| | | | | |

Williams WV Compressor Station Explodes, Catches Fire

The Battle Run Compressor Station, owned and operated by Williams and located in Valley Grove (Ohio County), West Virginia, exploded and caught fire Saturday night. Fortunately no one was injured and the fire was extinguished within a half hour. Williams has “isolated” the flow of gas to the facility while the incident is investigated.
Continue reading

| | | | |

Columbia Gas Plans New NatGas Pipeline in Central Ohio

Columbia Gas of Ohio (NiSource) recently announced a new $135 million pipeline project to bring new supplies of Utica-sourced natural gas to homes and businesses located north and west of Columbus, in central Ohio. The project, called the Northern Loop Project, will file for regulatory approval with the Ohio Power Siting Board and hopes the OPSB will approve the project in 2020, with construction set to happen in 2022.
Continue reading

| | | | | |

FERC Approves Del-Mar Energy Pathway Pipe Project

Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company (ESNG), a subsidiary company of Chesapeake Utilities Corporation, filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in Sept. 2018 to build 19+ miles of new pipeline and new meter and delivery stations in Kent and Sussex counties in Delaware, and Wicomico and Somerset counties in Maryland, to carry more PA Marcellus natural gas to locations in Delaware and Maryland. Last Thursday FERC granted final approval for the project.

1/7/20 UPDATE: Chesapeake finally issued a press release on Jan. 7 to tout FERC’s final approval. We’ve included the release below.
Continue reading

| | | | |

FERC Approves Tennessee Gas Pipe Expansion to Springfield, Mass.

Among a flurry of new approvals, last Thursday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave final approval to Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s “261 Upgrade” project–a project to build approximately 2.1 miles of 12-inch diameter pipeline loop and replace two older, less efficient compressor units with a single new and more efficient compressor unit at the location of Compressor Station 261 in Agawam, Massachusetts.
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

PA Judge Fines Mariner East Pipe $1K for Scaring Homeowner

Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission Law Judge Elizabeth Barnes has tried to stop or block or otherwise do damage to the Mariner East pipeline projects for years. Most (all?) of her actions against the project have, in the past, been reversed by a vote of PUC Commissioners (see PA PUC Overrules Lib Judge – Mariner East 1 Returns to Service and PA PUC Allows ME2 Pipeline Work to Restart Near Philly). Will PUC members also overturn Barnes’ latest overreach in fining the Mariner East 1 pipeline $1,000, to be given to a nearby homeowner who doesn’t feel “safe” living 1,000 feet from a pipeline that’s been there all of his life?
Continue reading

| | |

Kentucky PSC Dismisses Antis’ Request to Block Pipe Near Louisville

In September MDN told you about environmentalist wackos at the Bernheim Arboretum (about 25 miles from Louisville, Kentucky) who refuse to grant an easement for 4,000 feet of land they bought *after* the Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) already had a state-approved plan to build a new pipeline over that land as part of tiny 12-inch, 12-mile pipeline (see KY Utility Hints at Defunding Local Arboretum Blocking New Pipe). The Arboretum’s refusal, along with a few other property owners, means 62 homes and businesses have been denied the right to connect to LG&E’s local natgas utility system.
Continue reading

| | | |

Carnegie Mellon Feels the Heat re Study Bashing Marcellus Shale

Carnegie Mellon University is clearly feeling the heat over their overtly political, unscientific “study” that says Marcellus Shale extraction and the use of that gas is polluting the air and causing man-made global warming–and therefore killing people (see Carnegie Mellon Junk Science Says Shale Kills via Air Pollution). The university is feeling the heat so much (big donations in jeopardy?) that the “president emeritus” (former president) of the school felt it necessary to pen a letter-to-the editor in the anti-shale Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to protest the way the study is (accurately) being reported as anti-shale. To borrow a phrase from Billy Shakespeare, “The president emeritus doth protest too much, methinks.”
Continue reading

Shale Energy Stories of Interest: Mon, Dec 23, 2019

MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Dominion Energy completes equity recapitalization of Cove Point; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: BKV deal for Devon’s Barnett assets said potential opening for LNG exports to Thailand; Natural gas industry’s $1 million PR campaign sets up fight over Northwest’s energy future; NATIONAL: Is LNG actually the future of energy?; Banks get tough on shale loans as fracking forecasts flop; Carnival delays debut of its biggest LNG cruise ship ever; Joe Biden will kill jobs. Just ask him.; Worst performing stocks of the decade; Top five U.S. energy developments of the last decade; INTERNATIONAL: Supreme Court dismisses appeal in long running Packers Plus technology fight; Shale to continue to crowd OPEC supply in 2020; For energy, poor people deserve to be rich.
Continue reading