Columbia Gas Pipeline Under the Potomac River Finally Goes Online
It took eight years and untold legal fees (on both sides) before a tiny 3.4-mile, 8-inch natural gas pipeline under the Potomac River was finally built and went online. In April 2017, MDN brought you the news that Columbia Pipeline (owned by TransCanada) had applied with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to build a pipeline under the Potomac to connect natural gas from Pennsylvania to the Mountaineer Gas system in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia (see New 3.5 Mile Pipeline Project to Drill Under the Potomac River). That tiny section of pipeline is part of the larger Eastern Panhandle Expansion project—a project to deliver natural gas via local distribution channels (local utility Mountaineer Gas) to a new industrial facility in Berkeley County, WV, and to provide gas to other local businesses and residents in the Tri-State area. Read More “Columbia Gas Pipeline Under the Potomac River Finally Goes Online”
Chesapeake Utilities Corporation, not to be confused with the former Chesapeake Energy Corporation (which is now Expand Energy), announced that its Ohio subsidiary, Aspire Energy Express, LLC, has entered into an agreement with American Electric Power (AEP) to construct and operate an intrastate natural gas pipeline in central Ohio to feed Marcellus/Utica gas to a new fuel-cell facility, which will provide on-site electric power to a data center. The pipeline is expected to cost approximately $10 million to construct. 
In what appears to be an innocuous, brief press release, DT Midstream (DTM), headquartered in Detroit, which owns significant assets in the Marcellus/Utica region and other regions, including the Haynesville, delivered what we consider big news. DTM has achieved an investment-grade rating with all three major credit rating agencies: Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Ratings, and S&P Global Ratings. While this announcement may seem minor, we can assure you, it’s a big deal. 
The lawfare battle brought by radical green groups in New Jersey, including Food and Water Watch, the NJ Highlands Coalition, and the Sierra Club, aimed at overturning the decision to permit and build an electric compressor station and a pipeline that connects to it, is over. Done. Finished. Can we please stick a fork in it? We’re talking about the battle to block a compressor project in West Milford, NJ, part of Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) East 300 expansion project, an upgrade of TGP to deliver an extra 115 MMcf/d of natural gas to Consolidated Edison and its customers in New York City and surrounding suburbs. The radicals just flamed out in a NJ appeals court and have no options left to challenge it. 
We hate to see internal fighting and bickering within the oil and gas industry. We (as an industry) have a hard enough time battling the crazies of the environmental left. Yet infighting has erupted over a plan to run a pipeline to a proposed gas-fired power plant in South Carolina. In February 2024, the South Carolina Public Service Commission approved a proposed project to build a 1,020-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant in the state’s Lowcountry, in Colleton County (see 
We are finally seeing a return to sanity and real science following four years of out-of-control edicts during the Biden autopen administration. (The old fool likely didn’t even know a tenth of the things signed under his name.) On Monday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), along with the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, the Interior, and Transportation, revised regulations to eliminate all references to considering climate change, environmental justice, and other so-called environmental issues in their permit reviews. The left under Biden had introduced such nonsense in a bid to block new fossil energy projects. No more! The pendulum has swung back to the common-sense middle. 
We’ve pointed out (for years) the relative success the anti-drilling left has had in blocking new pipeline projects to carry Marcellus/Utica molecules to other regions, stifling new drilling in our area as a result. Although it has been and will continue to be a challenge to build new pipeline projects, the Trump administration is making it easier. Trump’s policies encourage new pipelines and more access to natural gas. We spotted an article from Reuters that provides an overview of eight pipeline projects that are actively being pursued to carry M-U molecules to other regions. We’ve covered all of these projects in previous posts. The Reuters article compiles the most likely candidates for new pipeline projects into a single, convenient article. 
Following President Trump’s quid pro quo deal with New York Governor Kathy Hochul in which Trump is allowing a $5 billion offshore wind project to proceed in return for Hochul allowing two Williams gas pipeline projects, Williams wasted no time in restarting one of the two projects, the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) project (see 
A new poll of registered Massachusetts voters shows they are fed up with the liberal policies of the Democrats running the state when it comes to the sky-high cost of energy. Natural gas prices have increased 93 percent over the last decade, while electricity costs have risen 65 percent. For many families, energy bills now consume a disproportionate share of household income. Massachusetts households paid 76.34 percent more than the U.S. average for electricity and 71.45 percent more than the national average for natural gas. The poll showed nearly 6 in 10 voters (59 percent) support building the Constitution Pipeline, which would deliver affordable natural gas from Pennsylvania to New England. Another 28 percent are neutral or have no opinion on the Constitution. Only a tiny 13 percent are against building the Constitution Pipeline. 
Ever so gradually, pipeline capacity to transport Marcellus/Utica molecules to other markets, particularly the Deep South, has been increasing. And it continues to grow, gradually. Two projects from Kinder Morgan aim to help that effort. The 2.1-Bcf/d Mississippi Crossing (MSX) and 1.3-Bcf/d South System Expansion 4 (SSE4) projects will move more Marcellus/Utica gas into Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. RBN Energy connects the dots. 
Last week, MDN told you that EQT’s vice president of midstream, Robert Wingo, was moving on to another job (see 
Recent actions taken by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) appear to be quite significant, yet it has not received any media attention. On June 18, FERC took several actions to remove regulatory obstacles and therefore speed up the construction of needed natural gas infrastructure projects in the United States. FERC issued a blanket waiver (valid for the next two years) of its Order No. 871, which has allowed Big Green to block the construction of pipeline projects while rehearing requests are being handled. The result has been to delay projects by years while Big Green ties up such projects with endless appeals. Waiving Order No. 871 frees up FERC personnel to go ahead and issue orders to allow projects to begin construction. 
We previously reported that following some intense conversations between President Trump and New York Governor Kathy Hochul, she caved and according to the White House agreed to allow two long-stalled pipeline projects—the Constitution and the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE)—to get built in NY in return for Trump allowing her to continue to sink $5 billion into an offshore wind project (see 
It’s not a good look for New York State that not long after Governor Kathy Hochul made a deal with President Trump to allow two natural gas pipelines to get built in return for allowing an offshore wind farm, the state legislature passed a bill that essentially spits in the face of the natural gas industry in the state. The Assembly passed A8888, already approved by the Senate as S8417, which forces new homes and businesses that want to connect to the natural gas line that runs down their street to pay the full cost of connecting—$10,000 or more. Meaning if Gov. Hochul signs it, no new natural gas customers will be added anywhere in the state. It is a de facto ban on connecting new customers to use natural gas in the so-called Empire State. 
Permitting reform—shortening the amount of time and eliminating some of the onerous regulations that stand in the way of permitting new energy projects—has been a hot topic for at least the last three years, if not longer. Before leaving the Senate last year, West Virginia’s then-Senator, Joe Manchin, tried to get a bill passed to address permitting reform (see