FERC Shuts Down ALL Work on Atlantic Coast Pipeline
As MDN predicted last week (see Federal Court Stops Works on Some (All?) of Atlantic Coast Pipe), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, following a ruling by a federal court that vacated (withdrew) permits for work being done on Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), has told Dominion to quit working on all of the pipeline everywhere. At least until this current legal mess, created by the Sierra Club, can be sorted out. It was an easy prediction to make. FERC did the same thing with Mountain Valley Pipeline when the same court pulled permits for a piddly 3.5 miles of pipeline as it crosses the Jefferson National Forest (see FERC Shuts Down ALL Work on Mountain Valley Pipeline in WV, VA) . In ACP’s case, the court pulled permits for work on 100 miles of pipeline (out of 600 miles). Dominion said in a statement that they’re already working with the two agencies that had issued various permissions overturned by the court, and Dominion expects the matter will be resolved quickly so that the final in-service date is not moved. As a reminder, the Sierra Club convinced the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn permits granted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) granted to ACP to cross the Blue Ridge Parkway. However, the rolled-back permits affect some 100 miles of work. The court, in rolling back ACP’s permits, told FERC they should shut down work on the entire project until this matter is resolved. On Friday FERC did just that…
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Chesapeake Energy has, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “reached a $7.75 million settlement agreement with about two-thirds of its Pennsylvania natural gas royalty owners.” At the end of last year Chesapeake Energy offered a $30 million deal to Pennsylvania landowners to settle claims the company had screwed them out of royalty money by artificially inflating post-production costs in an elaborate scheme to pocket more money at landowners’ expense (see 
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Williams, after years of saying it would so, finally bought out and merged in its Williams Partners MLP subsidiary. The on-paper $10.5 billion merger happened last Friday. Williams originally planned to do this in May 2015 in a deal worth $13.8 billion (see 
A boatload of anti fossil fuel zealots from Cooperstown put down their wine glasses long enough to pack an auditorium in nearby Oneonta to bloviate against a sensible plan to build a CNG “decompressor” facility to accept trucks loaded with CNG during wintertime and summertime when area supplies of natgas get dangerously low. We wrote about the proposed facility, described as “a decompression station for compressed natural gas deliveries by truck to supplement resources” two weeks ago (see 
Ever hear of a PILOT? No, not the airplane kind. A PILOT is a “payment in lieu of taxes”–a common arrangement for electric generating plants. If such plants paid property taxes at full market value, the taxes would be so insanely high the plants would be uneconomical and therefore wouldn’t get built. So PILOTs are used instead. Such an agreement was recently reached between EmberClear and Harrison County, OH. In September 2016, MDN reported that EmberClear planned to fund and build a new $900 million electric generating plant in Harrison County (see 
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A federal judge turned down a request by six Franklin County, VA landowners to shut down construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in their area. The six claim that work being done by MVP is leading to soil erosion–that storm water runoff has resulted in mountains of mud ending up on their property. The legal argument is “trespass” for failing to do the work correctly, thereby leading to an intrusion on their property. The judge denied the request. However, the judge did not toss out the entire lawsuit–only a request for a preliminary injunction. The lawsuit itself will continue. Not that it makes much of a difference. All work on MVP is currently stopped anyway (see 
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s Administration has been fiddling with proposed regulations to cut down on so-called fugitive methane emissions from drilling and pipelines for years. The regulations are known as General Permit 5 (GP-5) and General Permit 5A (GP-5A). GP-5 applies to pipelines and compressor stations, while GP-5A applies to well pads and drilling. In June, the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), author of the revised regs, published its final final final final version of the regs (see 
Just yesterday we posted an article observing that today, Friday, is Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) member Rob Powelson’s last day on the job (see 
Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted a “certificate of public convenience and necessity” (i.e. official approval) for Rover Pipeline to spend $4.7 million to build a new meter station along Rover’s Burgettstown Lateral. The new meter station, to be located in Jefferson County, OH, will connect a pipeline gathering system built and maintained by Utica Gas Services LLC, connecting the gathering system to Rover. The new connection will flow 350 million cubic feet per day of Utica Shale gas into the Rover pipeline system. But here’s the thing: FERC has not yet given Rover permission to begin flowing gas along the Burgettstown Lateral. FERC is playing hardball, withholding permission for Burgettstown and three other laterals until Rover (i.e. Energy Transfer) gets restoration work done along certain portions of the project (see 
Aubrey McClendon, co-founder of Chesapeake Energy and founder of American Energy Partners (renamed to Ascent Resources) was the first to recognize the importance of the Ohio Utica Shale and once famously said the Utica is “the biggest thing to hit Ohio since maybe the plow.” Turns out he was right, God rest his soul. The Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA), a national group of families, farmers, small businesses, distributors, producers and manufacturers joined together to support America’s energy future, has just released a report that shows from 2006 to 2016, Ohioans saved more than $40 billion (!) on energy costs (natural gas and electricity) because of the Ohio Utica Shale. The report, titled “The Benefits of Ohio’s Natural Gas Production to Energy Consumers and Job Creators” (full copy below), breaks down the savings this way: Ohio residential customers saved close to $15 billion during the 10-year period, while commercial and industrial consumers saved more than $25 billion. But that’s not all. The report also quotes JobsOhio in saying that shale-related investment in the Buckeye State from 2011-2017 was a staggering $63.9 billion. If you add those two numbers together, the amount of money saved on energy (and therefore spent on other things), and the amount of money invested, it totals more than $100 billion of economic impact from shale in Ohio–in ten short years. Put another way, one-tenth of trillion dollars has been spent in Ohio because of shale. Mind-blowing…
Two days ago MDN told you that New York’s tinhorn dictator, Andrew Cuomo, pulled the rug out from under a fully-permitted and permissioned Marcellus-fired electric plant by directing his corrupt Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to withhold renewing an air permit previously granted (see