PA PUC Pushes Forward with Onerous New Regs for Liquids Pipelines
Some three years ago the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) began the process of formulating new regulations that will apply to intrastate pipelines transporting gasoline, petroleum, crude oil, and natural gas liquids like ethane. In July 2021, the PUC finally published a draft of proposed new regs (see PA PUC Proposes New Regs for Pipelines – Landmen Must be Licensed). After initial feedback, the PUC officially published their draft regs in February 2022, called a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Order (or a NOPR). On April 12, last week, the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) along with affected groups like the American Petroleum Institute (API) filed comments on the PUC’s new regulations.
Read More “PA PUC Pushes Forward with Onerous New Regs for Liquids Pipelines”
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat, has (for months) forcefully pushed the issue of completing the 94% done-and-in-the-ground Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, a 303-mile pipeline from WV into Virginia. In early March Manchin let all five Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners know of his displeasure that MVP, along with other pipeline projects, is delayed (see 
We didn’t see this one coming! Must be the intense pressure from U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had the intended effect (see 
Europe wants to buy more American natural gas in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What does it mean for Pennsylvania? The Philadelphia Inquirer tackled that question in an article on Saturday. The answer to the question of what Europe’s desire for more U.S. natgas means for PA (and by extension West Virginia and Ohio) is, “not much.” Why? Because we don’t have enough pipelines built to carry our molecules to the Gulf Coast which is where most of the LNG export plants are either already pumping out LNG, or in the process of getting built to do so. Lack of pipelines constrains our gas and holds our region back. Lack of pipelines is a big problem for both the M-U and (now) for Europe.
For years (more than a decade) we’ve heard the left criticize shale companies as a “Ponzi scheme” that’s not profitable–drilling new wells to make up for declining production in old wells–all the while bilking investors. People like Ian Urbina of the New York Times tried to paint shale companies as fraudsters, going back more than ten years (see 
New York’s corrupt Governor, Kathy Hochul, learned well from her mentor, sexual predator (and extremely corrupt) Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when it comes to forcing her will on the citizens of New York. Cuomo snuck a permanent fracking ban into the state budget two years ago (see 
We keep hearing how much Joe Biden now loves natural gas. He promised Europe the U.S. would send the Continent an extra 15 bcm (billion cubic meters) of natural gas this year (see 
In July 2020 Dominion Energy announced it was canceling the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP)–a 600-mile Marcellus/Utica pipeline project from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina (see 
In early March, our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), released its “Annual Energy Outlook 2022” report (see 
Last December the Democrats who sit on the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board rejected issuing an air permit for a compressor station in southern Virginia for the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) Southgate extension that will run 75 miles from Virginia into North Carolina (see 
Radical green groups, including the Sierra Club (
Tennessee Gas Pipeline’s (TGP) plan to flow more Marcellus gas to Westchester and New York City is called the East 300 Upgrade Project. The project involves upgrades at two existing compressor stations (in Pennsylvania), along with building a brand new compressor station in West Milford (Passaic County), just across the border and not far from Westchester County, NY. Radicalized fossil fuel haters at Food & Water Watch, one of the worst of the worst anti groups, is challenging the all-electric, no-emissions compressor station planned for Passaic County in New Jersey Supreme Court.
Quick: Which country received the most LNG exports from the U.S. in 2021? China? Japan? Maybe Brazil? Nope. The country receiving the most of our LNG last year was (drum roll please)…South Korea. China was a close second (almost tied). The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an article yesterday summarizing U.S. LNG exports and which regions (Asia, Europe, Rest of World), and which countries within those regions, received our LNG exports. It’s an interesting read. We’ve scrounged around and found a table showing all U.S. natural gas exports–both LNG and pipeline.