New Law Signed Expanding PA’s PIPE Program – More Rural NatGas
In mid-June, MDN editor Jim Willis experienced the rare treat of venturing out from behind the keyboard to a press conference held in the great outdoors in nearby Susquehanna County, PA. The topic? Energize PA, a series of bills being promoted by Republicans in both the PA Senate and House (see Spreading Marcellus Love Throughout PA with Expanded PIPE Program). The event was organized by PA Rep. Jonathan Fritz, who opened the presser with details on House Bill (HB) 1103, a bill he sponsored that would expand the state’s PIPE program to run more “last mile” natural gas pipelines to homes and businesses in rural communities.
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A little good news coming from New England, for a change. Over objections of radical anti-fossil fuel nutters, the Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) on Friday granted an air permit for a compressor station in Weymouth. The compressor station is part of the Spectra Energy/Enbridge Atlantic Bridge expansion project, stalled since 2017. The administration of MA Gov. Charlie Baker (RINO) issued an air permit for the project in January of this year (see 
Dominion Energy began work on the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project in West Virginia in May 2018 (see 
In March 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) Connecticut Expansion project (see 
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 
