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What MVP’s Latest Delay Means for Takeaway Constraints, M-U Prices
Last week we brought you the bitterly disappointing news that the clown judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (the 4th Circus) have, for a second time, overturned permits for Mountain Valley Pipeline (94% complete!) to build through 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest (see 4th Circus Clowns Overturn MVP Permit for Jeff Natl Forest, Again). That decision by a group of radicalized judges will have a big impact on takeaway capacity in the Marcellus/Utica, and ultimately on the price drillers can fetch for their gas.
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Pennsylvania’s Pipeline Investment Program (or PIPE) issues grants covering part of the cost for building new natural gas pipelines to connect homes and businesses, typically in rural parts of the state, to homegrown Marcellus Shale gas supplies. We’ve written about many of the PIPE grant projects in the past (
The Lorax-quoting judge from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (i.e. 4th Circus) has struck again. We shouldn’t be surprised. Yesterday the 4th Circuit overruled permits issued by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management that would have allowed the 94% complete Mountain Valley Pipeline from crossing 3.5 miles of federal land in Jefferson National Forest. This is the second time the same group of clown judges have done this.
Midstream giant Williams’ chief operating officer, Michael Dunn, told an industry conference in Houston, TX yesterday that Joe Biden is “overlooking” the role natural gas can place in reducing emissions and decarbonizing the U.S. And that’s a big mistake. Dunn’s sentiment (in our words) is that the Bidenistas are unwilling to accept half-a-loaf now and instead prefer no loaf at all, which leads to more harmful emissions, not less.
In December, Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP), a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, filed a proposal with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to implement a “responsibly sourced natural gas (RSG) supply aggregation pooling service” at select locations across the TGP system (see 
Last year Big Green lobbyists using the City of Oberlin, Ohio contested the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) decision to approve the Enbridge/DTE Energy NEXUS pipeline, a a $2 billion, 255-mile pipeline from the Ohio Utica Shale into Michigan that’s been flowing for years connecting to a pipeline that exports some of the gas into Canada (see 
Democrats in Congress say new federal powers are needed to prevent major energy disruptions like the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline last May. Specifically, the Dems want the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to impose “basic standards” for natural gas pipeline reliability and security. The Dems claim FERC can enforce reliability standards regarding electricity delivery and other matters, but the agency lacks such authority when it comes to regulating pipelines. Is that true?
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 
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 
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.