Warren Buffett & Dominion Cancel Planned $1.7B Questar Pipe Deal
One year ago, in July 2020, we brought you the bombshell news that Dominion Energy was calling it quits in the pipeline business, abandoning the Atlantic Coast Pipeline project (on which they had already spent billions of dollars) and selling its existing (extensive) pipeline network to Warren Buffett for $9.7 billion (see Dominion Cancels Atlantic Coast Pipe, Sells Pipe Biz for $9.7B). Part of the deal included selling Dominion subsidiary Questar Pipeline, a pipeline system located in the Western U.S. That part of the deal ($1.3 billion in cash and $430 million in assumed debt) never consummated and is now officially dead.
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Charlie Melançon is a former U.S. Congressman from Louisiana who played an integral role in rebuilding Louisiana’s infrastructure following the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Melançon served on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversaw energy policy and environmental quality among other issues. He sees a lot of parallels between his home state of Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Melançon has written an editorial appearing in a major PA newspaper hoping to inform and encourage Pennsylvanians to wake up to the fact that pipelines are the key to PA becoming the energy hub of the northeast. Conversely, without (more) pipelines, PA will not realize its potential. Pipelines are the key. Melançon is uniquely qualified to know.
A few weeks ago MDN brought you the news that three far-left Democrat judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval for a long-completed and flowing natural gas pipeline in the St. Louis, MO area–a pipeline that flows Marcellus/Utica gas to residents, businesses, and electric generating plants throughout the region (see 
According to S&P Global Platts, a widening gas storage deficit in the Eastern U.S. is “raising alarm in the Northeast downstream market area” where winter 2021-22 forwards prices are up sharply since the start of injection season beginning April 1st. In particular, the forward contracts (prices negotiated now for future delivery of natural gas) for January 2022 in Boston and New York City are through the roof. It’s pretty plain why this is happening–no new pipelines.
Last week MDN told you that Detroit-based utility company DTE Energy was about to spin off its pipeline assets into a new/separate company called DT Midstream (see 
Last week MDN told you about an unplanned outage at two MarkWest natural gas processing plants located in West Virginia (see 
The Supreme Court decision from earlier this week allowing PennEast Pipeline to use the federally delegated power of eminent domain to cross tiny pieces of land owned (or controlled by) New Jersey is still reverberating across the country (see 
Earlier this month MDN brought you the sad news that Enbridge’s Texas Eastern Transmission (TETCO) pipeline is being flow-restricted by the Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA). Some 40% of the Marcellus/Utica molecules that flow through TETCO’s pipeline to destinations in the southeastern U.S. have disappeared and will stay that way until the end of September (see 
Yesterday MDN brought you the news that the U.S. Supreme Court decided that yes, the PennEast Pipeline *can* use federally-delegated eminent domain in order to install a pipeline across New Jersey state-owned land after all (see 
As we previously predicted would happen, New Jersey lost its Supreme Court case to block PennEast Pipeline from using eminent domain to cross NJ-owned or controlled land. This was a critical case to prevent blue states like NJ, and New York, and California from blocking ALL new interstate pipelines aimed at crossing states to deliver product from other states. NJ’s lawless action was an overt attempt at blocking interstate commerce and a direct challenge to one of the purposes of the Natural Gas Act, passed in 1938. Disappointingly PennEast won by only one vote. Still, it’s a victory!
Last October MDN told you that DTE Energy, a long-time pipeline builder and operator in the Marcellus/Utica region, was considering either selling or spinning off its pipeline business (see 
On June 3 we published a post posing the question of whether or not the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would delay the already-years-delayed Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) for yet another year (see 
Earlier this month MDN told you that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), under the direction of Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick, had hit the pause button on finishing up final approvals so the agency can take the next six months to complete full environmental impact statements (EIS’s), gauging whether or not five pipeline projects will cause too much mythical, man-made global warming (see