Pipelines

Energy Companies | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Virginia

Mountain Valley Pipeline Wins Right to Survey in VA w/o Permission
March 9, 2016March 9, 2016

Mountain Valley Pipeline is a $3.5 billion, 301-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 last October, is being built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners (see Mountain Valley Pipeline Files FERC Appl, Now Just Matter of Time). The project has faced stiff opposition from landowners in West Virginia (see Mountain Valley Pipeline Sues 103 WV Landowners for Survey Access). The project has also faced opposition from landowners in Virginia. However, things just got a lot easier for Mountain Valley when it comes to surveying a potential route through the Old Dominion state. The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday decided NOT to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that allows pipeline surveyors to access a property WITHOUT the landowner’s permission. That decision means the lower court ruling, which allows surveyors unpermissioned access, to stand…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | PennEast Pipeline | Pipelines | Regulation

THE Delaware Riverkeeper Sues FERC, Tries to Close it Down
March 4, 2016March 4, 2016

Maya van Rossum – THE Delaware Riverkeeper

We thought radical leftists, like Maya van Rossum aka THE Delaware Riverkeeper, loved the heavy hand of Big Government. It appears she and her ilk only love CERTAIN Big Government agencies, like the federal EPA–those they can influence toward their radical anti-fossil fuel agenda. THE Delaware Riverkeeper is attacking a government agency–the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission–the agency charged with reviewing and approving (or not approving) interstate pipeline projects. Maya and company sued FERC on Wednesday with the sole purpose of shutting down the entire agency by defunding it. Delaware Riverkeeper filed their lawsuit against FERC in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia–one of the most liberal jurisdictions across the country. The lawsuit claims FERC can’t objectively make decisions about projects like the Penn East Pipeline (running from the Wilkes-Barre area to New Jersey) because FERC derives some of its operating revenue from the projects it either approves or does not approve. That’s its rationale for attempting to shut down an entire agency of the federal government. This is Riverkeeper’s last ditch “Hail Mary” effort to stop the Penn East Pipeline project…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Susquehanna County | Williams

Maple Trees Finally Come Down for Constitution Pipeline
March 3, 2016March 3, 2016

In the end, not even self-righteous Hollywood actor James Cromwell–who played Zefram Cochrane (mythical creator of the warp engine) in the 1996 movie Star Trek: First Contact (one of our favs)–could stop the chain saws in Susquehanna County, PA. We’ve been telling you about some holdout the anti-drilling Holleran family who didn’t want the much-needed Constitution Pipeline to cross their land (see Maple Syrup Farm in Path of PA Pipeline, Antis Make Most of It). Cromwell and other antis heard about it and visited to add their shrill voices to the protest (see Actor James Cromwell Admits He’s Clueless, Fights Pipeline Anyway). The protesters tried to stop Williams from clearing trees on the property–and a judge got tired of that real quick (see Judge Tells NEPA Family to Let Williams Cut Maple Trees, Or Else). The Hollerans finally obeyed the judge’s order and the trees are now down…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Regulation | Spectra Energy | Statewide NY

Gov. Cuomo Asks FERC to Halt Algonquin Pipeline Near Nuke Plant
March 2, 2016March 28, 2016

Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline project is an $876 million expansion of the existing Algonquin pipeline system that will carry 342 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to New England states that badly need the gas. On March 3, 2015 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued their final approval for the project, allowing it to go forward. Construction began last year and continues now, with a target in-service date later this year. That is, until New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo stepped in. Cuomo sent a letter on Monday to FERC (copy below) asking FERC to stop construction of AIM because the proposed pipeline path takes it right next to a “troubled” nuclear power plant along the shoreline of the Hudson River. Cuomo says he’s concerned about the drilling that will take place, being so close to a plant that has ongoing issues. Will Cuomo once again stop a natural gas pipeline from being built? Cuomo refuses to allow the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation issue stream crossing permits for the FERC-approved Constitution pipeline, and now he’s trying to screw a second pipeline from being built. If you ask us, this is getting out of hand…
Read More “Gov. Cuomo Asks FERC to Halt Algonquin Pipeline Near Nuke Plant”
Energy Companies | Energy Services | EQT Corp | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

Bill Allowing Surveyors Private Property Access Fails in WV Senate
March 2, 2016March 2, 2016

In June 2014 EQT and NextEra US Gas Assets formed a joint venture to build a 330-mile pipeline from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA to deliver abundant, cheap Marcellus and Utica Shale gas to markets throughout the southeast (see EQT Announces New Marcellus/Utica Pipeline to Southeastern US). The project is called Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). A number of West Virginia landowners objected to MVP and would not let surveyors on their property, so MVP (i.e. EQT and NextEra) threatened to sue the landowners claiming eminent domain laws to enter their properties (see WV Landowners Say They’re Bullied by Mountain Valley Pipeline). A month later they did sue (see Mountain Valley Pipeline Sues 103 WV Landowners for Survey Access). But it takes a long time to sue individual landowners in hundreds of cases. So somebody talked to somebody and a bill was introduced in the WV Senate this year, Senate Bill (SB) 596–which would allow surveyors to enter private properties to do survey work as long as a notice was sent by certified mail ahead of time. No doubt the bill was in response to the ongoing, thorny issue of surveying for MVP. The bill passed out of committee with a split vote. But the bill was voted down by the full Senate…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines | Williams

Antis Lose Court Decision to Stop Constitution Pipe Construction
March 1, 2016March 1, 2016

Some of the worst of the worst radicalized environmental groups–Catskill Mountainkeeper, Sierra Club, Riverkeeper, Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society and Clean Air Council–had filed a request in U.S. District Court for the 2nd Circuit to stop Williams from “all activities” related to constructing the Constitution Pipeline. The Constitution, you may recall, is a 125-mile pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Susquehanna County, PA to Schoharie County, NY, connecting with two interstate pipelines that will carry that gas to points along the Eastern seaboard. Recently Williams won the right from the federal government to begin clearing trees in Pennsylvania (see FERC OKs Tree-Cutting for Constitution Pipeline – in PA). Tree-clearing permission seems to have tipped the antis over into a state of near-delirium. They filed a request to stop all Constitution construction activity–and the 2nd Circuit has denied their request. It’s not exactly “game over” for the radicals–but it’s the fourth quarter and their down by double digits with no hope of winning. Which of course delights us to no end…
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Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Property Value | Research

New Report Finds Property Values Not Affected by Pipelines
March 1, 2016March 1, 2016

Can we finally lay to rest the old canard that putting a pipeline across someone’s property lowers that property’s value–or makes it impossible to get a mortgage? Those lies have circulated for years. A new study commissioned by The INGAA Foundation finds, “The presence of an underground natural gas transmission pipeline does not affect the sales prices or value of residential properties.” The study, titled “Pipeline Impact to Property Value and Property Insurability” (full copy below), looked at suburban areas outside of Cincinnati, OH, a rural neighborhood in Clinton, NJ, a master-planned residential community in Prince William County, VA, a small town subdivision in Dallastown, PA, and a suburban area near Jackson, MS. In each and every area the study found “no negative impact on price, and no correlation between price and proximity to pipeline easement.” Case closed…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | M3 Midstream | Momentum | Pipelines | Statewide WV | West Virginia | WGL Holdings

M3’s Stonewall Gathering System in WV Gets New Investor/Partner
March 1, 2016March 1, 2016

In April 2015 MDN told you that a section of M3 Midstream’s Appalachia Gathering System (AGS) had been spun off into its own company called Stonewall Gathering System (see M3’s New Stonewall Gathering System Extends Existing AGS in WV). At the time, plans were under way to build out gathering pipelines in West Virginia’s Harrison and Doddridge counties, running through Lewis and into Braxton County where the pipeline will connect with Columbia Transmission’s interstate pipeline. The plans came to fruition and the Stonewall Gathering System was built and now gathers 1 billion cubic feet of Marcellus Shale gas per day (see Construction on WV Stonewall Gather Pipeline Begins, Runs Thru Dec). The project now has a new investor/co-owner. WGL Midstream announced yesterday that it has exercised an option to invest $89 million in the Stonewall Gas Gathering System, representing a 35% ownership stake…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA | Sunoco Logistics

Sunoco LP Delays Construction of Mariner East 2 Pipeline
February 26, 2016February 26, 2016

On a quarterly analyst phone call yesterday, Sunoco Logistics Partners CEO Mike Hennigan admitted applying for and receiving “hundreds of permits” has delayed construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline. There is no worry that the project won’t happen–it will. It’s just that the timetable for when construction begins (and ends) has changed from a year ago when they first announced the project. In prepared remarks, and then later under questioning from several analysts, we have discovered that Sunoco LP will not make a definitive go/no go decision on whether to build a second pipeline as part of the Mariner East 2 project, until the backhoes begin to dig for the original Mariner East 2 pipeline. When will that be? Hennigan was hard to pin down. One analyst made a reference to ME2 being ready in either first or second quarter 2017–but Hennigan would not verify that timeline. Below are select portions of the phone call transcript where Hennigan and others are talking about Mariner East 1, 2, 2X and the Marcus Hook refinery…
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Energy Companies | Energy Services | Ethane | Exporting | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Range Resources Corp | Sunoco Logistics

Marcellus Ethane Export Sets Sail “Within a Week” from Philly
February 25, 2016February 25, 2016

We’ve been predicting for some time, but the day is almost here when the first export shipment of Marcellus and Utica ethane will leave the Marcus Hook terminal in Philadelphia and head to Norway. Genscape, which monitors pipelines and trucks and ships and uses really cool technology to alert them of when these things are about to happen says the first ethane export from Philly will happen “within a week”…
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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pipelines

Shock: Judge May Allow Drillers to Cancel Gathering Pipeline Deals
February 24, 2016February 24, 2016

There is a situation brewing that has the potential to upend the midstream (pipelines & processing plants) market–here in the Marcellus/Utica and across the country. This is one of those complex issues that takes time to understand, but please stick with us. This is important. There are currently two court cases–one in New York and the other in Delaware–in which producers (i.e. drillers) who are in bankruptcy are arguing that they should be allowed to dissolve contracts they previously signed with pipeline gathering companies. In the New York case, the judge is signaling that she leans toward allowing the driller (Sabine Oil & Gas) to do just that. The pipeline company (Cheniere’s Nordheim Eagle Ford Gathering) spent $84 million building a gathering system for Sabine’s wells. Until now, midstream companies have taken solace that if a driller goes bankrupt, whoever buys the assets, if it comes to that, would also inherit the existing, long-term deal to use their pipelines. This case, if it goes against the midstream company, threatens to undo that. That’s sending shock waves through the midstream industry…
Read More “Shock: Judge May Allow Drillers to Cancel Gathering Pipeline Deals”
Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Statewide PA

THE Delaware Riverkeeper Hosts Class to Stop PennEast Pipeline
February 24, 2016February 24, 2016

THE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum, has staked much of her credibility on stopping the PennEast Pipeline. The PennEast, as you may recall, is a $1.2 billion, 114-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver approximately 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern PA to locations in southeastern PA and across the border to Trenton, NJ (see PennEast Pipeline Files Official Application with FERC, Antis Mad). It’s a pipeline, buried in the ground and after a few years no one even knows where it’s buried without calling 811. And yet van Rossum and her ilk vehemently (we’d say irrationally) oppose it for one reason: it flows a fossil fuel through it. And so she’s staked her own credibility, and the credibility of the organization she leads (with Big Green money backing it) by stopping the PennEast. One way she’s trying to slow it down is by registering children as “intervenors” with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the organization charged with reviewing and approving the project (see Delaware Riverkeeper Scams FERC in Review of PennEast Pipeline). Her latest angle of attack? Conduct a 6-hour “workshop” to train people as “volunteer monitors” to “document natural features that would be in jeopardy” from the pipeline–whatever that means…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Spectra Energy | Tennessee Gas Pipeline | Transco

Marcellus/Utica Gas May Head to GA & FL via Alabama Pipeline
February 23, 2016February 23, 2016

Marcellus and Utica Shale gas will get access to an important new market, but not until 2019. Northeast gas will be able to service the very populous southeastern states of Georgia and Florida in about three years’ time with the construction of two new pipelines. The first pipeline is called the Sabal Trail, a 516-mile pipeline from Alabama through Georgia and then through much of Florida. Sabal Trail is a Spectra Energy, NextEra Energy and Duke Energy joint venture with Spectra taking the lead. Two weeks ago, after a 2 1/2 year-long process, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the Sabal Trail project. But how would northeast gas get to Alabama? Good question! That’s where a shorter intrastate (Alabama only) pipeline project comes into play. Yesterday American Midstream Partners announced an “open season” to elicit shippers to sign up for capacity on a 45-mile extension of the Magnolia Intrastate pipeline. If built, the Magnolia expansion would connect Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Natural Gas Pipeline’s 500 Line, which brings gas from north to southwest, with Williams’ Transco pipeline. Transco has a number of branches in the south, including a connection to the Sabal Trail when it gets built (see the map below). The Magnolia expansion, if built, will not be in service until 2019…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Susquehanna County | Williams

Judge Tells NEPA Family to Let Williams Cut Maple Trees, Or Else
February 22, 2016February 22, 2016

Starting this week the sugar maples along the path of the Constitution Pipeline will come down. MDN previously told you about the Holleran family in New Milford, PA who make maple syrup by tapping the trees on their five acres of land (see Maple Syrup Farm in Path of PA Pipeline, Antis Make Most of It). While it’s unfortunate that Williams, the builder of the pipeline, could not find an alternate route (they did try), and unfortunate that media reports say up to 80% of their maple trees (~200) will need to be cut, we’re not sympathetic. The Hollerans have steadfastly refused any kind of offer from Williams to compensate them, instead aligning themselves with some of the most radical of radical anti-drillers in a publicity quest to pressure Williams to stop. It didn’t work and now a federal judge is telling the family if they prevent the trees from coming down, starting today, they’re going to the clink…
Read More “Judge Tells NEPA Family to Let Williams Cut Maple Trees, Or Else”
Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide OH | Statewide PA | Statewide WV | West Virginia

FERC Says Rover Pipeline as Planned Negatively Impacts Environment
February 22, 2016February 22, 2016

In December 2014 Energy Transfer Partners filed their draft Resource Reports of environmental survey data with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for the ET Rover pipeline (see ET Rover Pipeline’s 800-Mile Journey Begins with FERC Filing). Rover is an 800-mile, $4.4 billion pipeline that will connect Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, crossing pretty much the entire state of Ohio heading northwest before entering Michigan and eventually taking a dog-leg into Ontario. In February of 2015, exactly a year ago, ET filed a full application with FERC. Last week FERC responded with a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS)–and the news was not so good for Rover. FERC found “adverse and significant” impacts from the project as planned and delivered to ET nearly 25 pages of recommendations that ET will need to fix before they get an approval. Is this a fatal blow to Rover? Or just a speed bump? Time will tell…
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Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Pipeline Task Force Report: 658 Pages, 184 “Recommendations”
February 19, 2016February 19, 2016

In May 2015 Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and his underling Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary John Quigley created a “Task Force on Pipeline Infrastructure Development” (see Disaster on the Horizon: PA Gov Wolf Creates Pipeline Task Force). The purpose of the group was “to identify best practices for pipeline siting, permitting and safety.” We won’t recount all of the twists and turns–of how the Task Force was packed with government employees beholden to Wolf, etc. Along the way antis tried to protest and derail the meetings held by the Task Force (see PA DEP Sec. Quigley Calls Pipeline Protesters “Badly Misinformed”). The final meeting has been held and the final report is now in. Yesterday Quigley released the Task Force’s Final Report, all 658 pages of it with 184 recommendations (full copy below). Along with the release of the final report, Quigley also issued what he calls the top 12 recommendations coming from the Task Force for how PA can and should handle a coming expansion of gathering pipelines in the state…
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