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Not Guilty Pleas in FirstEnergy Nuke Bailout Bribery Scandal
FirstEnergy Solutions (now called Energy Harbor) allegedly paid $60 million in bribes to (now former) Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his associates to gain their assistance in passing the hugely unpopular House Bill 6 (see FirstEnergy Involved in Bribery Scheme to Pass $1B Nuke Bailout Law). HB 6, which became law, gives Energy Harbor $1.1 billion in ratepayer funds to prop up the company’s uneconomic nuclear power plants (disadvantaging other energy sources, like gas-fired power plants). Four of the five defendants have just entered pleas–all of them “not guilty.”
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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted permission to Kinder Morgan to begin service on train #10 at KM’s Elba Island LNG export facility, located near Savannah, Georgia. KM’s Elba project consists of 10 mini-trains, each capable of liquefying 0.3 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of LNG–or roughly 40 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas. There’s just one train left to bring online…
Summit Midstream Partners, formed in 2009 and headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, operates natural gas, crude oil and produced water gathering (pipeline) systems in six unconventional resource basins, including the Marcellus and Utica. The company concentrates its time and money on four “core focus areas” including the Utica, the Williston (i.e. Bakken), the DJ Basin and the Permian. The Marcellus is part of the company’s “legacy” systems that doesn’t get as much love (and money). Last week the company issued its 2Q update. The company’s Utica operation was the star performer in 2Q, increasing flows through Summit’s system by 60%.
It’s been a loooong road getting the Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline system, which includes building two pipelines side-by-side from eastern Ohio across Pennsylvania to the Philadelphia area, done. From what we can tell, ME2 is now done–with the possible exception of a few miles where smaller pipeline is being used until a bigger replacement is done. For all intents, ME2 is done. However, ME2X, a second pipeline being built next to the first, is not yet done. But it’s getting close! According to comments from Energy Transfer (ET) made during a quarterly conference call yesterday, ME2X will be in service by the end of this year, and the entire project will be done-done sometime in 2Q21. Finally!
We have some significant news coming out of yesterday’s 2Q update from Equitrans about the company’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Equitrans is seriously considering expanding compression along MVP to flow an extra 500 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas along the pipeline after it’s up and running.
The pipeline business is doing just fine, despite COVID-19. That’s according to Alan Armstrong, CEO of one of the country’s largest pipeline companies–Williams. On a conference call yesterday to discuss the company’s 2Q20 performance, Armstrong said: “[M]any people assume that natural gas demand would be greatly diminished by COVID-19 and a stalled economy. Fortunately, we have not seen that play out at all. In fact, natural gas demand has continued to grow, both broadly across the market and on our systems, in particular.”
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) finally got its butt in gear and issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) for an amended request by PennEast Pipeline to break the project into two phases–building the pipeline through Pennsylvania in Phase One, and through New Jersey in Phase Two. FERC was supposed to issue its findings on or by July 10. Finally, after two weeks with no report, no explanation, and no communication, PennEast goosed FERC on July 24 (see 
On August 1, 2019, Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Pipeline Company (TETCO) pipeline exploded in Lincoln County, Kentucky–killing one and sending six to the hospital (see 
New Fortress Energy (NFE), which is building an LNG liquefaction facility in northeastern Pennsylvania and a dock on the Delaware River to export their PA LNG, is expanding rapidly. NFE issued its 2Q20 update yesterday. In reading a transcript of a conference call with analysts, the light bulb went off for MDN. NFE has figured out how to deliver (sell) LNG to just about any market on the planet. It’s pure genius. We’ll explain it below.
Last year, in an effort to flow more natural gas to a starving New York City, Kinder Morgan cut a deal with utility company Consolidated Edison to provide more gas by beefing up capacity along its Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) that feeds NYC, allowing Con Ed to avoid cutting customers off from natgas hookups (see 
Over a year ago, in March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 760 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see 