Dominion Lockout of Union Workers Ends, New Labor Talks Begin
One week ago Dominion Transmission locked out over 900 union workers, many of them in West Virginia (and others in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland), preventing them from working (see Dominion Locks Out Labor Union Workers in WV-PA-OH-NY-VA-MD). Dominion has a contract with Local 69 of the Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA) that expired on April 1st and a new contract is nowhere near done being negotiated. Dominion said they didn’t want to run the risk of a strike or work slowdown during the winter months, so they locked out union members, including those that work at compressor stations and along pipelines (see Dominion Locks Out Union Workers at Compressor Stations/Pipelines). The dispute revolves around pension and health care. The union wants to keep the pension plan and health benefits it has now. Dominion wants to end paying full health benefits for new hires after they retire, and also wants to change their pension to a 401(k), shifting the risk of the pension to the individual and not the company. Although a new contract is still nowhere near ready, the lockout is over. Local 69 agreed to not strike or engage in work slowdowns, and in return Dominion will pay workers for their one week vacation/protest. Now they go back to the negotiating table and the new deadline is April 1, 2017–one year after the old contract expired…
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Spectra Energy’s NEXUS Pipeline, a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada, continues to build support and a good head of steam. In July the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a favorable draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project, a sure sign that FERC intends to approve it (see 
Various government agencies populated with liberal Democrats, including the Obama Environmental Protection Agency, the Obama National Park Service, the Obama Fish & Wildlife Service, and the New Jersey Environmental Protection Agency, filed negative comments about the PennEast Pipeline with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Monday. The last day to file public comments on PennEast was this past Monday, Sept. 12. In what almost seems like a coordinated attack, various agencies all filed their highly inflammatory and negative comments at the eleventh hour. The Obama EPA’s comments were particular egregious, making fantastically wild claims like building PennEast “may” end up causing arsenic in groundwater supplies. Talk about bogus B.S. (Barbara Streisand). The question is, will this unwarranted assault by federal and state agencies cause further delays in the already-delayed PennEast project?…
Duke Energy Ohio, an LDC or “local distribution company” serves some half a million customers with natural gas in Ohio. The company has a ~12 mile pipeline to flow gas it needs to move from one point to another in Hamilton County, the southwest corner of the state. The Duke pipeline has been around and in service since the 1950s. Duke needs to replace that pipe or some of the half million Duke customers won’t get natural gas any more. Because anything to do with “fracking” or “pipelines” has been so thoroughly bastardized by the media and anti-drilling whack jobs, there was, of course, opposition to Duke’s plan. So Duke “listened” and has scaled back their plans. Instead of building a 30-inch gas pipeline running at 600 psi (pounds per square inch), the revised plan calls for a 20-inch pipeline running at 400 psi. Duke has proposed two potential routes (see the map below). Here’s the lowdown on Duke’s scaled-back, tiny pipeline project in Hamilton County called the Central Corridor Pipeline Extension Project…
Dominion launched a $4 billion, 25-year Pipeline Infrastructure Replacement (PIR) program in mid-2008. The program involves replacing over 5,500 miles of Dominion’s 22,000-mile pipeline system. Most of the pipeline to be replaced was installed in the first half of the 1900s. Some of the pipeline (much?) is being done in Ohio. The pipelines Dominion wants to replace in Ohio are regulated by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO). If Dominion wants to do anything with or for the pipelines in Ohio, they first need PUCO permission. Dominion has sought, and now received, PUCO permission to expand the program in Ohio. Dominion currently spends $160 million per year on the program in Ohio. PUCO gave them permission to up that amount to $170 million next year and $200 in 2018. Why is that important? Because Dominion gets to “recover” the costs (i.e. charge the costs) to utility customers. Dominion customers in Ohio can expect to see a rate increase…
In February MDN told you that Dominion, with a major presence in the Marcellus/Utica region, had floated a takover offer to Questar Corporation, offering to buy the company for $4.4 billion (see 
There is no doubt Sunoco Logistics Partners has been pushing a boulder up a hill when it comes to the Mariner East 2 pipeline project–a $2.5 billion, 350-mile natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline that will run from eastern Ohio through the state of Pennsylvania to the Marcus Hook refinery near Philadelphia, carting ethane, butane and propane to the facility from both the Utica and Marcellus region. For over a year the project was mired in legal challenges of whether or not it can claim public utility status, with a right to use eminent domain. In July, PA’s Commonwealth Court ruled it is a public utility with a right to use eminent domain (see 
On April 29, Spectra Energy’s Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO) “Delmont Line 27” pipeline exploded in Westmoreland County, PA, seriously injuring one resident who still cannot walk after being burned over much of his body (see 
Patterson-UTI Energy is a company we watch as a proxy for when/if the drop in rig counts for the Marcellus/Utica will turn around (see 
Higher prices for Rex Energy’s Marcellus/Utica gas are on the way. Why? Because the company will, beginning in November, begin to ship some of its gas out of the northeast–to the Midwest and Gulf Coast, where it can get higher prices. So says Rex in an update issued yesterday. Rex issued an operational update yesterday to discuss recent results and the next round of drilling they plan to do–4 more wells on the Vaughn pad in Carroll County, OH–and the news that a new high pressure gathering system is on the way in Butler County, PA. Included in the update is the good news that Rex will begin to ship 100 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natgas to the Gulf Coast and 30 MMcf/d to the Midwest, starting in November, via two different pipelines. Which pipelines?…
Two Democrat-run anti-fossil fuel organizations–the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates–pooled their donated money together and went out to find a consulting firm with the veneer of respectability that could be bought off to produce a faux “report” slamming two much-needed pipelines. They found an easy mark in Synapse Energy Economics, headquartered in ultra-liberal Massachusetts. The “report” Synapse produced says neither Dominion’s $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina), nor EQT’s $3.5 billion, 301-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA) are needed. The sham report, titled “Are the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Mountain Valley Pipeline Necessary?” (full copy below) is getting picked up by lazy (or propagandist) mainstream news organizations and reported as real news. It’s nothing of the sort. It’s a joke…
