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NY Police State: Cuomo Orders Natl Grid to Hook Up Gas Customers

Sounding like North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday “ordered” National Grid to connect 1,157 new natural gas customers previously denied service because National Grid won’t have enough natural gas on the coldest days in winter to service everyone. New York has descended into a police state, with our Dear Leader ordering around companies in contravention of established law. Yet not a peep from mainstream news organizations about Cuomo’s excessive abuse of power.
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Fed Court Suspends Mountain Valley Pipe Permits; $2.15M Fine

We’ve seen this movie before. The radical fringe leftists from the Sierra Club (disgusting organization) convinced the clown judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (i.e. Circus) to block construction of Dominion Energy’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) pipeline by getting the court to toss U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permits that allow the project to kill a couple of bats along a few miles of the project (see 4th Circus Blocks Permit, Stops All Work on Atlantic Coast Pipe). The Clubbers have done it again, this time with Equitrans’ Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project.
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Corrupt NJ DEP Again Denies PennEast Pipeline Fed Water Permit

How would you like to find out that your billion dollar pipeline project has just been denied another permit–by getting a tweet? That’s what happened to PennEast Pipeline on Friday. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy tweeted that NJ’s Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is, once again, denying a federal Clean Water Act Section 401 stream crossing permit for the project. The putz delivered the news to PennEast via a tweet–can you believe that? The NJ DEP is rejecting the permit not for any scientific reasons, which is what the law stipulates, but because of politics.
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Proposed New PA Pipeline to Connect Rover Pipe to WV Power Plant

Tri-State Corridor Project (click for larger version)

It’s not often a new pipeline project crops up and slips by us. On May 31, Equitrans (formerly EQT Midstream) filed an official request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a 16.7-mile pipeline from southwest Pennsylvania into West Virginia in order to feed what will become WV’s very first natural gas-fired electric power plant (see WV NatGas Power Plant Gets Final Permits, Construction Begins Soon). The pipeline will connect to and feed gas from the mighty Rover Pipeline.
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PA DEP Reaches $1.48M Settlement with CNX to Plug Abandoned Wells

Last year the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) issued administrative orders requiring three oil and gas companies–Alliance Petroleum Corporation (a subsidiary of Diversified Gas & Oil), XTO Energy, and CNX Resources–to plug 1,058 abandoned oil and gas wells across Pennsylvania (see PA DEP Orders CNX, XTO & Diversified to Plug 1,058 Abandoned Wells). All three appealed the DEP’s order to the state Environmental Hearing Board. In March of this year the DEP cut a deal with Diversified (see DEP and Diversified Gas & Oil Compromise on Plugging Old PA Wells). As of last week, the DEP has now cut a deal with CNX, relaxing their earlier edict.
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Revised Ohio Regulations Reduce Utica Well Spacing Distance

regulations

The Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) recently revised its regulations governing the spacing of horizontal oil and gas production wells. The revised regs, which became effective on Oct. 10, loosen spacing requirements and “will bring Ohio’s horizontal well spacing regulations in line with what accepted science and drilling data indicates is a more efficient and productive spacing for horizontal wells in Ohio.” The setback (from boundary lines) was reduced from a previous 500 feet to 400 feet in some cases, and down to 150 feet in other cases.
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Conflict-of-Interest Delays Vote on SWPA Beech Hollow Power Plant

What happens when two of three elected town supervisors either have a lease with a pipeline company, or have close family members who have leases with the pipeline company, and they must vote to approve a new power plant project that would use shale gas from that pipeline to power it? It’s called a conflict of interest, and we’re about to find out the answer to that question in Robinson Township (Washington County), PA.
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Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Tue, Oct 15, 2019

MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Firefighters battle blazing conventional gas well in West Salem Township; Groups bidding for PES refinery due to tour fire-damaged site; Meeting to discuss plans for new power plant in Robinson Township canceled; WV’s oil and gas industry prepares for petrochemical manufacturing; GAIL selling two, seeking one LNG cargo; NATIONAL: Pipeline vandals have a friend in these phony enablers; Five U.S. LNG export projects eyed for sanctioning in 2020; Oilfield services firm ProPetro cuts almost 150 workers.
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