Industrywide Issues

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    Another New Gas-Fired Elec Plant Being Planned in New Jersey

    Click for larger version

    Details so far are sketchy, but it appears that plans are taking shape to build a 660-megawatt gas-fired electric plant in Holland Township (Hunterdon County), NJ. Phoenix Energy Center wants to build the plant along the shore of the Musconetcong River, classified as a Category One (C1) trout stream. Sierra Club nutters are in full panic mode, attempting to prevent such a horrible injustice from happening. God forbid more New Jerseyites get cheaper electricity from a cleaner source! The Holland plant, if it were to get built, would likely get its natural gas from Elizabethtown Gas, which in turn is due to get additional gas supplies from the still-unbuilt PennEast Pipeline. Holland Township officials stress talks are preliminary, and nobody has signed nor agreed to anything. Phoenix isn’t saying anything–and no wonder, because anytime Big Green (the Sierra Club) catches wind of a project like this one, they rush in to try and abort the baby before it’s even born. Here’s the few, scant details known about the Phoenix Energy Center project in Holland Township…
    Read More “Another New Gas-Fired Elec Plant Being Planned in New Jersey”

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    Part of Leach XPress Pipe Up and Running Following Explosion

    Leach XPress explosion location – click for larger version

    Last Thursday MDN reported that TransCanada was working to restore partial service to the Leach XPress Pipeline (see TransCanada Working to Restore Partial Service on Leach XPress Pipe). Leach XPress only came online in January. The pipeline experienced an explosion and fire on June 7 (see Leach XPress Pipeline Explodes in Marshall County, WV). Most of the 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of Marcellus/Utica gas flowing through the pipeline was stopped. As of Friday, the Stagecoach-LXP meter, which ties into the Strike Force South gathering system station, was once again flowing, up to 190 million cubic feet per day. Which means Monroe and Belmont counties (OH) are now reconnected and flowing. As for the rest of the pipeline and its various metering stations, it’s all still shut down with no word on when it will be repaired and back online. There’s still no word on what caused the explosion in the first place…
    Read More “Part of Leach XPress Pipe Up and Running Following Explosion”

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    FERC Denies Rehearing Request for Mountain Valley Pipe 3-2

    In May MDN told you that Big Green groups were successful in getting the U.S. District Court of Appeals for D.C. to force the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to either move forward with, or reject a rehearing request on their decision to approve the Mountain Valley Pipeline (see Fed Court Forces FERC to Decide on MVP Rehearing, No More Delays). MVP a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA–to move Marcellus/Utica gas south. Last Friday FERC obeyed the court and voted 3-2 against rehearing their previous decision to approve the project. Yes, the two Democrat Commissioners voted to rehear the decision–meaning they want to stop MVP. The two Dems have been co-opted by Big Green and Big Democrats and now apparently don’t/won’t think for themselves. It’s a scary proposition for “someday” when Dems regain the White House and can once again pack FERC with a majority–which will stop any new pipeline projects cold. Scary thought. At any rate, FERC’s Republicans made powerful and persuasive arguments for why the original decision to approve MVP was/is correct and doesn’t need to be revisited. Bottom line: Big Green is no doubt at the courthouse even as you read this filing a lawsuit against FERC and their decision. They could not file the lawsuit prior to a rehearing denial by FERC. Now that FERC has told Big Green to buzz off, a lawsuit to try and stop MVP is 100% certain to follow…
    Read More “FERC Denies Rehearing Request for Mountain Valley Pipe 3-2”

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    PA PUC Overrules Lib Judge – Mariner East 1 Returns to Service

    As MDN predicted, yesterday the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) voted to overturn a previous action by liberal administrative law judge, Elizabeth Barnes, to shut down the Mariner East 1 (ME1) pipeline (see Antis Get Lib Judge to Shut Down All Mariner East Pipes, Dems Rejoice). ME1 is back up and running. All five PUC members supported returning ME1 back to service. However, three of the five PUC members agreed with Judge Barnes’ decision to temporarily shut down work on the Mariner East 2 pipeline project in West Whiteland Township (Chester County). Two of the five PUC members wanted all of Barnes’ ruling to be overturned. The reporting on this is somewhat confusing. PUC Chairwoman Gladys Brown put forward a motion to (a) turn ME1 back on, and (b) keep ME2 in West Whiteland stopped, for now, pending more information from Sunoco Logistics. The vote was 3-2 in favor of Brown’s motion. The 2 voting against it did so because it didn’t go far enough (they wanted ME2 construction to resume). So although the vote was 3-2, all 5 of the members wanted ME1 back on. That’s the real nub of the news–the subtlety that’s missed in most media reports. The 3-2 “split decision” that’s being reported is the decision to overrule Barnes on ME1, but keep her ruling intact (for now) on ME2. The PUC has ordered Sunoco to provide more information in the next 20 days: inspection and testing protocols, emergency response plans, and copies of safety training curriculum for employees and contractors. The PUC will then reconsider whether or not to allow ME2 work to resume in West Whiteland. But here’s the thing: Work on the rest of the 300+ mile pipeline continues everywhere else in the state–everywhere but West Whiteland. Overall, yesterday’s PUC action was a crushing defeat for PA State Sen. Andy “Tony Soprano” Dinniman (Democrat) and his Big Green cronies who want to assassinate the entire ME1 & ME2 projects by focusing on one small area…
    Read More “PA PUC Overrules Lib Judge – Mariner East 1 Returns to Service”

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    Federal Court Upholds Ohio Forced Pooling Law in Chesapeake Case

    In 2015, landowners in Harrison County, OH who own 127 acres (the Kerns) filed a lawsuit alleging their property rights were about to be violated because Chesapeake Energy had filed a pooling request with the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) to pool (combine) the Kerns property with surrounding properties for shale drilling. The Kerns had not signed and do not want drilling under their land. Their neighbors do. Ohio has a law on the books that allows for “forced pooling” in cases when a majority of the surrounding land is leased but landowners with small positions refuse to sign. The Kerns resisted and fought the case all the way to Ohio Supreme Court, which rejected their claims. Chesapeake drilled and fracked three wells (on a neighboring property), which included drilling under the Kerns’ property. So the Kerns filed a new lawsuit in 2016, in federal court, claiming a “taking” of their property had occurred. The federal court has just ruled–against the Kerns. This was the first time a court case dealt directly with the constitutionality of Ohio’s unitization (forced pooling) law. The upshot: Ohio’s forced pooling law remains intact and in force…
    Read More “Federal Court Upholds Ohio Forced Pooling Law in Chesapeake Case”

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    Green, OH Won’t Allow Nov. 6 Vote to Nix NEXUS Pipeline Deal

    In February the City of Green, OH (Summit County), finally faced the reality that NEXUS Pipeline–a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada–will come through their paradise (see Antis of Green, OH Finally Face Reality – Will Allow NEXUS Pipe). Green hired a high-priced Cleveland law firm to try and scuttle the NEXUS project (see Green, OH Paying Lawyers $100K to Fund Stop NEXUS Crusade). In the end, everyone has their price. For Green, the price was $7.5 million and 20 acres of land that sit next to an existing city park. While Green antis in city government hate the idea of the pipeline getting built at all (especially Green’s anti-pipeline mayor), the writing was on the wall. They would lose and they knew it. To save face, the mayor negotiated a deal with NEXUS that city council voted to accept. However, the mayor and city council’s actions didn’t sit well with some of the more radical elements in Green. The rads launched a petition campaign to put a referendum on the Nov. 6 ballot on whether or not the city should settle with NEXUS. The city says the signed settlement is an administrative action, not subject to a popular vote. The rads say otherwise. In a bold move, even though the rads have enough signatures to put the referendum on the ballot, the city has refused to allow the it to appear on the ballot. Which will surely send the radicals into orbit. It’s shaping up to be a battle between left and lefter…
    Read More “Green, OH Won’t Allow Nov. 6 Vote to Nix NEXUS Pipeline Deal”

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    Lycoming County Residents Oppose Loyalsock Creek Gathering Pipe

    Pennsylvania General Energy drills in several PA counties, including Lycoming County in the north central of the state. According to the just-published Marcellus & Utica Shale Upstream Almanac 2018, PA General Energy is the fourth-largest producing driller in Lycoming County, with 103 producing wells and 42.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas production in 2017. PA General Energy wants to drill more wells. Those wells will need a gathering pipeline connected to them. Current plans for a pipeline have it running along a portion of the Loyalsock Creek, and that has some folks in the area up in arms. Yesterday at a county commissioners’ meeting, residents voiced their opposition to PA General Energy’s pipeline plans. A company rep at the meeting tried to assuage concerns. The Middle Susquehanna Riverkeeper has offered to be an “unbiased party” to “facilitate discussions between the company and those who reside along the creek.” You know what we think of so-called Riverkeepers who claim to be THE voice of a river…
    Read More “Lycoming County Residents Oppose Loyalsock Creek Gathering Pipe”

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    Wackos Gather in Harrisburg to Push for 100% Solar/Wind in PA

    This past Tuesday, hundreds of Pennsylvanians gathered in Harrisburg to “rally for a new vision for the Commonwealth powered by 100 percent renewable energy.” Among those attending including representatives from businesses, various religious leaders, local mayors, and nurses and doctors to advocate for “bipartisan” legislation to force PA to dump fossil fuels and adopt 100% renewable energy. There is no polite way to say this, but say it we must: This so-called “bipartisan” gathering to push House and Senate bills demanding the state dump the use of fossil fuels (like natural gas) and instead stick solar panels on every rooftop and windmills on every hilltop to power the Keystone state’s electricity (and other) power needs is stark….raving….mad. It’s lunatic. Forcing the state to adopt 100% renewables is not “nice” or a “gentle, blessed future that will arrive someday.” Adopting 100% renewables is a deluded fantasy. To pretend otherwise is unkind. We must call this nuttery out for what it is: irrational hatred of fossil fuels. We have nothing against any form of energy. They all have their pluses and minuses. You like a solar panel on your house–good for you! An ugly windmill with it’s whump whump whump sound nearby? Whatever floats your boat. But ending the use of fossil fuels to generate electricity any time within the next 75-100 years is the end of human life as we know it. What was presented at the rally as some benign gathering of average citizens was nothing of the sort. Big Green (radical) groups, including PennFuture, were behind this flummery…
    Read More “Wackos Gather in Harrisburg to Push for 100% Solar/Wind in PA”

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    TransCanada Working to Restore Partial Service on Leach XPress Pipe

    We told you last week that Columbia Gas Transmission’s Leach XPress Pipeline, which only came online in January, experienced an explosion and fire in Marshall County, WV (see Leach XPress Pipeline Explodes in Marshall County, WV). Most of the 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of Marcellus/Utica gas flowing through the pipeline is now stopped, which has caused shippers (drillers) to find alternatives, including Energy Transfer’s Rover, Tallgrass’ Rockies Express (REX), EQT’s Equitrans, and Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) pipelines to flow gas out of the region (see Other Pipelines Pick Up Slack for Exploded Leach XPress). Although a fix for the exploded portion of Leach XPress is likely months away, TransCanada, the owner of Columbia and the Leach pipeline, is working on a plan to quickly restore part of the pipeline to service in southeastern Ohio–which would reconnect Monroe and Belmont counties to the pipeline…
    Read More “TransCanada Working to Restore Partial Service on Leach XPress Pipe”

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    WV DEP Fines Rover Pipe $430K for Water Pollution Violations

    Rover Pipeline (Energy Transfer Partners) has agreed to pay a $430,030 fine to the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection for water pollution violations related to construction activities for the pipeline. The “consent order” was dated May 15 but not released to the public until Tuesday of this week. The proposed deal is now open for public comment until July 13. Rover received 18 notices of violation and 2 cease-and-desist orders dating back to April 2017. Most of the violations relate to failure to control erosion and for allowing sediment water to leak out of construction areas. WV DEP has not yet signed (officially accepted) the order, but it certainly appears to be a done deal. Here’s the news and a copy of the consent order…
    Read More “WV DEP Fines Rover Pipe $430K for Water Pollution Violations”

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    What Will Convince Investors to Spend $10B on M-U NGL Storage Hub?

    One more item to share with you from last week’s second annual Appalachian Storage Hub Conference convened at the Hilton Garden Inn Pittsburgh/Southpointe. As we previously highlighted, most of the event revolved around the proposed plan to build a $10 billion ethane storage hub (see Southpointe Event Focuses on M-U NGL Storage Hub). One of the panel discussions addressed the issue of how to attract that kind of money. $10 billion is just a number on paper. How much is that, really? West Virginia is the state most frequently mentioned as the host state for the $10B project. WV’s budget for this fiscal year is $4.3 billion. So the investment needed to build the proposed storage hub project would run the entire state of WV for more than two years! Where do you get that kind of money? And what do investors look for when deciding to spend that kind of money? That’s what the panel discussed…
    Read More “What Will Convince Investors to Spend $10B on M-U NGL Storage Hub?”

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    Eversource Looks to Reactivate Access Northeast Pipe Project in NH

    In May MDN reported that a recent New Hampshire Supreme Court decision *may* breathe new life into a New England natural gas pipeline project believed to be dead (see NH Supreme Court Decision Puts New England Pipe Back in Play). The Access Northeast pipeline project would cost ~$3 billion and would connect four different pipeline systems: Texas Eastern, Algonquin Gas Transmission, Iroquois and Maritimes & Northeast. One of the backers is Eversource (formerly called Northeast Utilities), a utility company that desperately needs the gas that would flow through the upgraded system. Eversource had filed a rate case in New Hampshire requesting permission to pass along some of the cost of the pipeline to its electricity customers–because they will directly benefit from the pipeline delivering gas to electric power plants operated by Eversource. NH refused, and it was that refusal that was overturned by the State Supreme Court. The new news is that Eversource has withdrawn their original request because they are about to submit a brand new request for the same thing–and this time NH will have to approve it. Bottom line: The Access Northeast project appears to have rekindled to life, at least in NH…
    Read More “Eversource Looks to Reactivate Access Northeast Pipe Project in NH”

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    Despite Court Ruling, Atlantic Coast Pipeline Continues Construction

    In May MDN told you that the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had invalidated (vacated) a permit issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that allows Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) to accidentally kill a few bats and bumble bees (classified as endangered) as it builds the massive $6.5 billion, 600-mile project from West Virginia to North Carolina (see U.S. Fourth Circuit Court Vacates Key Permit for Atlantic Coast Pipe). The Sierra Club and several other radical, far-left groups were behind the court case that led to the decision. However, as it turns out, the decision doesn’t really hurt the project all that much. The vacated permit isn’t so “key” after all. Of the 600 or so miles of pipeline getting built, the vacated permit from Fish and Wildlife only affects about 10 miles of pipeline (see Only 10 Miles of Atlantic Coast Pipeline Affected by Court Ruling). The radicals are back, not happy that only 10 miles of pipeline is idled for now. In a “but, but, but, but, but” request to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the antis argue FERC should shut down the whole enchilada–because they don’t like having just 10 miles shut down. Meanwhile, Dominion keeps up steady-and-sure construction of the project. It’s getting built, even as you read this…
    Read More “Despite Court Ruling, Atlantic Coast Pipeline Continues Construction”

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    DOE Publishes New LNG Export Study – Seeks Comments

    How much American-extracted natural gas should get exported? That question is the focus of a newly published study, titled “Macroeconomic Outcomes of Market Determined Levels of U.S. LNG Exports” (full copy below). The study is the fifth in a series commissioned by the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE). The study/research, performed by NERA Economic Consulting (NERA), looks at the impacts on the U.S. for various export scenarios. Export a lot? A little? Somewhere in between? There are 21 proposed LNG export facilities in the pipeline right now, requesting permission to export to “non-FTA” (non-Free Trade Agreement) countries. DOE wants to make the right decisions about how many of them to approve. This study and its numbers will help guide their decision-making. The study is now available for public review and comment, until July 27…
    Read More “DOE Publishes New LNG Export Study – Seeks Comments”

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    Democrat Natl Committee Bans Contributions from Fossil Fuel Cos.

    The Democrat Party has just made it official that they will now openly discriminate against and target natural gas, oil and coal companies–and the people who work for them. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has voted to adopt a policy of not accepting campaign contributions from evil, vile, nasty fossil fuel companies. Irrational, far-left kooks have taken over the Dem party. It is now the official position of Democrats to assassinate the fossil fuel industry. If you work for/in the fossil fuel industry, know this: the Democrat Party is targeting YOUR industry and YOUR job for extinction…
    Read More “Democrat Natl Committee Bans Contributions from Fossil Fuel Cos.”

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    PTT Awards Belmont Cracker Engineering Contract to Bechtel

    PTT has awarded the contract to build the Belmont, OH ethane cracker to Bechtel. At least, that’s the rumor swirling around. We have to say right up front, this information has not yet been announced and therefore is not 100% verified–but we’ve talked to a highly placed industry source and we believe it to be accurate. Below we offer insight into why we believe this information is accurate, and why PTT has not yet made their official final investment decision (FID) announcement, and when they might do so…
    Read More “PTT Awards Belmont Cracker Engineering Contract to Bechtel”