PennEast Pipeline Asks FERC for Expedited Final Approval
Jeff Tittel, the head of the New Jersey Sierra Club, last week called President Trump a “fossil fool in the White House” and panned Trump for doing his Constitutional duty in appointing new members to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Tittel’s latest titillation came in response to PennEast Pipeline sending a letter to FERC last Thursday requesting the agency move forward posthaste with granting the project a final certificate to proceed to construction–something that terrifies Tittel and his sidekick, THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum. Tittel and van Rossum have staked their reputations and the reputations of their anti-fossil fuel groups on stopping PennEast. So once the bulldozers fire up and begin digging trenches, it’s all over for them. They might actually have to find real jobs. Below is PennEast’s request to FERC along with the instantaneous (and paranoid) reaction from several Big Green radical groups….
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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) sent an important signal last week: the agency is open for business and they won’t wait until the first public meeting (Sept. 20th) to begin voting on important pipeline projects. That’s our take after reading a notice posted by FERC, and after reading statements made by a FERC spokesperson. Which is good news for the many pipeline projects currently in limbo. A quorum of voting members was reestablished last week when both Neil Chatterjee and Robert Powelson were sworn in (see 
MDN has been tracking the prices paid by Shell to landowners to run an ethane pipeline under their land to feed the might cracker plant the company is just now beginning to build in Beaver County, PA. Why? So landowners in Beaver (and other locations) have a useful metric for judging the offers they receive. To be fair, a company that wants to run a local gathering pipeline across someone’s land will pay a lot less than Shell is willing to pay–given you can’t move the cracker plant. Interstate pipelines will likely pay something less too. But still, we find it interesting and useful to know what Shell is up to in Beaver. We don’t have a lot of data points, yet. In June, we learned that Shell paid roughly $75 per foot for 3,138 linear feet of pipeline space in Greene Township (see 
The CORNballs of Ohio are not happy campers in their quest to try and shut down the $2 billion, 255-mile NEXUS interstate natural gas pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. CORN stands for Coalition to Reroute NEXUS. CORNballs is what we affectionately call the group–as a way of pointing out their nutty real purpose, which is to try and shut the NEXUS project down. Their aim has nothing to do with “rerouting” and everything to do with shutting it down. In May 2017, the CORNballs revealed their true colors when they filed a lawsuit in federal court in Akron, OH (see 
Those opposing two major Energy Transfer projects–Rover Pipeline and Mariner East 2–will not be happy with the good news coming from ET this week. The company issued its second quarter update and held a conference call yesterday. During the call we learned that Phase 1 of Rover, a $3.7 billion, 711-mile Rover Pipeline project that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada, is “substantially complete” with Phase 1A expected to be done next week and online asap. Phase 1A stretches from Cadiz to Defiance, which is most of Ohio. Phase 1B is a short segment from Seneca to Cadiz, and once ET gets clearance from FERC to drill horizontally under Captina Creek, it will only take them about 40 days to complete Phase 1B. If ET can convince FERC to allow them to restart more horizontal directional drilling (HDD) work, Phase 2 will be done soon as well–and the entire project will be up and running by the end of the year. More good news for Rover: The temporary ban on HDD work for Rover in two West Virginia counties that began two weeks ago has now been lifted by the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection. As for ET’s Mariner East 2 (ME2) pipeline project that stretches across Pennsylvania, 80% of the pipeline has been strung, more than 70% is welded and over half has been lowered in and covered up. As we reported yesterday and again today, ET subsidiary Sunoco Logistics Partners (building ME2) has brokered a deal with several radical environmental groups that will slow the project down some, but slow and done is better than no progress at all. Here’s an update on the good news about Rover and ME2…
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that Sunoco Logistics Partners had cut a deal with the devil, meaning three radical Big Green groups, to slow down but eventually complete work on the Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline project in Pennsylvania (see 
We wonder if the residents of Massachusetts, which is hellbent on blocking ANY new natural gas pipeline–local or interstate–know that since the year 2000 some 200,000 Massachusetts households have switched to/added natural gas for heating and other uses. We also wonder if Mass. residents know that the the Brayton Point coal plant in Somerset, a plant that closed two months ago, provided enough power to keep the lights on for 1.5 million Mass. residents. Or that the sole surviving nuclear power plant in Plymouth, the Pilgrim nuclear plant, is closing in two years. And that 11 more electric generating plants (coal-fired) in the region are in danger of closing over the next few years. It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to predict (a) electric rates will go even higher for New England residents, people already paying 4x what other areas of the country pay for electricity, and (b) at some point there just won’t be enough electricity, meaning brownouts and blackouts. Singing kumbaya and fantasizing that wind mills and solar panels (which make up less than 3% of our national electric supply) will ride in to save the day is dangerously stupid. Stephen Dodge, executive director of the Massachusetts Petroleum Council, makes a convincing case for more natural gas via pipelines in New England…
In April 2016 the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) caved to corrupt political pressure from Andrew Cuomo and denied the Williams Constitution Pipeline a necessary federal 401 stream crossing permit, blocking the project (see 
Last week National Fuel Gas Company, headquartered in Western New York State with drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources and pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline, issued its third quarter (everyone else’s second quarter) 2017 update. NFG produced 567 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas last quarter, a 6% increase over the same quarter a year ago. NFG realized an average price of $2.94 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf), up $0.08 per Mcf from the prior year. Compare that with Antero’s hedged average of $3.41/Mcf (see today’s story about Antero 2Q17). NFG CEO Ronald Tanski had some interesting remarks with respect to the company’s stalled Northern Access Pipeline project. As you may recall, the Andrew Cuomo New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is blocking Northern Access, like they blocked the Constitution Pipeline and a tiny spur project for the Millennium. Because NFG’s Northern Access project is stalled, they are shifting their budget and drilling further west, to do Utica drilling in locations where there is already pipeline infrastructure. So this is yet another case of the NY screwing up Marcellus drilling PA that would otherwise be happening. Landowners in PA can thank NY Gov. Cuomo for screwing them over. Tanski also mentioned the court case for Northern Access, and that FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) may step in and overrule the NY DEC, as is now being considered in the Constitution Pipeline case (see today’s lead story). Here’s the update from NFG…
For those of us who have long supported the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project, it seems like it has taken FOREVER for the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to issue final water and air permits for the pipeline. Atlantic Sunrise is a $3 billion, 198-mile natural gas pipeline project, most of which will get built in northeast Pennsylvania. In an attempt to get the DEP moving, Williams co-hosted an event a few weeks ago in Wyoming County to pressure the DEP into granting final permits (see 
In late January, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member Norman Bay announced he was quitting, in a huff, because President Trump has elevating another commission member to be chairperson (see 
Below is a story of an Ohio landowner who “worked to get good easements and good language” in the contract he signed with Rover Pipeline. But, according to the landowner, once construction began, “everyone seemed to forget” what they promised in the contract. And so landowner Roger Meggyesy has been vigilant to point out violations to third-party pipeline inspectors who report on Rover’s activities to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). As Meggyesy rhetorically asks, “Why do we have to come and fight after the fact?” It is disheartening to read these kinds of accounts. This guy did everything right, got it all in writing–and yet it’s still an uphill fight. We bring you this story because it’s important to air the problems along with highlighting the good stuff when it comes to these big pipeline projects…