Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Enbridge | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation
Victory! FERC Won’t Shut Down Weymouth, MA Compressor Station
New England–Massachusetts and Maine in particular–dodged a major bullet on Thursday when Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners voted 5-0 to NOT overturn a permit for the already up-and-running compressor station in Weymouth, Mass. The Weymouth compressor station was the final piece of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project that was years in the making. The compressor went online in January 2021 (see Weymouth, MA Compressor Station Now Online – Will it Stay Online?). Radicalized anti-fossil fuelers fought to close it down. They lost–we won.
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As Yogi Berra once quipped, this feels like déjà vu all over again. In 2019 New York City and Long Island experienced an epic showdown with National Grid, which supplies natural gas to all of Long Island including Brooklyn and Queens. National Grid slapped a moratorium on new gas hookups due to short supplies and then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s blocking of a pipeline to bring more supplies to the region. After extreme blowback from customers, Cuomo threatened to rip National Grid’s franchise away and give it to someone else unless they paid $30 million in bribes and started hooking up new customers again. National Grid caved and the bad guy, Cuomo, won (see 
In early November MDN told you about a massive new power grab being attempted by the Biden Dept. of Transportation’s PHMSA, implementing new regulations to take control of local gathering pipelines, in contravention to the U.S. Constitution (see 
We return, once again, to the story of New England (and New York) blocking new natural gas pipelines and in the process, hurting the residents of New England. Not only are residents harmed economically, but the environment is also harmed. As of 10 am yesterday morning, a full 20% of all the electricity generated in New England used either dirty oil or coal to do so. Normally the oil/coal generation number is less than one-half of one percent (<0.5%), not 20%. The price for electricity in New England is out of sight high right now too. Actions have consqeuences.
Our friends at NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) are running an excellent series providing expert forecasts for the global natural gas and oil markets in 2022. The latest installment interviews several experts about the prospects for the Marcellus/Utica. With the Shell ethane cracker plant coming online sometime this year, the prospects for NGL sales in the M-U have picked up. Also in the discussion: capping Pennsylvania’s orphaned wells, drilling in the Wayne National Forest, and the Mountain Valley Pipeline coming online.
What is it about leftist Democrats that compels them to want to control everyone else’s lives (but their own)? Pennsylvania State Sen. Katie Muth is one of the worst offenders of this disorder. So too are PA State Rep. Dianne Herrin and Rep. Danielle Friel-Otten. The trio of Dem ladies are asking the odious PA Attorney General, Josh Shapiro (who is running for governor) to “halt construction of the Mariner East Pipeline.” Why? Because they don’t like it.
It happens every winter, but the frequency and severity are increasing. We’re talking about the spot price of natural gas sold in large, northeastern cities, which experience price spikes during cold snaps. The reason for the spike is there is not enough gas to go around when it gets really cold, and there’s not enough gas because the northeast has blocked new pipelines that would provide enough. With the current cold snap, prices are spiking right now, once again. The spot price for natural gas being delivered at the Iroquois Zone 2 hub near New York City is $28.55/MMBtu. At the Dracut, Massachusetts hub (north of Boston), the price has hit $30/MMBtu. And the price at the Algonquin Citygate (Boston proper), is $20-$22/MMBtu.
It’s “mission accomplished” for anti-fossil fuel zealots who say even if the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA gets completed (now 94% done), their constant lawsuits and hassling of the project has ensured no one else in their right mind will attempt another big pipeline project like MVP–ever again. At least not in the northeast. How sad when evil triumphs over good, when Big Green can corrupt and abuse our court system by launching frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit (at least 57 of them) to stop a legal, righteous, and much-needed pipeline like MVP.
Last September UGI Corporation, one of Pennsylvania’s largest natural gas utility companies, completed a deal to buy Mountaineer Gas Company, one of West Virginia’s largest natural gas utility companies, for $540 million (see