Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Washington County
Range Resources Forced to Cop to Environmental “Crimes” in SWPA
After spending years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate Range Resources over a simple regulatory matter settled years ago by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, PA’s leftist Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, announced on Friday he had finally bullied Range into pleading “no contest” to so-called environmental crimes (misdemeanors), forcing the company to pay $50,000 in fines and $100,000 to Shapiro’s favorite Big Green charities. Does that sound like a success to you? Shapiro spent multiple hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to force the company to pay $150K. Sounds like Shapiro is The Biggest Loser to us.
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In early May MDN reported Elba Island LNG, a Marcellus Shale gas export facility located near Savannah, Georgia, was in the process of firing up train #8 of the 10 mini-trains being built (see 
Fossil fuel haters in New York successfully pressured New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reject the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline in May (see 
A group of leftwing radical professors (all of the Democrats) from seven universities in Ohio and Pennsylvania have colluded to write a letter to the governors of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The letter trash talks the billions of dollars in economic impact and tens of thousands of jobs ethane cracker plants and the petrochemical industry will have in the region. The leftist gang of seven poo-poos those estimates and says the proposed PTT cracker is too “risky” to approve. How do they figure?
Equitrans’ 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project from West Virginia to southern Virginia is now 92% in the ground and complete. That final 8% is frustratingly delayed because of lawsuits and regulatory actions brought on by Big Green groups. But have no fear. In an announcement released yesterday by the builder Equitrans Midstream, MVP will be 100% done and operational in “early 2021.” The end is in sight.
Two of the largest not-yet-completed pipeline projects in the Marcellus/Utica, Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), are currently on hold with no construction activity due to various legal challenges by Big Green (see today’s story, Mountain Valley Pipe Update: Done and In-Service Early 2021). However, there are several other large and small M-U pipeline projects where construction continues, even with restrictions from the coronavirus pandemic. Which pipelines?
With EQT shutting in one-third of its production, Cabot shutting in some of its production, and today’s news that CNX has shut in production (see CNX Update: Shut-in 375 MMcf/d, Central PA Utica the Future), the cumulative effect of those three (plus other M-U drillers) is that our region now produces at least 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) less of natgas than it did just a few months ago. That decrease is helping to “balance” gas flows and help prices to not drop further than they already have.
The U.S. onshore rig count continues to collapse, hitting a historic new low of 299. Over the past week, another 12 rigs disappeared from the count, mainly located in oil plays (like the Permian). Since the beginning of March, the Marcellus had (as of last week) lost 11 rigs in total. The Marcellus gained back one of those rigs. Since the beginning of March the Utica has stayed consistent with 10-11 rigs operating. Last week the Utica lost two rigs, now down to 9 rigs operating.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report Wednesday titled, “Gas 2020: Analysing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global natural gas markets.” IEA says the global gas market will experience its “largest demand shock on record” in 2020, with demand for natural gas worldwide decreasing by 4% this year. That’s a bit better than IEA’s previous estimate of a 5% decrease in 2020.
Enverus (formerly known as Drillinginfo) recently released its latest FundamentalEdge report that explores the ongoing supply response to demand destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the report, Enverus estimates how much dry gas production each major shale play produced, month by month, from January through May of this year. The numbers show that production from the Marcellus/Utica, which produces the most natural gas of any play, decreased the most of any play–by some 1.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) from January to May.
Tri-Point, LLC is an oilfield services company (OFS) specializing in products and services for drillers and pipeline companies. Tri-Point is headquartered in Houston, Texas but has a number of field offices, including an office in Towanda (Bradford County), PA that services the Marcellus industry. Sadly the company is in bankruptcy. We spotted an announcement about a virtual auction later this month to sell off/liquidate all of the company’s assets.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has just released a new “instant final rule” that, from what we can tell, pretty much does away with a concept called tolling orders when approving new pipeline projects. A tolling order has been an important tool for FERC in combating frivolous lawsuits filed against every single new pipeline project. A tolling order allows FERC to delay deciding on what is called a rehearing request. Antis can’t trot off to find their favorite Obama judge until FERC either performs a rehearing or rejects a rehearing request. Tolling orders delay that process, allowing pipeline projects to actually get built.
Going back a year (beginning June 2019) MDN has brought you news about Edge Gathering Virtual Pipelines 2 LLC (EDGE), a company that deploys special LNG units to remote Marcellus wells in PA, converting gas from the well into LNG and selling that gas (
Amid all of the frivolous lawsuits and regulatory actions brought by Big Green, aimed at blocking progress on important projects like the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from West Virginia to southern Virginia (90% complete), progress is still happening for new pipeline projects. One of those new projects is MVP Southgate, a 75-mile extension of MVP that will run from southern Virginia into North Carolina.
The Pennsylvania legislature has taken the next step in overturning a naked power-grab by Gov. Tom Wolf in his bid to force the state to join a carbon tax scheme called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Yesterday the PA House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee approved House Bill (HB) 2025 aimed at blocking RGGI without a proper vote by the legislature first. HB 2025 now goes to the full House for a vote.