Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation
Biden EPA Pressures Army Corps to Deny Fed Water Permit for MVP
In a letter dated May 27, federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wetlands Branch Chief Jeffrey Lapp pressured the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny Equitrans’ Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) a Section 404 Clean Water Act permit that would allow the 303-mile pipeline project (now 92% complete) to finish crossing some 300+ streams and swamps in West Virginia and Virginia. Gee, the Biden EPA trying to close down an almost completed pipeline project. Why are we not surprised?
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Although Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile project from West Virginia to southern Virginia to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules south (critically needed) is under withering attacks by America-hating leftists, the project soldiers on and (we hope) will get completed. Part of the charade the project must engage in to get finished is bowing to the global warming gods. The latest attempt to appease the warming gods is an announcement yesterday by MVP that it will purchase “carbon offsets” (the old Catholic equivalent of buying indulgences for sins) to help the builder, Equitrans, reach its goal of mythical net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Antis and leftwing environmentalists in New Jersey continue their mission to block more natural gas from flowing to New York City, threatening the residents of the city, by attacking two compressor stations in the NJ suburbs. The latest conscripts to the holy mission of defeating “fossil fuels” can be found among the weaklings who sit on the Vernon Township (NJ) Council, who voted 4-1 to oppose a proposed expansion of Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company’s compressor station in Wantage (Sussex County).
Seneca Resources Company, the exploration and production subsidiary of National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), is the latest company to jump on the ESG (environmental, social, governance) bandwagon. Seneca is partnering with NexTier Oilfield Solutions, an oilfield services company that fracks and completes wells for companies like Seneca, to study the carbon emissions that come from fracking shale wells.
One year ago, in July 2020, we brought you the bombshell news that Dominion Energy was calling it quits in the pipeline business, abandoning the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project (on which they had already spent billions of dollars) and selling its existing (extensive) pipeline network to Warren Buffett for $9.7 billion (see 
How can anyone say, with a straight face, that Biden has been “better for fossil fuel companies” than Trump? Some very short-sighted individuals say we should look at the price of oil and gas, and the stock price of oil and gas companies, and pronounce that Biden has actually been better for our industry than four years of Donald Trump. Yet Biden’s own Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, is warning Big Banks to quit funding fossil fuel companies…or else. She is threatening them! This isn’t Stalin’s Soviet Union!! It’s the land of the free and the home of the brave. Or at least it used to be.
A natural gas-fired electric power plant planned for Charles City County (near Richmond, Va.) by NOVI Energy known as C4GT (Charles City Combined-Cycle Gas Turbine) is now officially dead. NOVI has been working on the 1,100-megawatt project for over six years. An even larger plant planned for the same general area, the 1,650 MW Chickahominy Power Station (a project of Balico) is still in the works (see 
Charlie Melançon is a former U.S. Congressman from Louisiana who played an integral role in rebuilding Louisiana’s infrastructure following the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Melançon served on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversaw energy policy and environmental quality among other issues. He sees a lot of parallels between his home state of Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Melançon has written an editorial appearing in a major PA newspaper hoping to inform and encourage Pennsylvanians to wake up to the fact that pipelines are the key to PA becoming the energy hub of the northeast. Conversely, without (more) pipelines, PA will not realize its potential. Pipelines are the key. Melançon is uniquely qualified to know.
What’s taking the shale oil industry so long to restart drilling in a big way? Shale oil production remains some 1.4 million barrels per day (15%) below pre-COVID pandemic levels despite oil prices reaching near three-year highs of $77 per barrel since the start of this year. When you dig into the numbers it becomes apparent what’s happening. A lot of shale drilling is now done by big, integrated major oil companies–the Exxons and Chevrons and BPs of the world. Shale production from the majors is 68% below pre-pandemic levels. If you look at the output of smaller independent, non-publicly traded oil drillers, their production is only 2% below pre-pandemic levels.
A few weeks ago MDN brought you the news that three far-left Democrat judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval for a long-completed and flowing natural gas pipeline in the St. Louis, MO area–a pipeline that flows Marcellus/Utica gas to residents, businesses, and electric generating plants throughout the region (see 
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally-owned electric utility corporation in the U.S. TVA’s service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. TVA is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the country. We have some GREAT news: TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines.
An analyst writing on the Seeking Alpha investors website confirms our concerns over the potential merger between Marcellus driller Cabot Oil & Gas and Permian driller Cimarex Energy (see 
According to S&P Global Platts, a widening gas storage deficit in the Eastern U.S. is “raising alarm in the Northeast downstream market area” where winter 2021-22 forwards prices are up sharply since the start of injection season beginning April 1st. In particular, the forward contracts (prices negotiated now for future delivery of natural gas) for January 2022 in Boston and New York City are through the roof. It’s pretty plain why this is happening–no new pipelines.
We’ve made no bones about the fact we’re dubious of most so-called ESG (environmental, social, governance) initiatives by any company, including shale oil and gas drillers. But there are many in our industry who have (seemingly overnight) embraced ESG with open arms. One of them is the chairman of the board for DJ Basin producer Civitas/managing partner at the Kimmeridge Energy Management, Ben Dell. Dell presents a vision of the shale energy future like this: There are 10-15 shale drillers nationwide, and every one of them is operating with net zero carbon emissions. What may sound like nirvana to Dell sounds like dystopia to us.