Allegheny County | Berkshire Hathaway | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines
Upgrades to Eastern Gas Metering Station in Plum Done by Summer
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy company, provides natural gas transportation and storage services with one of the largest underground natural gas storage systems in the United States. Essentially EGTS is a pipeline network that connects to other pipelines to flow and store natural gas in six states: Maryland, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. An upgrade of an EGTS metering station in Plum (Allegheny County, PA, near Pittsburgh) is currently under construction and due to be complete “by summer.”
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A small bit of progress to report about the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which stretches from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA. Yesterday the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) issued its latest (third!) approval for MVP to traverse a piddly 3.5 miles of the federally-owned Jefferson National Forest. We have no doubt that radicalized leftists will, once again, challenge this permit, and that the colluding three Democrat judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will overturn it. That is, unless so-called permitting reform is passed by Congress, removing the 4th Circuit’s jurisdiction over this project.
Earlier this month, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) introduced a permitting reform bill (for the third time) to save the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from the clutches of colluding leftists who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (see 
THE Delaware Riverkeeper appears to be obsessed with New Fortress Energy’s plan to liquefy natural gas in Bradford County, PA, and ship it via rail and truck to a former DuPont dynamite factory site in New Jersey along the Delaware River for export. Riverkeeper released a “report” (propaganda) bashing the LNG export plan. Riverkeeper paid a consulting firm that hires itself out to Big Green groups to produce the report.
Yesterday, the management of NextEra Energy announced it has officially lost its collective mind. The company is selling its two natural gas pipeline investments–one in Texas and the other right here in the heart of the Marcellus Shale–because it wants to concentrate 100% on unreliable (and government-funded) “renewable” energy projects instead. You may recall that NextEra bought Meade Pipeline Co LLC for $1.37 billion in 2019 (see 
Summit Midstream Partners, formed in 2009 and headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, operates natural gas, crude oil, and produced water gathering (pipeline) systems in several unconventional shale plays, including the Marcellus and Utica. Last week Summit issued its first quarter 2023 update. While most upstream and midstream companies have seen positive cash flow and profits over the past year, Summit continues to miss the mark. The company lost $14.1 million in 1Q23 versus losing $5 million in 1Q22.
On Friday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced her office has filed criminal charges against two men for falsifying paperwork and risking catastrophe while working on a natural gas pipeline project in western PA. The AG’s Environmental Crime Section and the US Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General investigated a case of suspected fraud in falsifying records for portions of a MarkWest Liberty Pipeline to transport NGLs.
Williams, one of the largest pipeline companies in the world, issued its first quarter update yesterday. The company reported 1Q23 net income increased by $547 million to $926 million, up from $379 million in 1Q22 due to unrealized gains (and losses) on commodity derivatives, the benefit of higher service revenues driven by contributions from recent acquisitions, increased volumes at Ohio Valley Midstream, as well as higher commodity marketing margins. CEO and President Alan Armstrong said, “We remain squarely focused on our natural gas-focused strategy.” The Marcellus/Utica plays a big part in the company’s gas-focused strategy.
For the third time, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (liberal Democrat from West Virginia) has introduced a permitting reform bill to save the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from the clutches of colluding leftists who sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Manchin is rebranding this bill (essentially the same one he introduced last year that bombed out) as the “Building American Energy Security Act of 2023” (full copy below). He introduced the bill in the U.S. Senate yesterday.
During yesterday’s quarterly phone call with analysts to discuss the 1Q23 performance of Equitrans Midstream, a big topic of conversation was the 94% completed (but stalled) Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Equitrans (builder of MVP) CEO Thomas Karam said, “The path to an MVP completion during 2023 is narrower but based on the diligent and comprehensive work being done by the staff at various state and federal agencies and the expected overall permitting timeline, we believe the possibility of commencing forward construction this summer still exists.” He also said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circuit) and their prospective rejection of new permits for the project is not “that dire of a position.” We 100% disagree.
In late 2015, MPLX (i.e. Marathon Petroleum) bought out and merged in the Utica Shale’s premier midstream company, MarkWest Energy, for $15 billion (see 
Even though Dominion Energy sold its interstate pipeline network in 2020 (see 
Earlier today Equitrans Midstream, the former EQT Midstream (now a standalone company), issued its first quarter 2023 update. The update is actually a series of updates about the company’s vitally important (to the Marcellus/Utica) pipeline and midstream projects. In the update, we learn more about the company’s Rager Mountain Natural Gas Storage Field accident; we learn the latest about the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, essentially on hold; and we learn about the Ohio Valley Connector Expansion Project (OCVX), expected to be in-service the first half of 2024.
On December 5, 2019, the PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) granted a special permit to Energy Transport Solutions, LLC (i.e. New Fortress Energy) to transport LNG in DOT-113C120 rail tanker cars between Wyalusing, PA and Gibbstown, NJ (see