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Antis Ask DC Circuit to Cancel FERC Time Extension for MVP Southgate

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 group of extreme left anti-fossil fuel organizations are now challenging that time extension in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (DC Circuit).
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Lefties Throw Tantrum that MVP Asked FERC to Startup on Earth Day

Yesterday, we brought you the great news that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), the 303-mile, 2.0 Bcf/d pipeline from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, is essentially done (see MVP Essentially Done, Builder Asks FERC for OK to Start Up May 23). Equitrans, the builder, sent a request to FERC on Monday requesting the agency issue a decision allowing the pipeline to come online beginning May 23. Monday was Earth Day, which is a sacred day for anti-fossil fuel nutters. Kind of like Easter Sunday is for Christians. That MVP transmitted a request on sacred Earth Day appears to bother antis more than the fact that MVP is about to go online.
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MVP Essentially Done, Builder Asks FERC for OK to Start Up May 23

We never thought this day would arrive! We hoped. We prayed. But finally, it’s (almost) here. The 303-mile, 2 Bcf/d Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is almost ready to begin operation. On Monday, Equitrans Midstream filed a letter (below) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requesting a May 23 startup date for the pipeline. MVP (Equitrans) says the pipeline will be in the ground, buried, and ready to begin on May 22 (called “mechanically complete”). Get the champagne on ice and ready…
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2 Old N.J. Hippies Block Va. MVP Work by Hiding in Giant Opposum

We think our headline about says it all. We’ve seen this type of thing many times before — out-of-town (actually, out-of-state) “protesters” show up and disrupt legal construction activity because, well, because they’re looney tunes. They’ve drunk the global warming Kool-Aid and are convinced, against all reason and rationality, that using natural gas and oil is going to destroy Mom Earth. This time around, it was a married couple well past their prime, a couple of old hippies making silly asses of themselves. They sat inside a huge plywood structure made to look like an opposum, blocking access to a Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) construction site in Virginia for several hours.
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PA Slaps Equitrans with $1.1M Fine for 2022 Rager Mountain Gas Leak

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. Now, a year and a half later, the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is fining Equitrans $1.1 million for the accidental leak.
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Fish Species Antis Tried to Use to Block MVP No Longer Endangered

Roanoke logperch

Going back nearly six years, Big Green tried to block construction of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in Virginia by arguing some of the stream crossings threatened the very existence of the Roanoke logperch, a large “darter” fish that grows to about 6 inches long (see our Roanoke logperch stories here). The Roanoke logperch is on the endangered species list and green leftists claimed MVP would finish it off. They lied. Yesterday, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) said the Roanoke logperch is no longer in danger of extinction and should be removed from the endangered species list.
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Va. Landowners Appeal MVP Case to Supreme Court One Final Time

You have to hand it to the left. They never give up on their mission to destroy this country. Big Green groups using (abusing) six uppity Virginia landowners who didn’t want the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline to cross their well-groomed horse pastures have appealed a lawsuit recently dismissed by a federal court to the U.S. Supreme Court one last time. That is, if the Supremes decide to consider it again. It’s an open question if the Supremes will accept the case back.
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Appalachian Methane Initiative Concludes 2023 Test, Expands in 2024

In January 2023, three Marcellus/Utica companies — Chesapeake Energy, EQT, and Equitrans Midstream — launched the Appalachian Methane Initiative (AMI), a coalition committed to further enhancing methane monitoring throughout the Appalachia Basin and reducing methane emissions throughout the region (see EQT, Chessy, Equitrans Form M-U Methane Monitoring Club). The initial pilot campaign from 2023 is done, and the results are in (below). In addition, four more M-U companies are joining the original three for the 2024 campaign.
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Another Environut Stops MVP Work by Crawling Inside Pipe 36 Hrs

Last week, a 22-year-old activist too cowardly to give her name spent nearly 36 hours inside the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in Virginia, halting construction on a section of the pipeline for two days. It is the latest in a string of organized criminal activity against the pipeline project. Two weeks ago, we told you about two old anti-Semitic hippies arrested for locking themselves to an old fossil fuel-powered car who blocked an MVP construction road for 11 hours (see MVP Protesters Reveal Themselves as Anti-Semites). Last week’s campout inside MVP was more of the same.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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).
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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.
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