Va. NatGas Pipeline Project in Trouble, Gas-Fired Plant in Doubt
Last December MDN told you about a second natural gas-fired power plant planned for Charles City County, Va. (near Richmond) being developed by C4GT (see 2nd Gas-Fired Power Plant, Pipe Coming to Charles City County, VA). It appears the project is in trouble, which means a 24-mile pipeline to feed it is also in trouble. It is because of the pipeline and a regulatory filing that we know about the gas-fired plant’s troubles.
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On Monday we brought you the news that Gulfport Energy, the third-largest driller in the Ohio Utica Shale, had filed for bankruptcy over the weekend (see 
When a pipeline company considers whether or not to build a new pipeline, the company conducts an “open season”–a time when drillers (producers) can sign long-term contracts to use capacity along the pipeline. Such contracts guarantee pipeline companies will be able to make back the considerable amount of money they have to spend to build the pipeline. What happens when a driller that signed to a 10- or 20-year contract goes bankrupt? Or what happens if a contract will force a driller into bankruptcy? Can such a contract be canceled?
Like a bad Stephen King horror flick, the Sisters of the Corn (our name for a group of leftist nuns in Lancaster County, PA) have returned to file yet another frivolous lawsuit against Williams over a pipeline that crosses their land–a pipeline (Atlantic Sunrise) that has been up and running for years. The Sisters claim an infringement of their “religious liberties” in the lawsuit. They tried this argument once before and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues to block Energy Transfer’s Revolution Pipeline gathering system in western PA from restarting. In September the DEP finally, after two years, gave ET permission to fix problems that caused the pipeline to explode. Even though ET has fixed the original site of the explosion, the DEP says there are other areas of concern and forbids certain sections of the pipeline from restarting, until…
Yesterday Pittsburgh Business Times‘ ace reporter Paul Gough got EQT CEO Toby Rice to open up and talk about the company’s recently announced deal to buy Chevron’s considerable Marcellus/Utica assets (see 
This has been going on for more than a year. Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia, has not been able to finish a project that is now 92% in the ground and complete because of repeated lawsuits by the Sierra Club and colluding leftist Democrat judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The delays are costing MVP $20 million per month! Yesterday the clowns did it yet again. They blocked a Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP12) that was reissued by the Army Corps of Engineers after being reworked because of an earlier rejection by the same court. NWP12 would allow the pipeline to cross creeks and rivers and wetlands.
The Sierra Club, backed with money from Russia (see 
During the Williams third-quarter 2020 update yesterday, CEO Alan Armstrong shared some very interesting, and relevant (to the Marcellus/Utica) comments. Armstrong said that two important pipeline projects to carry M-U gas to other markets, the Southeastern Trail expansion project and the Leidy South project, are both in the midst of coming online–ahead of schedule.
Equitrans Midstream, the lead partner and builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, announced yesterday it has (once again) pushed back the in-service date for the pipeline, from 1Q21 to the second half of 2021 (meaning by December), and pushed up the cost of the project, from $5.4 billion to as high as $6 billion. You can thank the jobs-and-economy-destroying Sierra Club for the delays and increase in cost.
In July, when Dominion Energy announced it had decided to exit the natural gas pipeline business by selling it to Warren Buffett and cancel the much-needed Atlantic Coast Pipeline project, the company said it would retain a 50% ownership in its Cove Point LNG export facility and sell a 25% interest to Buffett’s company (see 
“It’s dangerous! It’s a killer! It will flow evil, nasty fracked gas! It’ll explode and kill everyone within a mile, and if it doesn’t explode, emissions from the plant will poison everyone around it anyway!” Those are the faux arguments used by radicals in Weymouth, Massachusetts to smear a compressor station built by Enbridge. All of those arguments have just magically disappeared. The price tag to make it happen? Enbridge will pay $10 million now, and $28 million later, for a grand total of $38 million.
The New Jersey Highlands Water Protection and Planning Council (“Highlands Council”) is a regional planning agency that works in partnership with municipalities and counties in the Highlands Region to help them implement the state’s 2004 Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act (the Highlands Act). The Highlands Council has just given its blessing for a Tennesee Gas Pipeline (TGP) compressor station in Passaic County, NJ, near the border with Westchester, NY.
While Gulfport Energy (big Ohio Utica driller) hasn’t officially filed for bankruptcy, it’s certainly a possibility (see 
The bad blood between Energy Transfer (ET) and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) continues. ET’s Sunoco Pipeline subsidiary is desperately trying to complete the Mariner East 2X pipeline from eastern Ohio through to Marcus Hook near Philadelphia. A recent drilling mud spill in Marsh Creek State Park prompted the DEP to demand Sunoco change the route for ME2X (which was less than 60 days from being done) to a new route around the State Park (see