Pipelines

Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Dominion Buys SC/GA Pipeline Network, Plans for Marcellus Gas?
February 3, 2015February 3, 2015

Dominion Resources, a large energy producer and midstream company operating primarily in the mid-Atlantic and southeast, is behind the the Atlantic Coast Pipeline–a 550-mile, $5 billion natural gas pipeline that will run from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina to deliver 1.5 billion cubic feet per day of Marcellus and Utica Shale gas to VA and NC (see Dominion Asks FERC to Start Environmental Review of SE Pipeline). Yesterday Dominion announced they’ve picked up Carolina Gas Transmission (CGT) for a cool $492.9 million. CGT operates 1,500 miles of FERC-regulated interstate natural gas pipeline in South Carolina and southeastern Georgia. We wonder if Dominion plans to connect the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to CGT and flow Marcellus/Utica shale gas deep into the heart of Dixie…
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Accidents | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Marcellus/Utica – More Dangerous than Other Shale Plays?
February 2, 2015February 2, 2015

The recent ATEX Express pipeline explosion/fire in Brooke County, WV has folks asking questions (see ATEX Ethane Pipeline Explodes, Burns in Brooke County, WV). It’s not the first accident in Brooke County. In 2013 Chesapeake Energy had a hydraulic line fail at an active drilling site that ended up torching five tractor-trailers and did $8 million in damage (see Update on Chesapeake Energy Well Fire in Brooke County, WV). Over the past 4 to 5 years, since there’s been active drilling in the Marcellus/Utica, there have been 21 serious accidents/incidents in the Ohio Valley alone (and a number of others outside the Ohio Valley, see our companion article today) related to either drilling or pipelines. By comparison, there have been a handful of accidents and incidents in the North Dakota Bakken–and only one pipeline incident to speak of. Is it a fair comparison to make–safety in the Bakken vs. the Marcellus/Utica?…
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Blue Racer Midstream | Economic Impact | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Williams

Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conf: $30B of NE Infrastructure Needed
January 30, 2015January 30, 2015

Day two, and the concluding day at the Hart Energy Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conference in Pittsburgh, proved as interesting as the first day (for a day one recap, see Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conf: Marcellus is “Best of the Best”). One of the speakers on day two was Scott Williams, executive VP and chief commercial officer for Blue Racer Midstream, who spoke about his company’s processing plants in the northeast. Blue Racer’s Natrium, WV plant connects to Sunoco Logistics’ Mariner West ethane pipeline, which carts Blue Racer’s ethane to Sarnia, Ontario (Canada) and the Nova Chemicals Corunna ethane cracker. Blue Racer also operates the Berne processing plant in Monroe County, OH. According to Williams, “in excess of $30 billion worth of infrastructure still needs to be built” in the northeast. Wow! That should keep a variety of companies busy for a while. A VP from midstream giant Williams (which recently bought out Access Midstream) agrees…
Read More “Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conf: $30B of NE Infrastructure Needed”
Accidents | Brooke County | Energy Services | Enterprise Products Partners | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | West Virginia

PHMSA Update on ATEX Pipeline Explosion in WV – Faulty Weld?
January 30, 2015January 30, 2015

It’s been five days since a section of the Appalachia to Texas (ATEX) Express ethane pipeline ruptured/exploded and burned in Brooke County, WV (see ATEX Ethane Pipeline Explodes, Burns near Follansbee, WV). Since the pipeline is under the regulatory oversight of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), that organization is doing the investigation into the accident. The rupture and resulting fire burned approximately 24,000 barrels of ethane and scorched some 5 acres of woodland. What has the PHMSA learned so far? Not much. They have some theories, according to an initial report. It appears that the 20-inch pipeline ruptured near a section that had been welded together…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | PennEast Pipeline | Pipelines

NJ Conservation Group Opposes PennEast Pipeline – Self Interest
January 30, 2015January 30, 2015

Bet you didn’t know that if the PennEast Pipeline, a 110-mile pipeline from Wilkes-Barre, PA to Trenton, NJ is built, it will pollute the drinking water for 2.5 million people. That’s the faux claim made by the New Jersey Conservation Foundation in a resolution they’ve just passed opposing the project. It’s pretty obvious the board of the Foundation is packed with anti-fossil fuelers (all of whom use fossil fuels every day of their lives). Such is the wacky world of anti-drillers. Make reckless and false claims, have those claims picked up and amplified by a sycophantic media that NEVER challenges them on those claims, and try to bend the unthinking public’s will against a project like the PennEast. Standard play book…
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Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Industrywide Issues | Lease & Royalty Payments | Ohio | Pipelines | Richland County | Statewide OH

Advice to OH Landowners Approached for Pipeline Easements
January 29, 2015January 29, 2015

The Energy Transfer Partners Rover pipeline (ET Rover) is probably the biggest pipeline project currently under way in the U.S. It’s bigger than the Keystone XL pipeline! In places like Richland and Crawford counties in Ohio, ET Rover is actually two pipelines–42 inches in diameter, sitting side by side. The entire length is 820 miles and will stretch from WV and PA through OH and into Michigan and eventually to Canada. Landowners in Richland and Crawford attended a meeting sponsored by a Columbus law firm last night to hear some sobering truth: the pipeline will happen and it is coming. But that doesn’t mean landowners are helpless. The attorneys offered some good advice that all landowners approached for pipeline easements should listen to…
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Columbia Pipeline Group | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Washington County

Columbia Withdraws Compressor Plan, Seeks Alternative in SWPA
January 29, 2015January 29, 2015

Columbia Midstream Group, a subsidiary of NiSource, has withdrawn an application to build a compressor station in South Strabane Township (Washington County), PA and has, instead, applied to build two smaller facilities at the same site: a launcher/receiver facility and a metering station (both related to pipelines). The land they intend to build on is a 251-acre plot owned by Range Resources. Nearby residents who attended a public hearing on Tuesday night were still against the plan, even though it’s not nearly as big and noisy and polluting as a compressor station…
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Accidents | Brooke County | Energy Services | Enterprise Products Partners | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | West Virginia

Enterprise Releases 2014 Results – Remains Mum on ATEX Explosion
January 29, 2015January 29, 2015

Enterprise Products Partners, a huge $41 billion midstream company with 51,000 miles of pipelines, and the company that built the Appalachia to Texas (ATEX) Express pipeline, released their 2014 results today. In the update is no mention of the explosion and fire along the ATEX in Brooke County, WV that happened on Monday (see ATEX Ethane Pipeline Explodes, Burns in Brooke County, WV). We’ve looked, and haven’t found a peep about what caused the explosion. The agency charged with investigating the pipeline rupture is the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)…
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Energy Services | EnLink Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Meetings | Pipelines

Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conf: Marcellus is “Best of the Best”
January 29, 2015January 29, 2015

The Hart Energy Marcellus-Utica Midstream Conference kicked off yesterday in Pittsburgh at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Unfortunately your humble Marcellus/Utica gadfly was not extended a press pass by Hart Energy (yes, we’re trying to shame them for ignoring our request), so we’re not at the event which is drawing some 2,000 attendees. However, plenty of others are there. Kicking off the first day with the opening keynote was Barry Davis, CEO of EnLink Midstream Partners. Davis had some sobering words, saying he expects shale drilling to contract by 50% nationwide. However, Davis had high praise for the Marcellus/Utica, calling it “the best of the best” that will see less cut-backs than the others…
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Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Randolph County | Regulation | Statewide WV | West Virginia

USFS Seeks Comment on Pipeline Survey in Monongahela Natl Forest
January 28, 2015January 28, 2015

Here on Pandora where the forests are sentient and can think and feel…oh wait, that’s in the movie Avatar and the sequel is not due out until the end of 2017 (drats!). We live on Mother Earth, not on Pandora. But you wouldn’t know it by the reaction of anti-drillers at the prospect of running Dominion’s Atlantic Coast Pipeline through 17 miles of the Monongahela National Forest. You’d swear the forest can actually feel it–and would experience a catastrophic wound in its very soul…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Guest Post | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Guest Post: The Self Delusion of Anti-Pipeliners in New England
January 28, 2015January 28, 2015

Yesterday MDN ran a story from NGI’s Daily Gas Price Index that delves into the motivation behind the intense opposition to pipeline projects in the northeast (see Why Such Intense Opposition to Pipelines in the Northeast?). Rick Groll, a geologist and industrial seismologist living and working in the Boston area, has some of his own observations on the motives of his fellow New Englanders. What makes these anti-pipeliners tick? Rick offers us some insight in this guest post…
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Accidents | Brooke County | Energy Services | Energy Transfer Partners | Ethane | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | West Virginia

ATEX Ethane Pipeline Explodes, Burns in Brooke County, WV
January 27, 2015January 27, 2015

Yesterday morning a section of the 20-inch ATEX (Appalachia to Texas) ethane pipeline ruptured and caught fire in Follansbee (Brooke County), WV. No one was injured but two families living nearby were evacuated as a precaution. The first calls of an explosion and fire came around 10:40 am yesterday. The cause of the rupture is not yet known…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Why Such Intense Opposition to Pipelines in the Northeast?
January 27, 2015January 27, 2015

An excellent article from the Natural Gas Intelligence’s (NGI) Daily Gas Price Index publication, sister to the excellent Shale Daily, delves into the reasons behind the widespread and ongoing opposition to pipeline projects in the northeast. Pipelines like PennEast from Wilkes-Barre, PA to Trenton, NJ, and the expansion of the mighty Tennessee Gas Pipeline across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, have raised the ire of anti-drillers. The Daily Gas Price Index article delves into the reasons why folks in the northeast are resisting new pipeline projects…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Northampton County | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Pipelines

SEPA Towns Manipulated by Big Enviro Groups to Oppose PennEast
January 23, 2015January 23, 2015

You might think, in casually reading the local newspaper in southeast Pennsylvania, that all of your neighbors have spontaneously risen up to oppose an evil, nasty, money-grubbing pipeline called the PennEast. Your neighbors are concerned about safety–and YOU should be too! There’s just one teeny tiny problem–national anti-drilling groups are behind this “spontaneous” uprising. Groups like the Sierra Clubbers, and the odious and misnamed Food & Water Watch (FWW), which is not an impartial group that’s “advocating for clean water and safe food.” FWW are virulent anti-drillers who oppose fossil fuels of any kind and are well-organized and flush with Big Enviro money. FWW descends on small towns–places like Lower Saucon Township in Northampton County, PA (population 9,884)–and they hoodwink local political leaders into believing that the pipeline is evil. So a resolution gets passed by the town board opposing it. Voila, “everyone” is against it. Orgasmic joy sweeps over Food & Water Watch HQ. On to the next town…
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Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation

Sen. Inhofe Outsmarts Democrats, Votes to Say Climate Change is Real!
January 23, 2015January 23, 2015

Sen. Jim Inhofe from Okalhoma, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, has changed the debate on man-made global warming once again, much to the consternation of the wacko left. We saw a press release from Inhofe’s office yesterday (below) saying that Sen. Inhofe and virtually every other Republican in the Senate had just joined the Democrats in voting 98-1 in favor of an amendment on the Keystone XL Pipeline bill that says “climate change is real and it is not a hoax.” We did a double-take. Really? Inhofe says he now believes in climate change?! Then we read further. In the next breath, Inhofe said: “How arrogant is it for people to say that man can do something about changing the climate?” Inhofe, by co-sponsoring and voting for the amendment, is pointing out the corrosion of our language…
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Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines

Antero Resources Slashes 2015 CapEx Budget 41%, Reduces Rig Count
January 22, 2015January 22, 2015

Earlier this month, Antero Resources, one of the largest leaseholders and drillers in the Marcellus/Utica, announced they are laying off 250 landmen in WV, OH and PA because of low oil and gas prices (see Antero Resources Lays Off 250 Landmen, Blames Low Oil Prices). Seems it was an omen. On Tuesday, the company released details of their 2015 capital budget–and it’s not pretty. Antero is slashing their capital expenditure budget in the Marcellus/Utica by 41% over what they spent in 2014–$1.8 billion in 2015 compared to $3.05 billion in 2014. Ouch. They’ll operate an average of 14 drilling rigs in 2015 compared to the average of 21 they were operating by the end of last year. Ouch. They predict they will complete 130 Marcellus & Utica wells this year, down from 179 completed last year. Ouch. About the only bright spot is that production is predicted to increase, from an average of 1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2014 to 1.4 Bcf/d in 2015. Why the big cuts? Yes because of the low commodity price for natural gas, but when you dig, you find the price for natgas in the northeast is lower than other areas of the country because of the lack of pipelines…
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