Smug Antis Delighted that Bidenistas Now Regulate Gathering Pipes
In May, the PHMSA issued a proposed new rule that would slap onerous and costly new requirements on pretty much all natural gas pipelines in the country, including 2.7 million miles of gas transmission, distribution, and gathering pipelines; 400+ underground natural gas storage facilities; and 165 liquefied natural gas facilities (see Biden DOT Issues New Partisan Methane Rules for All Gas Pipelines). It is yet another attempt by the left to strip away the power to regulate oil and gas from the individual states and concentrate it in unelected bureaucracies in the DC swamp. Major pipeline associations filed comments against the new regs (see Major Pipeline Associations File Comments Against New PHMSA Regs). But in typical fashion, the tone-deaf Bidenistas have ignored those comments and have implemented the new regs anyway.
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Last Friday in Philadelphia, President Joe Biden tried to sell the line that Pennsylvania was a big winner in the Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games (see 
Since work resumed in midsummer, 92 stream crossings had been completed through Oct. 1 for the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, according to MVP spokeswoman Natalie Cox. About 330 crossings remain. Can the company realistically complete the rest of the work and get the pipeline operational by Dec. 31 (less than three months away)? That’s the multi-billion-dollar question. Some 4,200 construction workers are actively working on getting it done. It doesn’t help that highly organized “protests” are being inflicted on the project by Big Green-backed groups like Appalachians Against Pipeline.
We finally have some good news to share concerning Columbia Gas’ project to build a tiny 3.37-mile, 8-inch pipeline under the Potomac River from Maryland to West Virginia. The project, called the Eastern Panhandle Expansion, has been blocked repeatedly by leftwing wackos in Maryland (see 
The Algonquin Gas Transmission 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. As we told you two weeks ago, Enbridge is conducting an open season to gauge interest in expanding Algonquin’s capacity to flow more gas into New England — mainly from the Marcellus/Utica — called Project Maple (see 
Marcellus/Utica natural gas producers and marketers are adapting to a new status quo. We live in a world where new pipeline takeaway capacity out of the Northeast is hard (almost impossible) to come by and is more or less capped permanently. That’s the reality. Without pipeline expansions, drillers no longer drill with abandon in hopes that the capacity will eventually get built. Reality has sunk in. Instead, drillers practice restraint by (1) slowing drilling activity, (2) delaying completions, and (3) choking back producing wells to manage their inventory during periods of lower demand and prices.
Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, wants to extend the pipeline 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 extension is called MVP Southgate. In typical fashion, Democrats oppose it (see 
U.S. natural gas exports set a record high in the first half of 2023, largely thanks to LNG exports. However, don’t forget that nearly as much natural gas is exported to Mexico and Canada via pipelines as LNG is exported to other countries via cargo ships. For the first six months of 2023, the U.S. exported an average of 11.6 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of gas via LNG, and 8.8 Bcf/d via pipelines. Added together, the 20.4 Bcf/d of natgas we exported during 1H23 was the most ever exported for the first half of any year on record. Pop the cork!
The left thought it had won the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) battle with three colluding (corrupt) and sympathetic judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (4th Circuit). But then Congress, under the leadership of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, passed the “debt ceiling” bill that forces the completion of MVP (see 
TransCanada Corporation, which renamed itself TC Energy in 2019, bought out/merged in U.S.-based Columbia Pipeline Group (now Columbia Gas Transmission) in 2016 (see 
The Enbridge Gas Dawn Parkway System is one of the most robust pipeline systems in North America and provides for the movement of natural gas from Enbridge Gas’s Dawn Hub located near Sarnia, Ontario, to the Greater Toronto Area, where it interconnects with other downstream pipelines serving eastern Canadian and northeast U.S. markets. Marcellus/Utica molecules help feed the Dawn Hub via the Rover and NEXUS pipelines. Enbridge Gas is holding a new capacity open season for an extra 300 MMcf/d (million cubic feet per day) of natural gas along the Dawn Parkway System. Let’s move more M-U molecules!