Antero Sheds MLP, Consolidates 2 Midstream Subsidiaries into One
Antero Resources, one of the biggest drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, is the latest in a string of companies to shed its master limited partnership (MLP) structure. Antero uses an MLP for two different pipeline subsidiaries. The company announced yesterday that one of the subsidiaries will buy out the other, and then convert the merged entity into a corporation. The move simplifies Antero’s midstream operations. Here’s the details.
Read More “Antero Sheds MLP, Consolidates 2 Midstream Subsidiaries into One”
More bad news for EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for MVP in West Virginia (see 
Williams is expanding its mighty, 10,500-mile Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co (Transco), again. Sometime this month Williams will prefile a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the Leidy South expansion project. The new project will bump up “compression” (either build new compressors or refit existing compressors) and build new “looping” pipeline in Pennsylvania, in order to increase capacity of Transco in the northeast Marcellus region by another 580 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d).
Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) finally (finally!) granted Williams permission to open the taps up and let natural gas flow along the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, a 200-mile greenfield pipeline from northeastern to southeastern PA. Startup was delayed two months from Williams’ original estimate (due to Williams, not FERC). But that’s all behind us now. Beginning tomorrow, Marcellus molecules from Cabot Oil & Gas, Chief Oil & Gas, and Seneca Resources will begin flowing along the pipeline, heading out of our region where those molecules will fetch higher prices.
PTT Global Chemical announced in April 2015 they want to build a $6 billion ethane cracker plant complex in Belmont County, OH (see 
We’ve seen this movie before. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (quickly becoming the Fourth Circus) has once again listened to the arguments of anti-fossil fuel groups including the Sierra Club and Chesapeake Climate Action Network and has overturned a recently re-issued permit that allows Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use certain methods to build the pipeline across streams and rivers in West Virginia. The court action pretty much shuts down all work on MVP in WV.
We’ve extensively covered the tragic accident and aftermath of Columbia Gas’ natural gas delivery pipelines exploding near Boston in mid-September. 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. Now anti-fossil fuel advocates say those 8,600 households should just forget about natural gas, forever, and instead convert to sky-high electric for their energy needs. They call it a “green new deal”–meaning make Columbia Gas pay to convert your home to all-electric appliances and heat pumps. We call it a “green raw deal.”
We’ve lost track of how many lawsuits have been filed by anti-fossil fuel groups against EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), and Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Among the flood of never-ending lawsuits was a lawsuit against both pipelines from a group of 50 or so landowners who tried to overturn the constitutional use of eminent domain to force hold-out landowners to accept the pipeline. The landowners tried to court-shop and find a court to aide them in their cause. Last Friday the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected that effort.
Columbia Gas of Massachusetts continues to try and recover from early missteps in how it responded to a series of explosions in its local delivery pipelines north of Boston in mid-September (see 
Columbia Gas of Massachusetts is in the process of rapidly replacing some 48 miles of local natural gas pipelines about 25 miles north of Boston following the recent explosion and disaster. They desperately need workers, some 1,300 of them, to do the work.
Line ’em up and knock ’em down. Last Friday a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (in Richmond, VA) heard four cases against Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), one after another, bing bing bing bing. Both pipeline projects, very important to the Marcellus/Utica region, are in various states of litigation, brought on by the odious Sierra Club and co-conspirators like the Southern Environmental Law Center.