Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide VA | Virginia
Army Corps of Engineers Shuts Down MVP Pipe Work in Virginia
More bad news for EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for MVP in West Virginia (see Court Overturns MVP WV Permit; FERC Shutdown Coming Again?). It’s the second time that permit has been overturned, stopping work at some 591 stream/river crossings the pipeline traverses in WV. Given the permit is overturned in WV, the Army Corps on Friday told MVP to stop work under the same permit in Virginia–affecting another 525 stream and water crossings.
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In the absence of a guaranteed minimum royalty in Pennsylvania–an issue which continues to divide landowners and drillers–individual landowners are left to litigate in order to get what they are fairly due. Such litigation is time consuming and expensive, and without a certain outcome, which is why most landowners don’t do it. In Washington County, PA a couple who signed a lease with Range Resources have just filed a lawsuit against Range in county court alleging Range violated the terms of the lease by deducting post-production expenses.
Reliable One Resources, a wastewater treatment company headquartered in Texas, has just purchased an existing/functioning wastewater injection well in Athens, OH. Reliable does not say in their announcement who sold them the well. They do say they intend to drill a second well next to the first one (which is the big news for us), and that they (Reliable) is in the process of buying “multiple trucking companies” that will hauling wastewater from Marcellus/Utica drillers to their facility.
Williams is expanding its mighty, 10,500-mile Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co (Transco), again. Sometime this month Williams will prefile a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the Leidy South expansion project. The new project will bump up “compression” (either build new compressors or refit existing compressors) and build new “looping” pipeline in Pennsylvania, in order to increase capacity of Transco in the northeast Marcellus region by another 580 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d).
Some of the most important, and slowest, permits issued to drill a new shale well in Pennsylvania are “Erosion and Sediment Control” permits. Well pads and the roads built to access them involve such permits. When sediment/erosion permits are delayed, the whole project is delayed. The PA Dept. of Environmental Protection published an updated general permit covering Oil and Gas Development Erosion and Sedimentation Control (ESCGP-3) in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on Saturday, Oct. 6. The new permit is supposed to streamline and make the approval process faster. We’ll see about that.
The actions of political leaders have consequences. Sometimes dire consequences. People like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo believe they can wave a magic wand and proclaim, “No more fossil fuels, we’ll just use solar and wind instead.” But proclaiming it doesn’t make it so. Proclaiming it doesn’t exempt you from the consequences of your actions. In recent years Cuomo has blocked new natural gas pipeline projects that would deliver Marcellus gas from Pennsylvania, claiming we need to move to so-called renewable energy. Now the chickens have come home to roost.
We’re feeling better and better that President Trump is ready to take action to overrule states like New York that abuse the federal Clean Water Act in order to block interstate pipeline projects. We first picked up on comments by Energy Secretary Rick Perry back in May (see 
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Permitting drops in Pennsylvania amid strong production, tighter purse strings; Rising up: After a year, Shell cracker project is taking shape; House Environment Committee Oct 9 meeting on royalty bill postponed; To meet demand for shale well cement, idled WV site restored; Pennsylvania offers a key midterm test for Trumpism; Dominion gets NC approval for merger with SC’s SCANA; Despite record demand, Wisconsin frac sand mines shutting down, laying off workers; National Grid facing new state scrutiny over gas safety following Woburn incident; Weather is the only thing holding back an upward explosion in natural gas prices; Shale oil is not a Ponzi scheme: evidence from decline curves; UK’s Cuadrilla to begin shale gas fracking in NW England ‘in next week’; Putin says Trump should blame himself for high oil prices; Why China may soon regret its tariffs on US natural gas.