Va. Non-Profit Trades 53 Acres for 1,130 Acres in Pipeline Deal
We’d call this a case of Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) getting taken to the (pipe) cleaners. The anti-fossil fuel (and far-left) Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) warned both Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley, years ago, that land the non-profit previously tied up with non-development easements is off limits for their respective pipeline projects. So-called “open space” organizations like VOF get private landowners to sell them easements to their properties–the right to disallow any kind of development on the land, no matter who buys it in the future. But sometimes “no development” doesn’t actually mean “no development”–it’s just a bargaining position. The VOF has just cut a deal to allow ACP and MVP to cross a cumulative 53 acres of land, land with no-development easements, in exchange for adding 1,130 acres in other places to the their no-development easement stash. Oh, and $4,075,000 in cash for VOF’s coffers will be chipped in too. A true shake-down by shake-down artists, all to stick a couple of pipelines in the ground for a few hundred feet where nothing will get built over top of them anyway…
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Canadian company Enbridge owns the mighty Texas Eastern Transmission Company (Tetco) pipeline system in the U.S. Last Wednesday, as workers were installing test equipment along the line in Noble County, OH, the workers noticed soil around the pipeline moving around. Not a good situation. So they shut off the flow of gas through that section of the pipeline, south of the Berne compressor station in Noble County. That portion of the pipeline went from flowing 1.6 to 2.3 billion cubic feet of gas per day (depending on the news source), down to flowing zero. The situation was investigated and the pipeline returned to service on Sunday, Oct 15th. In the meantime, from the 11th to the 15th, Tetco declared the situation “force majeure”–meaning “due to circumstances beyond our control we have to shut it off.” We assume force majeure was declared because shippers who wanted to move gas through the pipeline, and buyers on the other end, were screwed for a few days. Shippers lost money from gas they could have sold and buyers had to scramble to try and find other sources to meet demand. Economic losses for both. We’re guessing declaring force majeure lets Tetco off the hook legally for any potential monetary damages its customers experienced during the outage…
Great news delivered late Friday afternoon: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued final, full approvals for both the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipeline projects. Atlantic Coast is a $5 billion, 594-mile natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. Mountain Valley is a $3.5 billion, 303-mile natural gas pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. Both projects still face an uphill battle before they get built. The North Carolina Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued a rejection letter for Atlantic Coast last week (see 
The Andrew Cuomo-corrupted New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) on Friday filed an appeal/challenge with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) contesting FERC’s recent ruling that essentially emasculates the DEC regarding their rejection of a tiny pipeline project in Orange County, NY. On Aug. 30, the DEC issued a letter to FERC and Millennium Pipeline denying Millennium’s request for a water permit to build a 7.8 mile pipeline spur from the main Millennium Pipeline to a natural gas power plant under construction in Orange County (see 
The Andrew Cuomo-corrupted New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) took more than two years to evaluate and eventually reject the Constitution Pipeline–a $683 million, 124-mile pipeline from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY to move Marcellus gas (see 
MDN friend Tom Shepstone (Natural Gas Now) has long pointed out that the William Penn Foundation funds a variety of front groups to push an anti-fossil fuel agenda. William Penn funds groups like the Sierra Club, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, and the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. William Penn also funds “news” outlets, including StateImpact Pennsylvania and NJ Spotlight. So this is how it happens: Riverkeeper, the Sierra Club and others issue wild claims about a project like the PennEast Pipeline, and then StateImpact and NJ Spotlight report it like it’s news. Incestuous. At the center of it all is the William Penn Foundation. MDN friend Kevin Moody does a great job of exposing this web of deceit targeting PennEast Pipeline in an article published on The Daily Signal…
Dura-Bond Industries operates a pipeline and coating manufacturing plant in Dauphin County, PA–near Harrisburg. The plant, acquired from Bethlehem Steel in 2003, “manufactures and coats steel pipe in diameters from 24 to 42 inches, mostly for the natural gas industry.” You would think with all of these new pipeline projects in the works that business at the plant would be in overdrive. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. Because of a glut of steel imports from places like India and Canada, business at the plant is down. Dura-Bond recently filed a notice that within 60 days they will layoff 180 workers–about 40% of the workforce at the plant. Which is a shame in our book. While the company is mouthing platitudes about trying to rehire them at some point, the local union says don’t count on it. Those jobs are gone gone…
Williams representatives were on hand earlier this week in Tunhannock, PA (Wyoming County) to present a briefing to local politicians and community leaders on the status of the now-under construction Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. Atlantic Sunrise is a $3 billion, 198-mile natural gas pipeline project running through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County. Much of the attention has focused on Lancaster County and a small group of antis who oppose the project there. However, Atlantic Sunrise will begin its journey to Lancaster in Susquehanna County, PA–in the northeastern tip of the state. Construction in Susquehanna and adjacent counties is scheduled to begin “very soon,” according to Williams rep Mike Atchie. When it does begin, some of the people working on it will come from the same counties where it’s getting built. Last week the Teamsters held a job fair in Harrisburg (see 
It has seemed to us that anecdotally most of the media in Virginia has tilted left and anti-pipeline when covering stories about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) projects, both slated to cross the state. So imagine our surprise in reading an editorial from the editors of the Fredericksburg, VA Free Lance-Star that gives full-throated support for fracked shale gas pipelines. The editorial begins by calling those who oppose ACP “NIMBY’s” (Not In My Back Yard). Later in the editorial, we learn this startling fact: “To prevent blackouts in Virginia this summer, Energy Secretary Rick Perry had to give Dominion Energy permission to reopen two shuttered coal-burning plants (Yorktown 1 and 2) in response to a request by PJM Interconnections, which manages the electric grid in 13 states. That’s how close the East Coast is to a real power crisis.” Yes folks, without ACP (and MVP), Virginia faces rolling blackouts. They won’t be able to produce enough electricity to meet the demand–unless they want to keep using coal. When will the NIMBYs wake up? Will it take a blackout to snap them out of their denial?…
It’s been a few months since we’ve brought you news about the monthly average for Baker Hughes’ venerable rig count–largely because after GE completed it’s merger with Baker Hughes they quit issuing monthly press releases from their website! We spotted a story in the Pittsburgh Business Times that talks about Ohio coming close to parity in their rig count with Pennsylvania–which is a really big deal–and the reasons for it. That story sent us looking for the latest rig count numbers and indeed, it’s true. As of September, PA averaged 33 shale rigs in operation, while OH averaged 29–the closest we’ve ever seen it. If you look at the counts for last week (BH does a weekly rig count too), the numbers are even closer: PA with 31 rigs, OH with 29. We don’t typically monitor the weekly counts as they always fluctuate up and down–better to look at monthly averages. But the fact remains that PA has been pretty steady, operating between 32 and 34 rigs per month since January of this year, while OH has gone from operating an average of 20 rigs in January to 29 last month, and West Virginia has gone from operating an average of 8 rigs in January to 15 rigs last month (nearly doubling). Yet PA is static. Is there an explanation? Some experts think there is, and it can be explained in a single word: pipelines…
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week granted permission to Algonquin Gas Transmission (i.e. Spectra Energy, now owned by Enbridge) to build new pipeline infrastructure in New York State, part of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project. Atlantic bridge was approved by FERC back in January (see 
Finally, some justice against law-breaking eco-terrorists. You may recall in October 2016, eco-terrorists were arrested when they cut padlocks and chains at five remote flow stations (four different states) and shut down five oil pipelines coming from Canada into the United States (see 
Williams announced yesterday that its New York Bay Expansion pipeline project to flow an extra 115 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas to New York City is now online and working. In July 2015, Williams filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the $130 million project, which will flow Marcellus gas to 500,000 additional New York City residents by the 2017/2018 heating season (see