Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide VA | Virginia
Va. DEQ Refuses to Issue MVP Stream Permit Until Winter
The Virginia Dept. of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is purposefully dragging its feet in an attempt to derail Equitrans’ Mountain Valley Pipeline project. DEQ is telling the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that it will take the rest of this year to review and plan for roughly 120 stream crossings in the state, requesting a time extension of at least six months to do so. If the Army Corps (now controlled by Joe Biden) agrees to DEQ’s request, there is no way MVP, currently 92% complete, can reach 100% completion by the end of this year.
Read More “Va. DEQ Refuses to Issue MVP Stream Permit Until Winter”
Pipelines are necessary and critical to move supplies of gas (and oil) from where the product is extracted to where it’s needed. In the case of Marcellus/Utica natural gas, there is demand from markets in Canada, the Midwest, the Gulf Coast, and the Southeast. There are six major interstate pipelines that flow our gas to Gulf Coast and Southeast. The big question is, will those pipes max out again this spring? It’s a distinct possibility according to the experts at RBN Energy.
Olympus Energy, the renamed Huntley & Huntley Energy Exploration (HHEX), concentrates its drilling in the Pittsburgh suburbs, including Upper Burrell and Allegheny Townships in Westmoreland County, PA. Olympus has just cut a $1.2 million deal with the Municipal Authority of the City of New Kensington to extend three miles of waterlines near three Marcellus well sites in Upper Burrell and Allegheny Townships.
For years Vermont has made millions of dollars selling Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to other states–a scam that allows pretentious environmentalists to claim they’re helping out the environment when in fact they still burn the same fossil fuels and biomass (i.e. woodburning) as they always did by paying a fee, a REC, and absolving themselves of feeling bad about it. Think of modern-day RECs like the Catholic Church selling indulgences in the Middle Ages to absolve you of your sins, or at least lessen the punishment for your sins. RECs are the new indulgences of the post-everything era we live in now. Selling REC indulgences is about to go away for Vermonters, and it may lead to widespread blackouts.
Joe Biden is proposing an insane “infrastructure” plan that will run into the trillions of dollars. All of that money comes from somewhere folks. Money is not free and you can’t simply print it forever without inflation going haywire and the U.S. becoming the new Venezuela. But we digress. As part of spending more money on infrastructure, Biden is looking to change the 50-year-old National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which regulates construction of infrastructure, by putting back into place strangling regulations that Donald Trump relaxed so it doesn’t take a decade to build a new road.
The flaky Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Neil Chatterjee, who lately has taken to stabbing natural gas pipelines in the back (see 
Over the past few years, radicalized environmentalists have taken the law into their own hands in an effort to block pipeline construction. Some of the more wacky ones decided to build themselves tree stands and live, full-time, up in the top of trees that are in the path of Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Their aim was to prevent the trees from being cut down, ultimately blocking construction of the pipeline (see 
When Equitrans’ 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, which will connect West Virginia and bountiful supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas to southern Virginia (eventually beyond), is finally done, will Equitrans send a bill to the odious Sierra Club and other Big Green groups that have intentionally held up the project *for years* with a blizzard of frivolous lawsuits? Frivolous lawsuits holding up the MVP project have had very real costs. For example, Equitrans’ “all-in” cost to ship an Mcf of gas through the pipeline (when it finally is in-service) has doubled because of the delays. We think Equitrans should sue the litigious enviro groups to recover the escalating cost they will pay. Let’s put the Sierra Club out of business.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is finally making official what has, until now, been unofficial (but enforceable via court orders): State environmental agencies have exactly one year to either grant or reject issuing a Clean Water Act Section (CWA) 401 permit for pipelines (and other federal projects) to cross rivers and streams and wetlands. A final rule is now drafted and 90 days after it’s published in the Federal Register the rule will be in place and enforceable.
All the wheels have officially come off the cart for a proposed $346 million pipeline project in northeastern Virginia called the Header Improvement Project. Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) filed a plan last December to build the Header Improvement Project, 24 miles of new pipeline and two new compressor stations (expanding a third compressor) connecting to the mighty Transco pipeline system to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the northeast Virginia region (see 
Two radical left Democrat FERC commissioners and one backstabbing RINO FERC commissioner voted last week to approve an 87-mile natural gas pipeline project in South Dakota and Nebraska. So a natural gas pipeline was approved by two Dems and a RINO (this is not a joke setup). The approval is a good thing, right? No, it’s not. The criteria they used in approving the project establishes a new precedent, new guidelines, that will be used for all pipeline projects going forward. The precedent is to consider how much man-made global warming a new pipeline will generate, which is (of course) nonsensical and can’t actually be measured. In other words, these three will now use made-up, pretend nonsense numbers of their own choosing to decide whether or not to approve any and all pipeline projects moving forward.
Here’s another “XPress” pipeline to add to Columbia’s (TC Energy’s) long list of other XPress pipelines: East Lateral XPress. Columbia has built a number of XPress pipelines, including Gulf XPress, Mountaineer XPress, WB Xpress, Leach XPress, Rayne XPress, Buckeye XPress, and Louisiana XPress, all of which work together to flow (in part) Marcellus/Utica natural gas to points south, including to the Gulf Coast (
Really Dick? This is what you spend your time on these days? Digging up long-addressed and settled and resolved actions (from SIX YEARS ago)–old infractions by pipeline companies like Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline. Claiming you will “not look the other way” when there’s a violation (a violation that happened long before you were even a FERC Commissioner). Whoa, you’re such a big man. So self-righteous. Glick is now digging up old pipeline sins to parade around once again. It’s like a dog that buried roadkill a year ago and recently rediscovered the spot, dug it up, and now drags the old rotting carcass around the yard for all to see, all proud of himself.
In July 2018 three radical environmental groups dropped their objections to permits the Pennsylvania DEP previously granted for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. Clean Air Council, Mountain Watershed Association, and THE Delaware Riverkeeper “settled” their appeal of 20 permits issued to Sunoco for the ME2 project (see