Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines
Clown Judges from 4th Circuit Put Another Hold on MVP Permit
This has been going on for more than a year. Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia, has not been able to finish a project that is now 92% in the ground and complete because of repeated lawsuits by the Sierra Club and colluding leftist Democrat judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The delays are costing MVP $20 million per month! Yesterday the clowns did it yet again. They blocked a Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12) that was reissued by the Army Corps of Engineers after being reworked because of an earlier rejection by the same court. NWP12 would allow the pipeline to cross creeks and rivers and wetlands.
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We’ve been tracking the daily price of the NYMEX December futures contract at the South Louisiana Henry Hub on and off for the past few months. Yesterday it closed down again, at $2.86/Mcf (or MMBtu). However, the “spot price” for gas–actual physical gas bought and sold at various trading points along pipelines–has all but crashed and burned in the Marcellus/Utica. It’s bad. Like, historic record low bad.
Nuverra Environmental Solutions (formerly Heckmann) is one of the largest companies in the United States that handles transportation and disposal of shale drilling wastewater and leftover rock and dirt from drilling. The company has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica region. In August, the company reported less-than-rosy results for the second quarter, because of the coronavirus and producers slowing down their drilling programs (see 
Last week Pennsylvania issued a paltry 3 new shale well drilling permits (lowest we’ve seen in months), Ohio issued a single new permit, and West Virginia issued 5 new shale well permits. All 3 PA permits were issued in Greene County. The OH permit was issued in Carroll County (bit of a surprise). And all 5 WV permits were issued in Tyler County.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Canfield woman appointed to Ohio’s Advisory Council on Oil and Gas; Learning from Pennsylvania’s election chaos; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Eight steps that could upend Texas Gulf Coast natural gas markets; NATIONAL: OFS sector adds jobs, but resurgent pandemic means an uncertain outlook; Good assets are hedge against any adverse US political impacts: Kosmos; Oil & gas associations welcome Biden/Harris; Biden’s America to rejoin the Paris climate accords – will it help the environment?; Joe Biden’s four big energy transition challenges; INTERNATIONAL: Europe ready to restart transatlantic climate dialogue after Trump ‘parenthesis’; Egypt seeks to almost double cars running on natural gas by 2023; Global LNG supplies seen gradually tightening on FID delays; Prospective Biden administration welcomed by OPEC leaders; China inks first term deal for U.S. LNG since trade war erupted.