Equitrans Slices MVP Southgate Pipe Project From 75 to 31 Miles
Big news broke yesterday about the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) Southgate project. In 2018, Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile MVP, proposed to extend the pipeline by an extra 75 miles from the current MVP terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The 75-mile extension is called MVP Southgate. Yesterday, various media outlets noticed and reported on a recent filing by Equitrans with the Securities and Exchange Commission. An Equitrans Form 8-K filing from Dec. 29 highlights a major change in the proposed MVP Southgate project.
Read More “Equitrans Slices MVP Southgate Pipe Project From 75 to 31 Miles”
Two related pipeline projects in southeast Virginia now have all regulatory approvals in hand, and the projects will soon begin construction. Columbia Gas Transmission (a subsidiary of TC Energy) applied with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build the Virginia Reliability Project (VRP), which includes two new compressor units and the replacement of existing pipeline. VRP will dig up, replace, and double the size of two sections, or about 48 miles, of the Columbia Gas pipeline between Chesapeake and Petersburg. Williams’ Commonwealth Energy Connector Project will feed VRP by building six miles of new pipeline within Transco’s existing right-of-way in Virginia, expanding a meter station, and building a 30,500-hp electric motor-drive compressor. Both projects received final approval by FERC in November (see 
Columbia Gas of Ohio will start work this spring to replace a 4.3-mile section of a 20-inch natural gas pipeline from Clintonville to North Linden (Columbus), a key piece of infrastructure that brings gas to thousands of homes throughout central Ohio. Columbia Gas purchased and will demolish several buildings along the pipeline’s route as part of the project. The work is scheduled to begin in April and finish by the end of the year. Columbia’s president and chief operating officer, Vince Parisi, says the pipeline is “our backbone of Columbus” and is “pretty critical” to natural gas distribution throughout the region.
Earlier this week, Pennsylvania State Senator Katie Muth, a virulent anti-shale hater from the Philadelphia suburbs, held a press conference with a so-called investigative reporter from the Public Herald and two former employees from the Eureka Resources’ Williamsport frack wastewater treatment facility. The employees and reporter leveled some extremely serious accusations about the safety and working conditions at the facility. Exposure to toxic substances and even to low-level radiation is alleged. Four former workers sent a letter to the Lycoming County District Attorney asking him to launch a criminal misconduct investigation.
A press release issued yesterday by UGI Corporation, a diversified energy company with midstream (pipeline) operations in the Marcellus and one of PA’s largest utility companies, opens this way: “UGI Corporation announced today that Mario Longhi, incoming Chair of the Board of Directors, has been named interim Chief Executive Officer. Roger Perreault has stepped down as President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board, effective immediately.” What the press release doesn’t mention, but we discovered in a company filing with the SEC, is that “The Board treated Mr. Perreault’s departure from the Company as an involuntary termination other than a Termination for Cause.”
Williams is a powerhouse pipeline company. Williams operates more than 33,000 miles of pipelines in the U.S. and flows approximately one-third of the natural gas used in our country through those pipelines. Massive! The CEO of Williams, Alan Armstrong, is (or was) in Dubai for the United Nations COP28 climate meeting. He was there to preach the gospel of natural gas as the best way, the near-term way, to lower carbon dioxide emissions across the planet. He has proof to back up his claims. The U.S. is the only major country on earth to lower CO2 emissions since 2005. How? By switching from coal to natural gas for power generation.
A small group of uppity Virginia landowners don’t want Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) crossing their horse pastures, leaving a mark. So they conspired with Big Green lawyers in a lawsuit challenging the right of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to use eminent domain to build pipelines across private land. In October, the landowners filed an “emergency” request with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the court to block MVP construction while the eminent domain lawsuit grinds on. The D.C. Circuit judges rejected that request in October (see 
Dominion Energy wants to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Person County, North Carolina, to enhance natural gas service reliability for residential and business customers in the growing region (see 
Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) is a natural gas pipeline that initially brought gas from the Gulf Coast of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, through Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to deliver gas to the New Jersey and New York City area. It is owned and operated by Williams. With the advent of the shale revolution, Transco was converted to be bidirectional, flowing Marcellus/Utica gas south to as far as Texas. Transco now transports approximately 15% of the nation’s natural gas! It is a massive and vital pipeline. With the imminent start of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and an extra 2 Bcf/d flowing from the Marcellus to Transco’s Station 165 in Pittsylvania County, VA, how will Transco handle the extra volumes?
Blue Racer Midstream is a small natural gas midstream company that provides natural gas gathering and processing, mixed NGL fractionation and condensate stabilization, and NGL marketing and transportation to producers operating in the Marcellus/Utica in southeastern Ohio and the panhandle of West Virginia. We don’t talk about the company much because it’s privately held and not in the news often. Blue Racer is in the news today! Fitch Ratings, one of the big three ratings agencies, announced it will no longer include Blue Racer in its debt ratings system after December 29th because (our words, Fitch’s sentiment) the company is too small to bother spending time to analyze.