4th Circus Clowns Punish MVP One Last Time via Eminent Domain Case
It’s clearly a case of sour grapes for the same three judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circus clowns) who tried to block the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) by rendering arbitrary decisions that caused years of delays for the pipeline. We’re talking about Judge Stephanie Thacker, appointed by Barack Hussein Obama (she likes to quote from Dr. Seuss books in her opinions); Judge James Wynn, appointed by Barack Hussein Obama; and Chief Judge Roger Gregory, appointed by William Jefferson Clinton. All three are (in our opinion) corrupt and should immediately be impeached and removed from the bench. Congress finally had enough of their judicial malpractice in blocking MVP and passed a law overriding the clowns, signed into law by Joementia last June (see Equitrans Announces Mountain Valley Pipe to Get Completed in 2023). Now that MVP is on the cusp of starting operations, the three clowns took one last swipe at the pipeline they had tried to block. The judges re-inflated a jury award against MVP for an eminent domain “taking” case in the Bent Mountain, Virginia, area. Sour grapes.
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TransCanada Corporation, which renamed itself TC Energy in 2019, made a play for and bought out/merged with U.S.-based Columbia Pipeline Group in 2016 (see 
On May 1, a section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) near Roanoke, VA, failed (ruptured) during pressurized water testing conducted to ensure that there were no leaks or flaws (see 
Last week, in reporting on pipeline giant Williams’ first quarter 2024 update, we told you about a major new project Williams has begun to replace (upgrade) 112 mainline compressor units with state-of-the-art low-emission turbines and electric drive units on the Transco and Northwest Pipe (see 
This story gets a little complicated, but we’ll do our best to explain. The Algonquin Gas Transmission (AGT) pipeline (owned by Enbridge) transports up to 3.09 Bcf/d through 1,131 miles of pipeline. Algonquin connects to Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO), Millennium Pipeline, and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline and supplies New England with critically needed natural gas supplies for power generation and consumer use. Anti-fossil fuel fanatics who see carbon dioxide molecules under every rock and lurking in every shadow claim a tiny upgrade to an AGT regulating station (costing $15.7 million) in Connecticut is part of Enbridge’s Master Plan to expand AGT throughout the region. Led by the radicals of the Sierra Club, protesters will hold a meeting on Thursday to oppose the upgrades to a regulating station that does nothing more than aim to keep the gas reliably flowing through existing pipes.
The odious and disgusting Food & Water Watch (FWW) organization (anti-fossil fuel fanatics) has taken point on the left’s effort to block Iroquois Gas Transmission’s plan to upgrade compressor stations in the Empire State. Iroquois’ Enhancement by Compression (ExC) project increases horsepower at three compression stations — two in New York and one in Connecticut — by an extra 125 MMcf/d, flowing more Marcellus/Utica gas into New York City and New England. Less than two weeks ago, FWW announced it had recruited 5,000 drones (no doubt paying some of them) to write comments against ExC in an effort to give New York’s weak Governor, Kathy Hochul, political cover to reject ExC (see 
Pipeline giant Williams, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica and the owner of the mighty Transco pipeline that flows huge quantities of M-U gas south and southwest, issued its first quarter 2024 update yesterday. CEO Alan Armstrong said in prepared remarks that the company, which operates in just about every region of the country, has “20 high-return projects in execution across our business.” That’s 20 pipeline or storage projects of various kinds, many of them in the M-U region. The projects include “approximately 3.1 Bcf per day of expansion on Transco, which equates to a 15% increase in fully contracted long-term capacity that will be coming online over the next few years.” Transco current flows a maximum of 18.6 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day). It’s going to expand by another 3.1 Bcf/d!
We have to admit we’re disappointed. A section of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) ruptured during pressure testing last Wednesday in Roanoke County, Virginia, according to a report from the state’s environmental agency. A landowner observed sediment-laden water in her pasture on Wednesday morning and reported it to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). “The origin of the sediment-laden water reported in the complaint was from the rupture of a section of pipe during hydrostatic testing the morning of 5/1/2024,” wrote the DEQ expert, John McCutcheon.
We’re sad but not surprised. The last time we reported on Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) Project slated for New York was last June when Williams asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a time extension to build it (see 
Antero Midstream, a separate company from Antero Resources (at least on paper, although it is managed by the same people), issued a press release yesterday to announce it had purchased a bolt-on acquisition of gathering and compression assets in the Marcellus Shale for $70 million from Summit Midstream Partners. The assets acquired include two compressor stations and 48 miles of high-pressure gas-gathering pipelines located in West Virginia.
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the sixth-largest power supplier and the largest public utility in the country. In 2021, MDN told you that TVA is spending over $1 billion to replace six coal-fired plants with natgas-fired turbines (see 
Equitrans Midstream, builder of the mighty Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), issued its first quarter 2024 update yesterday. The update came without the typical conference call for analysts, given the impending merger with (takeover by) EQT Corporation. Picking through the prepared updates and filings with the SEC, we discovered some useful bits of news. First and foremost, Equitrans expects to begin operations on MVP on May 31st, provided all necessary directives are issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). MVP’s cost went up yet again, from $7.6 billion, estimated earlier this year, to now approximately $7.85 billion. However, MVP wasn’t the only big news coming from the update.
In late 2015, MPLX (i.e., Marathon Petroleum) bought out and merged in the Utica Shale’s premier midstream company, MarkWest Energy, for $15 billion (see 
In 2018, Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), proposed to extend MVP (when it’s done) by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The 75-mile extension is called MVP Southgate. Last year, Equitrans asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend Southgate’s project timeline an extra three years. FERC agreed in December (see 
Yesterday, we brought you the great news that Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), the 303-mile, 2.0 Bcf/d pipeline from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, is essentially done (see 
We never thought this day would arrive! We hoped. We prayed. But finally, it’s (almost) here. The 303-mile, 2 Bcf/d Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is almost ready to begin operation. On Monday, Equitrans Midstream filed a letter (below) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requesting a May 23 startup date for the pipeline. MVP (Equitrans) says the pipeline will be in the ground, buried, and ready to begin on May 22 (called “mechanically complete”). Get the champagne on ice and ready…