| | | | |

The Main Reason EQT is Buying Back Equitrans Midstream

Yesterday, the big news broke that driller EQT Corporation is reuniting with pipeline company Equitrans Midstream (see Stop Press! EQT Buying Equitrans Midstream in All-Stock Deal). It’s not a total surprise. In February, Equitrans had telegraphed to the market that it was actively considering an offer from an unnamed buyer (see Equitrans Looking at Potential Buyer; MVP Now Delayed Until 2Q). We sort of figured it would be another pipeline company doing the buying, but then EQT stepped up. Why? What is the primary motivation for EQT to want to buy back what it once owned?
Continue reading

| | | | | |

Will EQT Sell the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) Crown Jewels?

Yesterday, EQT Corporation announced a deal to buy its former midstream division, now called Equitrans Midstream, for roughly $5.46 billion (see Stop Press! EQT Buying Equitrans Midstream in All-Stock Deal). Equitrans owns 1,200 miles of gathering pipelines (the main reason for the purchase) and another 940 miles of interstate pipelines. The crown jewels for Equitrans is the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which is due to be finished and online in the next few months. Would EQT sell off the crown jewels?
Continue reading

| | | | |

Stop Press! EQT Buying Equitrans Midstream in All-Stock Deal

We’ll be darned. We’ve been writing the MDN blog/news site since 2009, and a LOT has happened over those years. One of the more noteworthy events was when so-called activist investors forced EQT Corporation to split itself into two companies, which ultimately became EQT Corporation and Equitrans Midstream in November 2018 (see It’s Here! EQT Midstream Division Now Split into Standalone Co.). Equitrans became a new, completely separate company with its own board of directors and its own set of investors. And now, five-and-a-half years later, EQT dropped the bombshell announcement this morning that it has cut a deal to buy back Equitrans in an all-stock deal that creates a new company worth $35 billion. We wonder what the “activist” investors think of that.
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

Antis Launch Ad Hominem Attack of Va. DEQ Director re MVP Work

In a new low, anti-fossil fuelers who have tried and failed to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia (now 99% done) are now attacking the reputation and character of the Director of the Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ), trying to slow things down with an ad hominem (“to the man” or “personal”) attack against the guy who oversees the environmental agency that has a partial role in watching over MVP. It’s shameful. DEQ Director Michael Rolband was appointed to his job by newly-elected Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2022, back when MVP was already 95% done but stalled due to repeated lawfare by Big Green and cooperative (corrupt) 4th Circuit judges. Even though MVP was already mostly done in Virginia, antis say because Rolband — who did some work for MVP in his prior career before heading DEQ — is somehow compromised or unethical and not doing his oversight job correctly now. Complete hogwash!
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

2 “Protesters” Locked to Car Block Road to MVP Construction Site

Once again, Big Green is attempting to illegally block the final bits of construction of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline as it travels through Roanoke County, VA. Yesterday, two “protesters” chained or otherwise attached themselves to an old (junk) car, a car made entirely from and with fossil fuels, blocking a road that leads to an MVP construction site. We grow tired of reporting these incidents and debated on whether or not to report this one. However, MDN readers deserve to know how the lawless left behaves. Plus, one of the so-called protesters looks like he (or she) is…well, you can fill in the blank.
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

Roundup of 3 New M-U Pipeline Projects Coming to North Carolina

MVP pipes

Three new pipeline projects are on the way in North Carolina, each one of them will deliver more Marcellus/Utica natural gas to the Tar Heel State. We’ve covered all three projects in separate posts. This post is a roundup, an overview of each project in one place. The three pipeline projects coming to North Carolina over the next few years are MVP Southgate (from Equitrans Midstream), T15 Reliability Project (from Dominion Energy), and Southeast Supply Enhancement (from Williams).
Continue reading

| | | | |

MVP “Protesters” Behave Badly at Va. Attorney General’s Office

The radicalized environmental left does itself no favors with its antics and histrionics aimed at bullying public officials. Case in point: On Wednesday, Feb. 21, a small group of activists (six or seven) with Third Act Virginia were removed from Attorney General Jason Miyares’ office in Richmond after staging a sit-in. The wackos were there to deliver a petition to the AG demanding that he shut down work on the final 1% of Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). The AG and his staff refused to meet with the wackos, so they pitched a fit like two-year-olds and had to be removed.
Continue reading

| | | | | | | |

Equitrans Looking at Potential Buyer; MVP Now Delayed Until 2Q

Two really big (huge) pieces of news are coming from yesterday’s Equitrans Midstream fourth quarter and full-year 2023 update. The first bit of news is that Equitrans is actively considering a buyout offer. The company doesn’t use that exact language, but that’s what’s happening. This should come as no surprise, given the rumor mill on a potential Equitrans sale heated up last December (see Equitrans Midstream, Builder of MVP, Considers Selling Itself). The second bit of news is that (surprise!) the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, which was supposed to be done and online by the end of March, will slip into the second quarter. Oh! And the price tag has increased once again, thanks to various lawsuits by Big Green and complicit judges.
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

D.C. Circuit Dismisses Eminent Domain Lawsuit Against MVP & FERC

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit) delivered a HUGELY important decision. In April 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who argue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia. The aim of the lawsuit is to prevent any private company from using eminent domain ever again to build public infrastructure — a true disaster of national importance. The D.C. Circuit said in an opinion yesterday that it lacks jurisdiction to rule on the matter, meaning it’s “case closed,” and MVP can finish up the final little bits (it’s about 99% done now).
Continue reading

| | | | | |

50 NC Democrat Lawmakers Ask FERC to Redo MVP Southgate Cert

In 2018, Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), proposed to extend MVP (when it’s done) by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The 75-mile extension is called MVP Southgate. Last year, Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend Southgate’s project timeline an extra three years. FERC agreed in December (see FERC Approves MVP Southgate Request for 3-Yr Extension to Build). A few weeks later, Equitrans announced it was significantly changing the project, cutting it by more than half and increasing the amount of gas flowing through it (see Equitrans Slices MVP Southgate Pipe Project From 75 to 31 Miles). Some 50 North Carolina Democrat state lawmakers have asked FERC to force Equitrans to file for a new certification as this is now essentially a different project than the one originally proposed.
Continue reading

| | | | | | |

Desperate Antis Ask Va. Regulators to Block Work on 99% Done MVP

Last Thursday, 29 far-left nutball groups wrote Mike Rolband, Director of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), demanding that he issue a stop work order for the 99% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) due to “repeated and widespread violations and damage to waterbodies and private property.” This isn’t the first time these groups have demanded regulators intervene to block MVP based on flimsy grounds. The 29 radical groups include Wild Virginia, The Wilderness Society, Virginia League of Conservation Voters, West Virginia Rivers Association, Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and others (most of them obscure, one-person “groups” pretending to be bigger than they are).
Continue reading

| | | | |

Equitrans to Drill 2 New Gas Storage Wells in Greene County, PA

Equitrans, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline project, is more than just a one-trick (one pipeline) pony. Equitrans owns 940 miles of FERC-regulated, interstate pipelines that have interconnect points to seven interstate pipelines and multiple local distribution companies (LDCs). The transmission and storage system is supported by 43 compressor units, with total throughput capacity of approximately 4.4 Bcf per day and compression of approximately 136,000 horsepower, and 18 natural gas storage reservoirs, which have a peak withdrawal capacity of approximately 820 million cubic feet (MMcf) per day and a working gas capacity of approximately 43 Bcf. Two of Equitrans’ 18 storage reservoirs — Hunters Cave and Swarts, both in Greene County, PA — are getting a makeover.
Continue reading

| | | | | |

Ohio Protester Stops Work on MVP for 7 Hours, in Jail with No Bail

Madeline ffitch

It looks like the radical left is running out of locals (people in Virginia and West Virginia) willing to get arrested and jailed to block work on the 99% completed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, so they’re importing them. Madeline ffitch (last name spelled correctly, not a typo) is an obscure writer and activist from Ohio who works for a group called Appalachia Resist! It is a so-called direct-action group, meaning they get aggressive and commit crimes in order to make a point. Ms. ffitch had a fellow leftist put her in a “sleeping dragon” contraption connected to a piece of MVP excavating equipment in the Jefferson National Forest (Virginia side in Giles County) on Monday. It took police about seven hours to cut it off her and haul her away to jail, where she still sits, having been denied bail.
Continue reading

| | | |

San Francisco Protesters Demand Wells Fargo Pull MVP Funding

Photo: Leon Kunstenaar / Pro Bono Photo (click for larger version)

Not only did an out-of-state protester lock herself to a piece of equipment being used to finish up the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project on Monday (see today’s lead story), but protesters on both coasts held events outside the offices of Wells Fargo on Monday, demanding the bank withdraw funding for MVP. The pre-planned protests were held in front of the offices of Wells Fargo Bank in Blacksburg, Virginia, and San Francisco, California. Yep, the wackos of Cali got in on the bash-MVP action. And wow! What a show they put on! Complete with a coven of protesters who dressed themselves up in what looked to us like Klimate Klan uniforms.
Continue reading

| | | | | |

NC Dems Ask FERC to Strike MVP Southgate Extension, Redo Full Eval

Here’s one instance when antis may have a legitimate point. In 2018, Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), proposed to extend MVP (when it’s done) by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The 75-mile extension is called MVP Southgate. Last year, Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend Southgate’s project timeline an extra three years. FERC agreed in December (see FERC Approves MVP Southgate Request for 3-Yr Extension to Build). A few weeks later, Equitrans announced it was significantly changing the project, cutting it by more than half and increasing the amount of gas flowing through it (see Equitrans Slices MVP Southgate Pipe Project From 75 to 31 Miles).
Continue reading

| | | | | |

Equitrans Still Needs to Tidy Up at Rager Mountain Gas Leak Site

In November 2022, one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania), began to leak. Equitrans is the owner/operator of Rager Mountain. The well leaked roughly 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of gas into the atmosphere (see Equitrans Gas Storage Well in Cambria County, PA is Leaking). It took two weeks for the leak to get fixed after it had leaked an estimated 1.4 billion cubic feet into the air (see Storage Well Leak Fix in Cambria County Failed, Leaked 1.4 Bcf). It turned out to be less — around 1.1 Bcf of leaked methane in total.
Continue reading