In the end Grandma Red came down when a judge told her she would begin paying $1,000/day for her bizarre behavior. Now that she’s back on terra firma, Grandma Red is meeting with state officials and attending radical Big Green rallies, showered with praise for her “courageous” action. What’s next? The Tonight Show and The Late Show? Meanwhile, in a well-timed and coordinated attack, Big Green lawyers are asking the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the decisions of state and federal agencies to allow MVP, simply because Big Green doesn’t like the decisions. Big Green argued the court should overturn a decision by the Virginia State Water Control Board to allow MVP to build, crossing streams, and to overturn a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to allow MVP to build pipeline through a tiny sliver of Jefferson National Forest. Twenty years ago these lawsuits would have been laughed out of court because the country followed the rule of law. Today, with courts packed with Obamadroids, you just don’t know…
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Insider Reveals What’s Really Going On in NY Constitution Pipe Case

One of the lawyers who filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting the Supremes hear the Constitution Pipeline case has written a column that rips the mask off New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and exposes him for the corrupt autocrat he is. The column is long and uses a number of legal references and arguments, but we can sum it up this way: (1) Cuomo has been caught admitting he has imposed an illegal moratorium on new pipelines; (2) Cuomo’s action in blocking the Constitution and other pipelines usurps federal authority; and (3) Cuomo’s actions in blocking pipelines threatens national energy security. It’s not often we get the inside thinking of one of the key players in a high-profile lawsuit. Read the following and learn…
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NTE Energy Plans 1000 MW Gas-Fired Electric Plant in SC

NTE Energy, headquartered in Saint Augustine, FL, buys and builds electric generating plants and transmission facilities throughout North America. We’ve reported on a number of NTE projects, including a report from April 2016 when NTE announced three new gas-fired electric plants that will be fed by Marcellus/Utica gas (see NTE Energy Developing 3 NatGas-Fired Electric Plants in CT/NC/OH). You can add one more Marcellus-fired plant to the list. NTE announced earlier this week it will build a mammoth 1,000 megawatt (1 gigawatt) gas-fired plant in Anderson County, South Carolina. The $1 billion project will generate enough electricity to power 1 million SC homes and businesses. The announcement about the project does not specifically mention M-U gas feeding it, but since the mighty Transco Pipeline passes through Anderson and has been reversed to bring M-U gas from north to south, there’s no doubt about the gas that will feed the new plant. You may recall last month we reported on Duke Energy starting operations at a new 750-megawatt gas-fired plant in Anderson County (see Duke Energy SC Gas-Fired Plant Starts Up – Marcellus Connection?). An obvious observation: Big gas pipelines are a magnet for new electric generating plant projects…
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Other Energy Stories of Interest: Fri, May 11, 2018

The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Energy investment brings hope in rural OH; midstream key to WV economic growth; WVU introduces legal certification for energy sector; Shell execs to speak at Pittsburgh petchem event; NJ gov questions proposed Meadowlands gas-fired power plant; Tellurian lines up partners for Driftwood LNG; Dominion Energy hands out $1 million in grants; Big Oil invests in natgas trucks; researchers blame “climate change” for just about everything, including allergy season; U.S. shale gas heading to Israel; and more!
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