M-U Gas Pipeline Flows Hit All-Time High – Coming Constraints
The experts at RBN Energy continue their series of blog posts about pipelines that flow Marcellus/Utica gas to other regions with a look at two pipelines that connect directly to Canada: Tennessee Gas Pipeline and Empire Pipeline. In this post we learn that natural gas flows from the M-U over this past weekend hit a new record high of 17.3 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). We also learn M-U pipelines flowed an average of 16.7 Bcf/d in April–an all-time high for any month! The problem is we’re now maxed out and need more pipelines.
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On April 6 the Weymouth, Mass. compressor station experienced its third “unplanned release” of methane and was shut down (see 
Here’s a connection we hadn’t made until we read about yesterday’s oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in PennEast Pipeline vs. New Jersey. The connection is this: The PennEast case also has huge ramifications for another currently-stalled M-U pipeline. Columbia Gas wants to build a tiny 3.37-mile, 8-inch pipeline under the Potomac River from Maryland to West Virginia. It is being blocked from doing so by the lefties in Maryland (see 
Dominion Energy is a huge company. Once upon a time, Dominion owned major pipeline assets throughout the Marcellus/Utica region. But in July of 2020 Dominion decided to sell their pipeline assets (and part of the Cove Point LNG export facility) to Warren Buffett for $9.7 billion (see 
The Biden-controlled U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has just granted anti-fossil fuel zealots enough rope to strangle the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, or enough rope to strangle themselves. We hope it’s the latter, we fear it may be the former. The “rope” in this case is time. The Army Corps announced Friday it will give antis an extra 30 days to comment on (complain, manipulate, lie about) a proposed water crossing permit for MVP in West Virginia and Virginia. Even with the extra 30 days antis still are not satisfied.
Ohio’s House Bill (HB) 6 law granted billions (plural) of dollars to FirstEnergy in an attempt to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants. FirstEnergy is accused of bribing state legislators to pass, and keep passed, HB 6 by paying out $61 million (see 
The Chester County, PA District Attorney, Democrat Deb Ryan, has pressured and bullied Energy Transfer (ET) and its Sunoco Pipeline subsidiary into signing a “consent decree” that guarantees if ET spills one cup of drilling mud or creates any kind of “public nuisance” in finishing up work on the Mariner East pipeline, the DA gets to haul the company into county court and charge it with a crime. The consent decree means in addition to the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) breathing down their necks, ET now gets a second master (AG Ryan) breathing down their necks too. Joy.
Anti-fossil fuel zealots are certainly persistent in their holy mission to destroy the use of all fossil fuels. None more so than the extremists at the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC). The NRDC rounded up a group of 60 equally radicalized groups and sent a joint letter to a bunch of sympathetic radicals working in the Biden administration (Sec. of Interior, EPA Administrator, Sec. of Agriculture, among others) encouraging them to shut down a multi-billion natural gas pipeline that is 92% built and in the ground: Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).
Cue the music and begin singing: Happy Birthday to You! Energy Transfer (ET), the midstream (pipeline) giant headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is celebrating its 25th year in business. The company began as a small intrastate pipeline company with 200 miles of natural gas pipes in east Texas and 20 employees. Today it owns more than 90,000 miles of pipelines crossing 38 states and Canada with nearly 10,000 employees. All in just 25 years. Hats off to co-founders Kelcy Warren and Ray Davis. ET owns a number of important pipelines in the Marcellus/Utica region.
Utility giant Duke Energy Corp. is in the process of modifying eight of its biggest coal-fired electric generating plants in North Carolina to burn natural gas instead. The work will cost Duke roughly $283 million. Work is already complete on six of the eight plants, with the final two slated to be done later this year. There is a tie-in with the Marcellus/Utica.
When key players in our industry support killing the industry they work for, is the end near? That’s what we sometimes ponder. Last Friday we told you that the biggest natural gas producer in the country, EQT Corporation, has gone over to the dark side and is publicly supporting the reinstatement of Lord Obama’s draconian and onerous (and completely unnecessary) so-called methane rule that forces companies to capture every last molecule of methane, no matter how expensive and impossible and unnecessary it is (see 
Last October Energy Transfer (Sunoco Pipeline) pushed back against a demand by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) that the company’s Mariner East 2X pipeline project be rerouted one mile around Marsh Creek State Park (in Chester County, PA) following a drilling mud spill in August (see