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Rhode Island Indians Take FERC to Court re Massachusetts Pipeline
In March 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) Connecticut Expansion project (see FERC Approves TGP Connecticut Expansion Pipeline Project). The project involves building 13.42 miles of new pipeline loops in three states: Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. When completed, the new looping will serve an additional 72,100 dekatherms of (mostly) Marcellus Shale gas to three utility companies in Connecticut.
Read More “Rhode Island Indians Take FERC to Court re Massachusetts Pipeline”
The pipeline situation today in the Marcellus/Utica region is far different than it was just a year or two ago. Not long ago lack of pipelines meant we had an overabundance of natural gas in the region without buyers, driving prices into the basement. Today? It’s all different. Because of new and expanded pipelines coming online over the past couple of years, producers (i.e. drillers) today have options on where to send their natural gas–fetching far better prices in new markets. In fact, according to the analysts at RBN Energy, “The spate of pipeline expansions and additions in the past two years have not only caught up to production but capacity now far outpaces it.” That’s a big switcheroo.
The Equitrans Expansion Project (EEP) began construction in late 2017. The project is related to Equitrans’ $4 billion, 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) at the same time as MVP. The $100 million EEP involved upgrading several compressor stations and adding approximately eight miles of pipeline connectors to increase capacity along the Equitrans Pipeline from southwestern Pennsylvania into West Virginia.
Global warming fundamentalists certainly are a persistent lot. They can’t win elections, and they can’t force state or federal legislatures to pass laws banning pipelines (and shale drilling), so they do the next best thing. They twist our own court system against us in an attempt to block pipelines. Which has worked to some degree, at least in the northeast. The aim is to block all pipelines everywhere, eventually. Even in Texas. One of the ways antis attack the ability to build pipelines is by challenging what they pejoratively call “quick take” eminent domain–the right for a pipeline company to access and build a pipeline on property ahead of actually settling how much money the landowner will receive (in the case of landowners who refuse to negotiate).
Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), a $7 billion, 600-mile pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia into North Carolina, is facing an existential threat by leftist environmentalists. The project is stalled waiting on an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court, filed last week (see 
A recent article on the Forbes website helps crystallize and expose the strategy of a group we call global warming fundamentalists in their religious quest to block fossil fuels by blocking pipelines. That strategy works this way: Mount enough legal challenges to ramp up costs and ultimately convince pipeline builders to walk away from projects. “Ground zero” in pipeline wars right now is, according to the author, two projects: the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Both projects are right here in the Marcellus/Utica.
When the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) fiddles around and blows important deadlines, there are consequences. In January 2018, Dominion Energy filed a request with FERC to expand capacity along the existing Dominion Energy Transmission Inc. (DETI) pipeline, to flow Pennsylvania Marcellus gas into Ohio (see 
Two weeks ago MDN provided a list of Marcellus/Utica pipeline projects for which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is withholding approvals, unnecessarily, due to Democrat commissioners gumming up the works over mythical global warming concerns (see 
In February MDN told you that Dominion Energy planned to appeal a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit blocking an important permit for Atlantic Coast Pipeline to drill under the Appalachian Trail directly to the U.S. Supreme Court (see 
The Manhattan Institute, a leading free-market think tank based in the Big Apple, has just published a new report (full copy below) that shows by blocking new natural gas pipeline projects, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo is actually causing MORE harm to the environment. How? Blocking natural gas means building owners and power producers will continue to rely on oil, which emits 27% more carbon dioxide than natural gas. The report also shows lack of pipelines is forcing energy prices in the northeast to rocket skyward, which in some cases already exceed the national average by more than 90%.
We caught a helpful update on PennEnergy Resources from a report on last week’s Hart Energy DUG East Conference in Pittsburgh. PennEnergy CEO Richard Weber told the DUG audience that his company is currently producing an average half a billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, with plans to increase that by 10% this year. One thing holding the company back is the ongoing outage of Energy Transfer’s Revolution Pipeline gathering system.