Canadian Regulators Line Up to Support TransCanada Lowball Plan
TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal last year to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see TransCanada Pipe Drops Price 42% to Compete with Marcellus/Utica). TransCanada dropped their pipeline price to lure drillers by (theoretically) making it less expensive to get gas from Western Canada, some 2,400 miles away, than from the Marcellus, just 400 miles away. In October, TransCanada launched an open season to lock up customers for the new, lower-priced option. The open season was a bust because TransCanada insists on a 10-year commitment (see TransCanada Plan to Lowball M-U Gas Using Canada Pipeline a Bust). TransCanada revived their plan in February. The original deal required a 10-year term with a long-term tolling rate between C$0.75/GJ to C$0.82/GJ. In February, the advertised deal was for a 10-year term and a simplified single rate of C$0.77/GJ (see TransCanada Revives Plan to Lowball M-U Gas Using Canada Pipeline). Although it looked almost like the same deal all over again with the same 10-year term and about the same price, TransCanada dropped a minimum amount to be shipped and is letting shippers opt out after five years under certain conditions. The changes worked (see TransCanada Says Plan to Lowball M-U Gas Worked, Shippers Sign Up). The plan needs a bevy of regulatory approvals, not only from the National Energy Board but also provincial agencies as well. Those agencies are now falling into line and giving their blessing, which has to happen by November 1st…
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Here is a short list of radical environmental groups that are despicable and loathsome in every sense of the word: Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Earthworks, Freshwater Accountability Project, Friends for Environmental Justice, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indigenous Iowa, Keep Wayne WILD, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Ohio River Citizens’ Alliance, and Oil Change International. They have dedicated themselves to stopping work on, and ultimately blocking, Energy Transfer’s (ET) $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica Rover natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada. The problem, however, is that ET has given these groups an open door to pedal their anti-fossil fuel nonsense. Indeed, ET has given them an open door to block further progress on building Rover. How? By rushing construction that has led to a string of accidents and incidents, alienating the thin-skinned Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) and a number of landowners. One of the accidents, perhaps the most prominent accident that’s been the focus for much of the radical’s efforts, was a 2 million gallon spill of drilling mud into a wetland near the Tuscarawas River back in April (see 
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a $3.5 billion, 303-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project, which filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2015, is being built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners. The project has faced stiff opposition from landowners in both West Virginia and Virginia. Although the project is not yet fully approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the project did get a favorable Draft Environmental Impact Statement from FERC last September (see 
Primoris Services Corporation, a pipeline building company based in Dallas, TX, has built a number of gathering pipelines in the Marcellus region. We’ve been covering some of the projects Primoris has been involved with since 2013 (
It takes a lot longer these days to get a big pipeline approved than it used to. In April 2014, Dominion promoted an open season for what would later become the $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline–a natural gas pipeline that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina. By September 2014, Dominion said they had enough commitment to move forward with the project (see 
An overwhelming majority of voters in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New York support energy delivery of transportation fuels and the use of natural gas infrastructure – including the approval and construction of more pipelines in the region, according to a new poll from Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA). The CEA calls itself the “voice of the energy consumer.” CEA provides consumers with sound, unbiased information on U.S. and global energy issues. The scientific poll conducted by CEA of voters in the four states found that energy issues will affect how 86% of them vote in the next election. It also found 58% approve of “expanding pipelines to deliver transportation fuels for consumers and markets.” And you thought voters in New England and New York were all brain-dead leftists. Huh. Turns out the media is covering up the strong support that exists for pipelines and other energy infrastructure. Hello Gov. Cuomo! Are you reading this? Here’s a summary of the poll, along with the detailed poll results…
First Reserve, a private equity firm (i.e. company that invests big money to buy other companies, or pieces of companies), has purchased the “integrity maintenance platform” of EMS USA, Inc. EMS is a company that fixes and maintains pipelines. Some of the work they do is in the Marcellus/Utica, hence our interest in this deal. No price was mentioned in the announcement. So what, exactly, is an integrity maintenance platform? And what does “acquiring it” actually mean?…
The TriState Infrastructure Council (TSIC) was founded in Pittsburgh in late 2016 to “serve a broad-based business community during the critical next few years by attracting and deploying investments in infrastructure projects in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.” With infrastructure upgrades, the region will be able to realize economic growth resulting from petrochemical manufacturing and related industries in the Appalachian basin. One of the driving forces behind TSIC is a name you are likely familiar with: Kathryn Klaber. Katie Klaber founded and until a few years ago led the Marcellus Shale Coalition. She opted to focus on her consulting practice following the MSC and is now managing the TSIC. The TSIC organization was founded with a group of A-list companies located in the region. At this week’s Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction conference in Pittsburgh, Katie unveiled an exciting new project to map infrastructure in an 82-county region throughout the Ohio River Valley. The aim is to identify missing/key/critical infrastructure components and then work to set up public-private partnerships to get those components built. The TSIC is looking at “electric transmission and distribution, pipelines, natural gas and natural gas liquid storage capacity, reliable locks and dams, rail networks, roads and bridges, water and sewer, building sites, barge loading/unloading facilities, broadband, fiber optics, and air service, among others.” And yes, the Marcellus/Utica shale is the linchpin that holds it all together–makes it all possible–and the raison d’être for the TSIC. Here’s more on the new infrastructure database, the TSIC, and how they are giving the shale industry a big assist…
A total of 31 anti-drilling, leftist (almost all Democrat) mayors, council members and county freeholders (not freeloaders, but freeholders) from a dozen New Jersey townships begged and pleaded with the NJ Department of Environmental Protection to kill the PennEast Pipeline project. The antis sent a letter to DEP Commissioner Robert Martin claiming PennEast will have “unacceptable” impacts in their towns if it gets built. We wonder, will they find it “unacceptable” to have their gas and electric turned off, because of lack of natural gas coming in via pipeline? It is yet another list of, frankly, nobodies who are desperately attempting to grab a headline from a sympathetic anti reporter (which they did, NJ.com), to try and create the impression that masses of people are against the project. Fortunately, it will fail…
Rover Pipeline (i.e. Energy Transfer) has settled an ongoing dispute with the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office (a PRIVATE organization) to pay them $1.5 million in what MDN views as shakedown money. Which is far less than the “asking” price of $1.5 million PER YEAR over the next five years ($7.5 million total). The payment comes after Rover paid the same organization $2.3 million for knocking down a dilapidated old house that was under consideration to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to the $2.3 million paid for This Old House, the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office said they had worked out a deal with Rover to pay the organization $1.5 million as compensation for something they haven’t even done yet but presumably will do–disturbing other “historic sites” as the pipeline cuts across the state. Apparently the history buffs felt the agreement was for $1.5 million per year over the next five years. Rover said (in so many words), “in your dreams.” No way. So the matter was referred to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for dispute resolution. Before FERC could render a decision, the history buffs settled with Rover for a one-time additional payment of $1.5 million (a $1.5M bird in the hand is worth more than a $7.5M bird in the bush). Here’s the background for this shakedown, and a copy of the signed agreement stipulating a one-time payment of $1.5 million to the PRIVATE Ohio State Historic Preservation Office…
Duke Energy needs to replace an aging pipeline, built in the 1950s, near Cincinnati, OH–or some people in Cincy will have to go without natural gas. Last Thursday the Ohio Power Siting Board (OPSB) held the first of two public hearings, to grant anti-pipeliners the opportunity to vent (see 
Rover Pipeline, Energy Transfer’s $3.7 billion, 711-mile Marcellus/Utica natural gas pipeline that will run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and eventually into Canada, will almost certainly not go online in July as originally planned–at least according to an article on The Street evaluating the project and its builder, Energy Transfer. At the heart of the delay is a series of spills that have occurred while drilling underground, horizontally, under rivers and creeks (and other structures) in which drilling mud has spilled. The largest such spill, to date, happened on April 13 when around 2 million gallons of drilling mud spilled close to the Tuscarawas River (see 
You may recall our story about the daughter of a Huntingdon County, PA landowner, radicalized by Big Green groups (as evidenced by her association with well known protesters previously arrested), who took to a tree on her mom’s property in order to illegally stop crews working on tree clearing for the Mariner East 2 pipeline (see 
Here’s a quote that nearly made our eyeballs drop out: “In the PJM queue, there’s roughly 130 planned gas-fired power plants scheduled to enter service through 2021 totaling 76 GW under various stages of development across a large part of the market that includes Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey.” Did you catch that? Some 130 natural gas-fired electric generating plants–most (if not all) of them fed by Marcellus/Utica gas, will go online in the next four years, generating 76 gigawatts of electricity. It is an enormous opportunity for our industry. Where did we read that stat? In a new report published by our friends at Natural Gas Intelligence (NGI). The report is called “Pipelines & Power: How New Infrastructure Could Uncork the Marcellus-Utica Natgas Bottleneck.” The opening article in the report contains the quote above (on page 2). This 20-page report is jam-packed with great information, like that quote. Actionable, useful, important information. Let us tell you a little more about NGI, about the report, and how you can get a copy…
Bit by bit, piece by piece, Shell is getting landowners in Beaver County, PA to sign easements for its 94-mile Falcon Ethane Pipeline–a pipeline with two “legs” that will feed Shell’s mighty ethane cracker plant. MDN exclusively broke the news in February 2016 that Shell had begun to sign leases with landowners for the pipeline (see