Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide VA | Virginia
Army Corps of Engineers Shuts Down MVP Pipe Work in Virginia
More bad news for EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for MVP in West Virginia (see Court Overturns MVP WV Permit; FERC Shutdown Coming Again?). It’s the second time that permit has been overturned, stopping work at some 591 stream/river crossings the pipeline traverses in WV. Given the permit is overturned in WV, the Army Corps on Friday told MVP to stop work under the same permit in Virginia–affecting another 525 stream and water crossings.
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Williams is expanding its mighty, 10,500-mile Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co (Transco), again. Sometime this month Williams will prefile a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the Leidy South expansion project. The new project will bump up “compression” (either build new compressors or refit existing compressors) and build new “looping” pipeline in Pennsylvania, in order to increase capacity of Transco in the northeast Marcellus region by another 580 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d).
The actions of political leaders have consequences. Sometimes dire consequences. People like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo believe they can wave a magic wand and proclaim, “No more fossil fuels, we’ll just use solar and wind instead.” But proclaiming it doesn’t make it so. Proclaiming it doesn’t exempt you from the consequences of your actions. In recent years Cuomo has blocked new natural gas pipeline projects that would deliver Marcellus gas from Pennsylvania, claiming we need to move to so-called renewable energy. Now the chickens have come home to roost.
We’re feeling better and better that President Trump is ready to take action to overrule states like New York that abuse the federal Clean Water Act in order to block interstate pipeline projects. We first picked up on comments by Energy Secretary Rick Perry back in May (see 
Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) finally (finally!) granted Williams permission to open the taps up and let natural gas flow along the Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline, a 200-mile greenfield pipeline from northeastern to southeastern PA. Startup was delayed two months from Williams’ original estimate (due to Williams, not FERC). But that’s all behind us now. Beginning tomorrow, Marcellus molecules from Cabot Oil & Gas, Chief Oil & Gas, and Seneca Resources will begin flowing along the pipeline, heading out of our region where those molecules will fetch higher prices.
We’ve seen this movie before. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (quickly becoming the Fourth Circus) has once again listened to the arguments of anti-fossil fuel groups including the Sierra Club and Chesapeake Climate Action Network and has overturned a recently re-issued permit that allows Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use certain methods to build the pipeline across streams and rivers in West Virginia. The court action pretty much shuts down all work on MVP in WV.
It seems like we’ve been waiting forever for new pipelines to get built to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to new markets where our gas can fetch higher prices. Finally, with projects like Rover, NEXUS, Atlantic Sunrise and others, forever is here. Our gas is now flowing, or soon will, to markets in the Midwest, South, Gulf Coast, and even via exports to other countries. The experts at RBN Energy have an ongoing series that covers M-U pipelines and how our gas is heading to new markets. RBN says in their most recent post in this series, “in some ways the Northeast really is just getting started.” There are plans for another 10 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) to flow out of here and to other markets by 2023. Where and how?
We’ve lost track of how many lawsuits have been filed by anti-fossil fuel groups against EQT Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), and Dominion Energy’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Among the flood of never-ending lawsuits was a lawsuit against both pipelines from a group of 50 or so landowners who tried to overturn the constitutional use of eminent domain to force hold-out landowners to accept the pipeline. The landowners tried to court-shop and find a court to aide them in their cause. Last Friday the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia rejected that effort.
Environmentalists who buy into the fairy tale of man-made global warming have a new tool to force their will on the American people: Get liberal governors to abuse state review authority granted to them under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) in order to block federal pipeline projects. NY Gov. Cuomo was one of the first to bastardize the intent of the CWA in this fashion. It is a hijacking of the CWA and its intended purpose–and it must stop.
Columbia Gas of Massachusetts is in the process of rapidly replacing some 48 miles of local natural gas pipelines about 25 miles north of Boston following the recent explosion and disaster. They desperately need workers, some 1,300 of them, to do the work.