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Cardinal Midstream Wins $52M Court Verdict Against Energy Transfer
Here’s a lawsuit we were unaware of, even though it’s been playing out for years. It’s quite complicated. On the surface, at a very basic level, Cardinal Midstream II (we assume a subsidiary of the Dallas-based Cardinal Midstream) sued Energy Transfer (ET) for not paying an “earnout” (which we’ll explain) after buying a gas gathering system in Beaver County, PA. The PA judge found in favor of Cardinal and ordered ET to pay $33 million plus $19 million in interest. The judge also found ET’s related claim of a “force majeure” event when its Revolution Pipeline exploded did not excuse ET from its obligation to Cardinal. Read More “Cardinal Midstream Wins $52M Court Verdict Against Energy Transfer”
This is a sweet victory for our side. Last summer, MDN told you about a lawsuit being heard to hold Big Green groups (namely Greenpeace) responsible for their actions. Energy Transfer (ET), the owner and operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP), sued Greenpeace and other alleged instigators for $300 million for the damages sustained by the company due to violent protests incited by the groups in North Dakota in 2016 (see 
A Washington County, PA, judge is closing the barn door about 12 years late. On February 7, Washington County Court of Common Pleas Judge Brandon P. Neuman ruled Sunoco Pipeline, LLC (i.e., Energy Transfer) did not have the eminent domain authority to take property for the Mariner East Pipelines in 2013 from Bradley and Amy Simon (in Washington County), and possibly many other property owners. The case alleges that while ME gained eminent domain authority later, when the company negotiated with the Simons (and potentially others), it did not have that legal authority, yet it claimed it did. The Simons signed a lease they otherwise would not have signed if they had full information. They either would not have signed, or perhaps negotiated a bigger payment. That’s the gist of the story—that ME fraudulently presented claims. 
According to an investigative reporter for Penn State, between 2018 and 2023, Pennsylvania fined Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Sunoco at least $42 million in connection to the construction of Mariner East II. Some $10 million of that came from a deal with the PA Attorney General’s office (who happened to be Josh Shapiro at the time) for supposed repeat contaminations of waterways, failures to report environmental damage, and the use of unapproved chemicals in drilling fluid (see 
Did you happen to catch the news lighting up all the cable news stations yesterday about Chinese startup DeepSeek? The company launched a free AI assistant that it claims uses less data at a fraction of the cost of other AI models. By Monday, the DeepSeek assistant had overtaken U.S. rival ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s app store. The news sent traders into a tailspin of selling off tech company stocks like Nvidia (which makes the chips used in AI). The news also affected natural gas drillers negatively. Why? 
Just as the pandemic began to unfold in early 2020, Shell pulled out of a 50/50 joint venture partnership with Energy Transfer (ET) to build a new LNG export facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana (see 
Two pipeline industry titans are going after each other again. Energy Transfer and Williams previously tangled over an aborted proposed merger, a saga that stretched from 2015 until it was finally settled in 2023 (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was busy last Thursday during its latest open meeting. Not only did the commissioners approve an expansion for Elba Island LNG, they also approved a meter station project that will connect the Rover pipeline in Washington County, PA, to Energy Transfer’s Revolution Cryogenic Facility, a facility that extracts natural gas liquids (NGLs) from field gas and partially fractionates mixed NLGs to produce natural gas products like ethane. 
Two days ago, Energy Transfer (ET), a major midstream (pipeline) company with assets in the Marcellus/Utica, issued its third quarter update. ET has assets in many areas of the country, so there was plenty of discussion about pipelines in other areas. However, the centerpiece of the update and the conference call with analysts was the incredible (and we mean incredible) demand ET is seeing from both gas-fired power plants (new and existing) and data center projects. In his opening remarks, Tom Long, co-CEO of ET, said the company has received requests to connect to approximately 45 power plants the company does not currently serve in 11 states. The demand from those 45 plants would be 6 Bcf per day. In addition, ET has requests from over 40 prospective data centers in 10 states that would use another 10 Bcf/d. A combined 16 Bcf/d of new demand for one company. Incredible! 
In 2019, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) began formulating new regulations for intrastate pipelines transporting gasoline, petroleum, crude oil, and natural gas liquids like ethane. In July 2021, the PUC finally published a draft of new regulations (see 
A lawsuit being heard this summer is designed to hold Big Green groups responsible for their actions. Energy Transfer (ET), the owner and operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP), is suing Greenpeace and other alleged instigators for $300 million for the damages sustained by the company as a result of violent protests incited by the groups in North Dakota in 2016. Big Green is scared.
What had been a regular stream of talk about providing power to data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) has become a torrent. There is a clear connection between data centers and the natural gas industry. This most recent round of quarterly financial updates by the biggest of the big pipeline companies (all of which have a huge presence in the Marcellus/Utica) reveals a new opportunity: building natgas pipelines directly to data centers. Why? Because increasingly those data centers are considering making their own power.
The left is nervous about the oil and gas sector giving money to the campaign of Donald J. Trump. The New York Times, a bastion of leftist Democrat propaganda, has a headline and story blaring, “Biden and Big Oil Had a Truce. Now, It’s Collapsing.” Bloomberg’s version says, “Oil Titans Help Give Trump an Edge Over Biden in Fundraising.” Both stories reference a fundraising lunch being held today in Houston, Texas. The event will have a Who’s Who in the O&G industry, including Kelsy Warren from pipeline giant Energy Transfer, Harold Hamm, founder of oil driller Continental Resources, and Vicki Hollub, CEO of oil drilling giant Occidental Petroleum. They are ALL opening their wallets for Mr. Trump. And that makes the left nervous.
The government screws up just about everything it touches — ever notice that? A perfect example is a water testing program set up by then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro in December 2022. In August 2022, Shapiro, who AG at the time, announced that he had finally bullied Energy Transfer into pleading “no contest” (meaning they don’t admit to a darned thing) in a so-called criminal case against the company for a series of accidents affecting construction for both the Revolution and Mariner East pipelines (see