Dominion One Step Away from Closing on SCANA Merger
In January Dominion Energy announced a deal to buy out and merge in South Carolina-based SCANA Corporation (see Dominion Buys SCANA, Mulls Atlantic Coast Pipe Expansion into SC). SCANA is an energy-based holding company principally engaged, through subsidiaries, in electric and natural gas utility operations and other energy-related businesses. In other words, the local electric and gas company for much of South Carolina. When Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline gets built and expanded into South Carolina, it will flow Marcellus/Utica gas to SCANA customers–an important and huge new market for our molecules. Hence our interest in this merger. Dominion announced yesterday that North Carolina has now signed off on the merger, and all that remains is one final regulatory approval. Dominion expects the merger to be done this year.
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There is a fascinating bit of politics playing out in Virginia. The state’s previous governor, Terry McAuliffe, favored pipeline projects like EQT’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). What’s strange about McAuliffe’s support is that he’s a far-left Democrat. Yet he resisted calls from his nutroots base to shut both pipeline projects down. McAuliffe was replaced in January 2018 by Ralph Northam, another liberal Democrat (lib Dems get elected in Virginia because of a high population of libs who live around the D.C. area). Once again the nutters came out in force to pressure the new governor to oppose MVP and ACP. And once again, the new governor is not caving to the pressure. In fact, Gov. Northam has just canned two board members who voted to delay a vote on an ACP compressor station!
Buckeye Brine, a relatively young Ohio-based company, owns and operates three shale wastewater injection wells in Coshocton County. Buckeye has operated their three Class II (as they are known) injection wells “flawlessly” for the past five years. No earthquakes. No spills. No leaks back to the surface. Nothing. Buckeye now wants to re-designate two of the three wells as Class I wells, which would allow them to accept non-shale wastewater–from industrial equipment operators, soap manufacturers, food processors, power plants, and municipal wastewater treatment plants. But antis are kicking up a fuss, claiming the change will pollute everything and everyone from here to Timbuktu. Fortunately state regulators are not swayed by such histrionics. The Ohio EPA is accepting public comments on the conversion until Nov. 26. There’s still time to write in and support the project!
PTT Global Chemical announced in April 2015 they want to build a $6 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH (see 
Ever see a someone’s name listed on a business card or in a directory, and there’s a “PE” after his or her name? Know what that means? It means Professional Engineer. To get a PE, an engineer must complete a four-year college degree, work under a Professional Engineer for at least four years, pass two intensive competency exams and earn a license from their state’s licensure board. The engineer who drafted plans for NiSource Columbia Gas to replace gas mains about 25 miles north of Boston, in Lawrence, MA, didn’t have a PE after his name. And the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) says it was his fault that when the gas main was replaced, the old main still had sensors that detected low pressure and kept pressurizing (overpressurizing) the gas system that led to multiple explosions and one person dying, 25 injured, and 8,000 residences and business still without natural gas service some two months later.
If there’s one more black person living in a given rural community than white, and if a pipeline company wants to put a compressor station in that community as the best location to push gas through the line, the very act of building that compressor station in that community is racist. That’s the horse manure being pedaled in Buckingham County, Va. Last week the State Air Pollution Control Board held two days of public hearings where antis, detecting they may lose the battle to stop a compressor station for Dominion Energy’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, trotted out their so-called “environmental justice” argument. Last Friday the board decided to delay a vote on whether to approve the compressor station, until their meeting on Dec. 10.
In early October the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted TransCanada permission to begin service on part of its Columbia WB XPress pipeline project, the “Western Build” portion of the project (see 
Another bump in the road for National Fuel Gas Company and their Northern Access Expansion pipeline project. Not a major hurdle. Not an apocalypse. Not the end of the line. A bump. The Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court (in NY, Supreme Court is a low court, one step up from county court), overturned the decision of the lower Supreme Court granting NFG the power of eminent domain to build Northern Access, a project not scheduled to get built until 2022. The attorney who won the case against NFG proclaimed without eminent domain, “The pipeline is dead.” We say he’s dead wrong.
It’s been almost a year since the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted final approval for the PennEast Pipeline project, a $1 billion, 120-mile natgas pipeline that will stretch from northeast PA to the Trenton area of New Jersey (see 
Less than one year after buying Baker Hughes (in July 2017), GE decided in June of this year it didn’t want its bright shiny new toy any more and would, over the next 2-3 years, divest itself of Baker Hughes (see 
We’ve covered, it seems endlessly, news about two important new pipeline projects coming in the Marcellus. One is EQT Midstream’s (now Equitrans Midstream) Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile pipe from West Virginia to southern Virginia. The other is Dominion Energy’s 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. MVP will, when it’s done, carry 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas to southern markets, and ACP will carry 1.5 Bcf/d. Both pipelines chart a similar path south. And both pipelines are now stalled, dogged by frivolous lawsuits filed by so-called environmental groups. Both have announced delays for their final completion dates. Our friends at RBN Energy look in detail at both projects, and what a delay may mean for drillers in the Marcellus/Utica. Are more pipeline constraints on the way in our region?
We’re not much of a fan of the federal Environmental Protection Agency–especially the agency under the jackboots of the Obamadroids. The Obama years saw egregious abuses and wild new regulations that tried to stamp out the fossil fuel industry. In March 2016, we told you about a new “voluntary” program set up by the Obama EPA called the Natural Gas STAR Methane Challenge Program (see