Marcellus/Utica Heading for Another Pipeline Shortage
Here in the Marcellus/Utica region (PA, OH, WV) we have a lot of natural gas production. We are the #1 gas-producing region in the United States. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the M-U will produce 34 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natgas this month (see EIA DPR: Feb. NatGas Production Drop Everywhere Except Haynesville). The thing is, we (in the M-U) can’t use all of that gas in this region, where it’s produced. We need to get it to other markets. According to RBN Energy, it’s easy to predict another coming pipeline shortage to move our gas to the other markets that need it.
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Two of New York City’s five retirement pension funds, representing 70% of the $239.8 billion retirement system, announced yesterday they will divest their portfolios of all investments in fossil fuel companies. The two pension funds together own roughly $4 billion worth of fossil fuel securities. The divestment will take place gradually, over the next five years. A third pension fund with $7.8 billion under management is expected to do the same, soon.
One of the aims of both drillers and environmentalists is to reduce the amount of methane escaping from pipelines and well pads into the atmosphere–so called “fugitive methane.” Environmentalists make wild claims that methane molecules floating around in the atmosphere are a gajillion times more potent in causing mythical global warming. Whatever. Drillers and pipeline companies want to capture and keep captured every last molecule so they can sell it! Thing is, there is a cost beyond which it doesn’t make sense to try and capture stray methane molecules.
This is an early test for how the Biden administration, specifically Biden’s pick to run the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Richard “Dick” Glick, will respond to requests for additional infrastructure related to fossil fuels. Last week Venture Global filed a “pre-filing” request with FERC ultimately looking for permission to build a major new LNG export facility next door to another facility (Calcasieu Pass Project) Venture Global is currently building. The new project is dubbed CP2 and will come with a (gasp) 87.5-mile greenfield pipeline.
Finally! The Weymouth compressor station, the final piece of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project that has been years in the making, is either now online and flowing gas, or will be within a day or two at most. However, given a vote last week by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) questioning whether or not enough consideration was given to protesting antis, a cloud remains as to how long (in a Biden-controlled FERC) the compressor will remain online.
In December, the Maryland Board of Public Works (BPW), which has three members (two leftwing Democrats and RINO Gov. Larry Hogan), surprisingly approved a 10-inch, 6.83-mile pipeline for the Maryland portion of a 19+ mile project called the Del-Mar Energy Pathway Project, crossing both Delaware and Maryland (see 
Here’s an interesting twist. Just last week we told you about ongoing opposition from anti-fossil fuelers to a currently dormant project, the Mountaineer NGL Storage hub project in Monroe County, OH (see 
It was exactly one year ago that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in THE most consequential lawsuit for Marcellus Shale drilling we’ve seen, a case called Briggs v Southwestern Energy (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) received some 13,000 public comments on its horrible plan to force PA residents to pay $2.36 billion in new energy taxes (a carbon tax) for electricity produced by coal and natural gas power plants–a scheme called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The plan would greatly reduce the number of gas-fired power plants operating in the state and create energy insecurity for the entire PJM portion of the national electricity grid.
With Richard “Dick” Glick as the new Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), life just got harder for the PennEast Pipeline project. Not impossible, but certainly harder. On Tuesday FERC gave PennEast a little bit of love when it turned down a request by a Pennsylvania landowner that PennEast not be allowed to use eminent domain to cross the landowner’s property. But also on Tuesday FERC removed from its agenda a final decision on whether or not to approve PennEast’s request to split the project into two phases.
Last fall Mountaineer NGL Storage, a $500 million project in Monroe County to build underground storage for ethane and other NGLs, asked Ohio to cancel a key permit for the project (see