Constitution Pipeline Asks FERC to Override NY DEC
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 NY Gov. Cuomo Refuses to Grant Permits for Constitution Pipeline). Constitution went to court to overturn that decision, but ultimately failed in August (see Court Rejects Constitution Pipe’s Case Against NY DEC; Now What?). Many analysts and lawyers believed it was lights out for the project (see Energy Attorneys Hint it’s ‘Lights Out’ for Constitution Pipeline). Hold your horses! Constitution, borrowing a strategy that worked for Millennium Pipeline, filed a request last week with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), asking FERC to overrule the DEC’s refusal to grant the water permit needed for the project. There is precedence. FERC recently did the same thing in another case (see History Made! FERC Overrules NY DEC on Millennium Pipe Permit). Constitution is on firm ground. The DEC took over two years to review the project. Statutorily the DEC only has one year to complete a review. It was on that same basis that FERC granted Millennium permission to build their project (review was too long), and Constitution is hoping FERC will now do the same for them…
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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 
North Carolina has become the first state to complete an environmental evaluation for Dominion’s proposed $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP)–a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. ACP is slated to run through eight NC counties. After completing it’s evaluation, the NC Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued a rejection letter (copy below) for the project. The reason? The DEQ says the erosion and sediment control plan for the project is not up to scratch. Dominion can now do two things: Revise the erosion and sediment control plan and resubmit it, or contest the DEQ’s rejection of the existing plan. Although antis are rejoicing at the news, there really isn’t much here in the way of news. This is not uncommon in pipeline reviews. A government agency (federal or state) will push back on some aspect of the plan, the project builder will modify the plan, and the modified plan will pass muster and life goes on. That’s the way it works. The DEQ is (presumably) doing it’s job and not simply looking for an excuse to reject the project. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt–this time. Although we’ve not read that Dominion has responded to the rejection, another partner in the project, Duke Energy, has responded–saying they will provide the necessary information the DEQ says is missing in the original plan…
Environmental radicals from a group called Lancaster Against Pipelines made good on their promise to disrupt work on Williams’ Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project–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. Lancaster Against Pipelines is headed up by Mark Clatterbuck (who participated in the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline) and his wife Malinda. The clattering Clatterbucks got 20-35 wackos from Lancaster County to load themselves into 16-18 vehicles (numbers change depending on the news source), which they then drove onto an access road used by Williams, where workers are beginning to clear land. The wackos parked themselves right in the middle of the road and stood in front of machinery, preventing Williams personnel from accessing the site. The only problem, for the wackos, is that it was raining so hard (leftovers from Hurricane Nate moving through), that Williams personnel weren’t working at the site anyway! However, it’s the principle of the thing. So the police were called. The so-called protesters were asked to move (or be arrested)–so they moved. End of story. Nobody hauled away in handcuffs, no striking images of people laying down refusing to move (too wet for that). Just a bunch of wackos with nothing better to do for a few hours, along with a few reporters…
One of the reasons we periodically report, and keep a close eye on, Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG export facility in southern Louisiana is our suspicion that at least some Marcellus/Utica gas makes its way to that facility and gets exported to other countries. We’ve never been able to prove our suspicion, but we got a lot closer to proving last February when Williams confirmed that the mighty Transco Pipeline now has a direct connection to Sabine Pass (see 
Fire it up! On Friday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted Energy Transfer permission to fire up the three units that make up the Carroll County Compressor Station (called Compressor Station 1) that helps compress and flow natural gas through the mighty Rover Pipeline. According to the letter from FERC authorizing the startup of the compressor station, FERC is authorizing “partial” service to commence. Since ET wanted to start the station on Friday, we expect the plant is by now up and running. The effect will be dramatic. According to stats released by NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence), which has an excellent Rover Tracker application on their website (