DTE Names Sites, Costs for 2 Gas Plants, ~300 MMcf/d of M-U Demand
Last month we told you DTE Energy was about to ask Michigan regulators for permission to build two new natural gas-fired power plants totaling 2,100 megawatts (MW) (see DTE Asks Michigan for 2 Gas Plants — 2,100 MW of New M-U Demand). On Thursday, Sept. 24, the formal ask landed. DTE Electric filed its 20-year Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) with the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC), and this time the plants come with addresses, price tags, and dates. A 1,400 MW combined-cycle plant in Handy Township (Livingston County) would cost $3.9 billion and come online by the end of 2031. A 700 MW plant in Milan Township (Monroe County) would cost $2.5 billion and come online by the end of 2032. Together, they replace the 3,066 MW coal-fired Monroe Power Plant, which will shut down in two stages in 2028 and 2032. Michigan produces very little gas of its own, and both sites sit close to pipelines that carry Marcellus/Utica gas into the state. Read More “DTE Names Sites, Costs for 2 Gas Plants, ~300 MMcf/d of M-U Demand”
A federal judge in Pittsburgh has ruled that two EQT subsidiaries must face most of a lawsuit filed on behalf of four West Virginia kids who claim that emissions from EQT’s shale wells and a nearby compressor station made them sick. On Sept. 23, U.S. District Judge Robert Colville threw out just one of the five claims, a request for a medical monitoring trust fund, and he gave the kids’ lawyers 21 days to fix and refile it. The rest of the case moves forward. That includes a “strict liability” claim that EQT had argued West Virginia law flat-out does not allow against oil and gas operations. It’s a pleading-stage ruling, not a verdict. Even so, it’s a loss for EQT, and it’s one the whole industry should watch. 
Here’s a number that should make every Marcellus/Utica landowner and driller wince: $1.590. That’s what gas at the Tennessee Zone 4 Marcellus hub is fetching for October delivery, according to NGI’s Forward Look. Meanwhile, down in Florida, the very same molecule (quite possibly gas that started life in a Pennsylvania or West Virginia well) is priced at $3.960 for October. That’s a $2.37 gap, which means Florida buyers are paying 2.49 times what our local hubs get. The culprit? Not enough pipe heading south. And this week, one of the few big southbound pipes we do have, Mountaineer XPress, sprang a leak. 
Expand Energy, the country’s largest natural gas producer, opened 
Remember that July morning when 4,000 megawatts (MW) of Northern Virginia data centers yanked themselves off the PJM grid because of a routine, properly cleared fault on a single transmission line (see 
A year and a day after the Farnsworth #4 orphan well blew out and burned six people inside Ohio’s Wayne National Forest, one of the survivors went to court. Chazz Bates — a 20-year-old rig hand at the time — filed suit Aug. 21 in Washington County Common Pleas Court against his own employer, Monroe Drilling Operations LLC, and the cementing subcontractor on the job, Zanesville-based Formation Cementing Inc. The complaint, which also names 10 unidentified “John Doe” defendants, alleges the two companies skipped basic well control before pumping cement into a well nobody had pressure-tested — and that an ODNR inspector had flagged Monroe Drilling’s homemade wellhead as leaking and inadequate two months before the explosion.