Early yesterday morning around 1:20 am, the Texas Eastern Transmission Company (TETCO) pipeline exploded near a trailer park in Lincoln County, Kentucky. The blast and resulting fire killed one woman, injured five more, and destroyed five homes in the area. Flames shot up more than 300 feet into the air, visible from neighboring counties.
Read More “TETCO Pipe Explodes in Kentucky Killing 1; Southbound M-U Gas Stops”
Last December MDN brought you news of a new Transco pipeline expansion project, the Williams “Leidy South Project,” to expand Transco capacity in Pennsylvania (see Williams Unveils “Leidy South Project” to Expand Transco in PA). The good news is that Williams has just officially filed a full application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build Leidy South.
Read More “Williams Files Leidy South Project with FERC to Expand PA Transco”
Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile natural gas pipeline from West Virginia into Virginia (being built by Equitrans Midstream) is now 85% complete. Lawsuits are holding up completion of the pipeline, now expected to be done in mid-2020. The project has faced opposition from a small but dedicated group of loons willing to break the law (see Left-Wing Radical Arrested, Removed from MVP Excavator in Va./). Roanoke Gas is stepping up to say MVP and the gas it will bring to the region is “critical” for their gas customers.
Read More “Mountain Valley Pipe “Critical” to Roanoke Gas Customers”
Dominion Energy, a huge company with its fingers in many energy pies (pipelines, LNG exports, power generation, utility company) issued its second quarter update yesterday. Although the company is large and yesterday’s update spanned many different initiatives, there was no escaping the fact that much of yesterday’s conversation revolved around the company’s stalled Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project.
Read More “Dominion 2Q Update: The Battle to Build Atlantic Coast Pipe”
PTT Global Chemical continues to behave is if it’s going forward with building a $7.5 billion ethane cracker in Dilles Bottom (Belmont County), Ohio. The latest evidence? The company is actively buying up homes close to the proposed site. Over the past two months the company has snapped up six homes and is in discussions right now with others.
Read More “PTT Buying Homes Near Proposed Cracker Plant in Belmont County”
Equitrans, formerly known as EQT Midstream (formerly a division of EQT), released its second quarter update yesterday. Among the things we learned: The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project is now 85% complete and will be done and online in mid-2020. EQT (the driller) remains committed to the MVP project and contrary to false rumors, EQT is not pulling out (it would cost them north of $3 billion to do so!). The project cost for MVP will be around $5 billion–a new high.
Read More “Equitrans Wants to Remain Kissin’ Cousins with EQT; MVP 85% Done”
Although some of the 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that stretches from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA is on hold due to court delays over stream crossing permits, work continues on the project. The original project is now 80% built and will go online in 2020 according to Equitrans CEO Thomas Karam. Equitrans filed plans with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last November to extend the pipeline *another* 70+ miles south–into North Carolina–called the MVP Southgate project (see EQT Makes it Official, Files with FERC to Extend MVP into NC).
Read More “FERC Signals Approval for MVP Southgate Pipe to NC in Draft EIS”
The actions of one man seeking access to confidential risk assessments and plans for the Mariner East pipelines in the Philadelphia area will, if successful, put information into the public domain that terrorists can potentially use. Note we don’t believe it is the intent of this man to grant access to sensitive information to terrorists. But that is the consequence, the outcome, the result of his actions–if a court now reviewing the case grants his request.
Read More “Philly Anti Pushes to Make Pipe Info Public that Terrorists Can Use”
Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) has approved TC Energy’s agreements with natural gas retailers in Eastern Canada, to flow Western Canadian gas to Canada’s East Coast and New England. TC Energy (formerly called TransCanada) cooked up a plan to expand an existing pipeline in New England and connect it to a point in Quebec to flow gas from the opposite side of the continent, Western Canadian natural gas (over 1,000 miles away), into New England and from there back up into Canada (see TransCanada Plans to Move Western Canadian Gas into New England).
Read More “TC Energy Plan to Move Western Canadian Gas to East Coast Approved”
Columbia Gas of Massachusetts (NiSource) continues to recover (physically and reputationally) from a series of explosions last September in its local delivery pipelines north of Boston (see Local NatGas Pipes Explode Near Boston Killing 1, Injuring 25). The explosions and resulting fires tragically killed one teenager and injured 25 others. It left some 8,600 households and businesses without natural gas–for months. Several class action lawsuits were filed against the company. News is breaking today that Columbia has settled all of the class action lawsuits for $143 million.
Read More “Columbia Gas Pays $143M to Settle Lawsuit from Mass. Explosions”
The same U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judges who quoted from Dr. Seuss’ book “The Lorax” in a previous decision against Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) have, once again, delivered another blow to ACP. In a very poor decision issued on Friday, the clown judges overturned reissued permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for the project, claiming the permits don’t do enough to protect bumble bees and bats.
Read More “Clown Judges from 4th Circus Block Atlantic Coast Pipe…Again”
Production for Range Resources was up a healthy 10% year over year in second quarter 2019, according to Range’s 2Q19 update issued late last week. Range produced 2.3 billion cubic feet equivalent per day (Bcfe/d) in 2Q. For the first half of the year Range brought online 39 Marcellus/Utica wells and plans to bring online another 49 wells in the second half of 2019. The company is on track to spend roughly $750 million on drilling in 2019.
Read More “Range Resources 2Q – Production Up 10% Despite MarkWest Outage”
In March we told you about National Fuel Gas Company’s (NFG) FM100 Project in northwestern Pennsylvania that will beef up and extend an existing pipeline network to flow an extra 330 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to Williams’ mighty Transco Pipeline (see NFG FM100 Pipe Project in NW PA to Feed Marcellus Gas to Transco). The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) published notices in last weekend’s PA Bulletin of their intent to issue permits for the project.
Read More “DEP Permits for NWPA FM100 Pipeline – Marcellus Gas to Transco”
Following pressure from “activist” investors, EQT split off its midstream (pipeline) division into a new/separate company in November 2018 (see It’s Here! EQT Midstream Division Now Split into Standalone Co.). Equitrans, as the new company is called, has been headed by Thomas Karam, president and chief executive officer. Recently Equitrans promoted Diana Charletta to the role of president. Karam remains CEO and has been named chairman of the board (replacing David Porges in the chairman role).
Read More “Equitrans Midstream Gets a New President – Diana Charletta”
We caught wind of something on the Tallgrass quarterly conference call yesterday that had previously eluded our otherwise reliable radar. Tallgrass, via its subsidiary BNN Water, bought out and merged in Central Environmental Services back in May. That’s important because Central is a “water services” provider in the Marcellus/Utica. Namely, Central (now BNN) operates three injection wells in Ohio. On yesterday’s Tallgrass conference call, company officials said they are working on a plan to build pipelines to those injection wells, saving a whole bunch of truck trips.
Read More “Tallgrass Expanding Wastewater Disposal Biz in Marcellus/Utica”
A sad end to the hope that Braskem, the largest petrochemical company in Latin America (headquartered in Brazil), is going to build an ethane cracker in Wood County, WV, near Parkersburg. We hasten to add Braskem leaving doesn’t mean someone else won’t will build a cracker plant there–it just won’t be Braskem. News is leaking that Braskem has put the land they had purchased for a possible cracker up for sale.
Read More “Braskem Gives Up on WV Cracker – Parkersburg Site for Sale”