Allegheny County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Olympus/Huntley & Huntley | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation
Olympus Applies to Build Compressor Stn at West Deer Well Pad Site
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. Olympus owns a pipeline subsidiary called Hyperion Midstream that builds gathering lines to the company’s wells. Hyperion applied to build a compressor station on a recently approved Olympus well pad in rural West Deer Township (Allegheny County). The PA State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) will hold a public hearing on Sept. 26 about the proposal. Grab the popcorn.
Read More “Olympus Applies to Build Compressor Stn at West Deer Well Pad Site”
Columbia Gas of Massachusetts (NiSource) never quite recovered from a series of explosions in September 2018 that occurred with its local delivery pipelines north of Boston (see 
East Daley Analytics, based in Colorado, is a consulting firm that specializes in identifying, understanding, and monitoring operational risk throughout the oil and gas value chain. A “Daley Note” published yesterday by the company focused on the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), providing a status update and a couple of intriguing (some might say controversial) comments. East Daley says while Equitrans, the builder of MVP, says it will finish the project by the end of this year, East Daley’s analysts don’t think so. East Daley also says when (not if) the pipeline gets done and comes online, the newly available capacity won’t translate into new/more shale drilling in the Marcellus/Utica–at least not initially.
The U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) is giving utility giant Duke Energy (mega profitable) and one of its natural gas suppliers, Williams (i.e., the Transco Pipeline, also mega profitable) $1 million of taxpayer money to do their jobs of monitoring for methane leaks. Dontcha love corporate welfare? Of course, if the government is going to blow taxpayers’ money on energy projects like uncompetitive and unreliable renewables, why not give a little love to fossil energy too, right? Still, it bugs us.
An Act of Congress (the Fiscal Responsibility Act) cleared away the remaining obstacles to completing the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
Two weeks ago MDN told you that eight “blue” states, including New Jersey (the Blue State Mafia), are challenging the Williams Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project, a plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see 
Hydrogen energy continues to interest those of us in the Marcellus/Utica (and elsewhere). Why? Billions of dollars are being thrown at companies as an incentive to make hydrogen energy the next BIG THING that can potentially replace evil, vile fossil energy. Thing is, 95% of all hydrogen comes from cracking methane (natural gas), a fact that drives the left crazy, and the reason why we love it (a huge new customer for M-U gas). Widespread use of hydrogen energy will only happen by mixing hydrogen with natural gas in existing pipelines. Except that’s a problem. Existing equipment can’t flow hydrogen–at least not over a 10% or so mix of hydrogen. But, maybe it can! A researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory says math can solve the problem. Math to the rescue!
With the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) now in construction high gear to finish the final 6% of the project, the question becomes can and how will an extra 2 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus/Utica gas make it to the end of the pipeline, and from there, onward to other destinations in the Southeast? The short answer is yes; there’s certainly enough demand for an extra 2 Bcf/d of gas. The longer answer is that it will take time to ramp up to the point a full 2 Bcf/d is being transported and sold. If MVP comes online by the end of this year, it’s doubtful a full 2 Bcf/d will flow. Not because of supply issues–there are plenty of customers, and the pipeline has contracts to fill it to capacity. And not because of technical issues–the pipeline is rated for a full 2 Bcf/d. More gas won’t flow initially because connecting pipelines on the other end currently can’t handle the extra 2 Bcf/d that will come at them. Right now, there’s not enough capacity on other pipelines, which means when MVP begins to flow, it may be flowing only one-third of its rated capacity of 2 Bcf/d.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP) experienced an explosion and fire at Compressor Station 860 near Centerville (Hickman County), TN, last Friday around 8:30 a.m. The location is about 60 miles southwest of Nashville. The explosion blew out the upper tier of the walls of the building. One employee experienced a medical emergency not directly related to the blast and was taken to an area hospital. That employee has since been discharged. The six on-site employees during the incident are okay and accounted for. A one-mile evacuation was ordered but lifted later in the day on Friday.
Some really big news hit yesterday. U.S. pipeline giant Energy Transfer (ET), builder of the Rover and Mariner East pipeline systems here in the Marcellus/Utica, is buying out and merging in Crestwood Equity Partners, a major pipeline company with operations in the Permian, Bakken, and Powder River Basin. ET will acquire Crestwood in an all-equity (stock-only) transaction valued at approximately $7.1 billion, including the assumption of $3.3 billion of debt. Once upon a time, Crestwood owned major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region, but as of last year, the company exited the M-U. The addition of Crestwood adds 1.4 Bcf/d of gas gathering capacity and 340,000 b/d of oil gathering capacity to ET’s existing portfolio.
Three weeks ago, MDN told you about the small community of Douglas, Massachusetts, that had outsmarted Big Green by getting Eversource to build a one-mile pipeline extension into Douglas to feed a mammoth new warehouse project (see 
A group of 28 House Democrats asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to deny a request from the developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to extend the project 75 miles into North Carolina, called MVP Southgate, arguing in a letter this week that Southgate’s construction would pose serious climate and environmental risks to affected states. Typical. Why do so many Democrats irrationally hate fossil energy?
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who argue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia (see 
Yesterday we told you the liars of the left are doing their best to sew disinformation and fear about Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and the installation of the remaining 6% of the pipeline that’s not already in the ground (see