Regulation

Berkeley County | Industrywide Issues | Jefferson County (WV) | Morgan County (WV) | Pipelines | Regulation | West Virginia

Mountaineer Gas Files App to Build $45M Pipeline Expansion in WV
April 5, 2016April 5, 2016

West Virginia’s largest natural gas LDC (local distribution company) is Mountaineer Gas–with 220,000 customers, 450 employees and servicing 49 of WV’s 55 counties. Mountaineer Gas maintains close to 6,000 miles of pipeline. They’d like to add another 56 miles of pipelines to that number. Mountaineer has filed an application with the WV Public Service Commission to build a $45 million expansion of their distribution network in Berkeley, Jefferson and Morgan counties (the eastern panhandle of WV). Why? To deliver more Marcellus Shale gas to industrial customers who want to build manufacturing plants in the region. There is some natural gas in the area now–but not nearly enough. The new lines, which are not high pressure transmission lines but low pressure distribution lines, would bump up the volume of gas and deliver it to locations where new plants want to build. Local economic development people are excited as this provides a foundation for long-term growth in the region. Below are the details of Mountaineer’s application, along with a copy of the official paperwork they’ve filed with the WV PSC…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | PennEast Pipeline | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide PA

PennEast Spins FERC Delay as a Good Thing – Optimism or Denial?
April 5, 2016April 5, 2016

We understand the value of a healthy, optimistic attitude. We consider ourselves to be a “glass half full” rather than “glass half empty” type of people. But we’re also realists. Last week the builders of the proposed PennEast Pipeline–a $1.2 billion, 114-mile, 36-inch diameter pipeline that will deliver approximately 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Marcellus gas fields of northeastern PA to locations in southeastern PA and across the border to Trenton, NJ–received what we considered bad news. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told PennEast they would extend the amount of time they are taking until December of this year, rather than August, to complete their Environmental Review. And FERC won’t issue their final decision on authorizing the project until March 2017–at the earliest. PennEast had requested FERC wrap it all up by this August–an 8-month delay. In our book, that’s mildly bad news. But yesterday PennEast issued a press release saying the FERC announcement is an “important milestone,” almost lauding FERC for moving so quickly given a plateful of pipeline applications–even though it means the PennEast project now won’t be completed until 2018 instead of 2017. Is this a “glass half full” optimistic attitude? Or self-deluding denial? We can think of many reasons why it’s a manifestly bad thing that FERC has delayed–not the least of which is are multiple lawsuits sure to be launched by the radicals at THE Delaware Riverkeeper…
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Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Obama DOE Uses CA Storage Leak to Target NatGas Industry
April 5, 2016April 5, 2016

“You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” – Rahm Emanuel, when he was Barack Obama’s White House Chief of Staff. It seems the Obama Administration lives by that motto. Using the California Aliso Canyon methane leak crisis, the Obama Administration has convened an alphabet soup of federal agencies to put natural gas storage facilities–all of them, nationwide–through a new anal exam. You may recall a natural gas storage leak occurred in southern Cali that went on for months (see Cali Crisis Being Used to Promote Ban on NatGas Storage). In the wake of that crisis, using it as an excuse, the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) launched a new Interagency Task Force on Natural Gas Storage Safety. The purpose of the group will be to study the Aliso Canyon crisis as well as hold workshops and “encourage” best practices with regard to natgas storage. Translation: new regulations will come along from the EPA and other super-aggressive federal agencies to further regulate the oil and gas industry–something the U.S. Constitution leaves up to the individual states…
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Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Lycoming County | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Regulation

PA DEP’s $8.9M Methane Migration Fine Appealed by Range Resources
April 4, 2016April 4, 2016

Last June the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) sent Range Resource a notice they planned to fine the company a whopping $8.9 million for methane migration into water wells and a nearby stream in Lycoming County, PA (see PA DEP Slaps Range with Record $8.9M Fine for Methane Migration). The DEP said the Range well, drilled in 2011, had been leaking methane since at least 2013 (improperly cemented well casing) and the methane had “contaminated the groundwater-fed wells of private water supplies, and a nearby stream.” But the DEP never actually sent a bill for the fine to Range. Why? Because Range immediately appealed the DEP’s initial notice to the PA Environmental Hearing Board. It now appears the appeal process will drag on at least until the dog days of summer–in July…
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Energy Services | Fairmount Santrol | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Sand/Proppant | Statewide OH

SEC Investigates OH Frac Sand Company for Allegedly Paying Bribes
April 1, 2016April 1, 2016

One of the largest frac sand providers for shale drillers in the U.S. is Fairmount Santrol. Based in Ohio, Fairmount sells proppants (sand and other substances used in oil and gas drilling) around the world. Apparently Fairmount’s dealings in another country is what has landed them in hot water with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is investigating Fairmount under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The company is accused of paying bribes to foreign officials for help in getting business. We’re not excusing such behavior, but come on, really? You don’t think such things don’t go on a million times a day in every industry from oil & gas to dog food?? Sounds more like a fossil fuel industry witch hunt to us than a legitimate investigation…
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Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Ohio | Regulation | Statewide OH

Cheap NatGas Blamed for Higher Electric Rates Coming in Ohio
April 1, 2016April 1, 2016

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) approved a plan yesterday that is deeply complex and has us scratching our heads. From the press accounts we’ve read, we would summarize like this: The plan allows American Electric Power Co. and FirstEnergy Corp. to operate coal plants and a nuclear plant that currently (and for the foreseeable future) are uneconomical. The electricity produced by the plants can’t compete with electricity being produced by new natural gas-powered electric plants. But PUCO believes it is in the public interest to keep the old coal/nuclear plants running–so electric resellers will be forced to buy from the old plants at a high rate, and sell that electricity on the open market at a lower rate–and ratepayers (Ohioans) will pick up the difference in the price. Ohioans will subsidize the old plants. Because it’s in the public interest. Somehow. Even though the average Ohioan will pay $100-$130 more for the same electricity. Yes, it’s far more complex than that–there are provisions for more renewable energy sources, etc. baked into the plan. But what it boils down to is subsidizing old forms of energy that can’t compete with natgas…
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Antero Resources | Doddridge County | Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Pleasants County | Regulation | Ritchie County | Tyler County | West Virginia

WV DEP Fines Antero Resources $93K for “Pollution” of Streams
March 31, 2016March 31, 2016

The West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection has gotten a signed consent order from Antero Resources assessing a fine of $93,000 on the company for “pollution” of waterways in several WV counties related to installing pipelines. So says a single Associated Press article. We can find nothing about this story from another other news source than the AP. Not on the WV DEP website. Not on Antero’s website. We scoured the web. We scoured our own MDN archives. Nada. Just a single AP story currently running in dozens of newspapers and in other media outlets/websites across the country. Here is the entire, very brief AP story with sparse details…
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Air Quality | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | NiSource | Regulation | UGI Energy Services

Dominion & NiSource Bow Down to Lord Obama, Worship the EPA
March 31, 2016March 31, 2016

Yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the Natural Gas STAR Methane Challenge Program at the Global Methane Forum held in Washington, DC. The Methane Challenge is a “voluntary” program for obsequious companies to pretend they’re concerned about so-called fugitive methane escaping into the atmosphere and toasting Mom Earth. Silly, we know–but this is how some billion dollar companies gain favors from the political establishment–and improve their evil fossil fuel image with the nutjobs who believe in this stuff. Tragically, several Marcellus midstream companies, including Dominion, NiSource and UGI signed on to this flummery. There are 41 such companies from across the country who have signed on to the Methane Challenge (we list them all below). Prediction: It won’t be long before this “voluntary” program becomes involuntary–with the jackboots of the EPA on the necks of all oil and gas companies to get them to comply with the unrealistic standards in the program…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide NY

NY Comptroller Attacks Natural Gas Pipelines with Safety “Audit”
March 30, 2016March 30, 2016

New York State’s Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, is a hard-left Democrat who has repeatedly targeted the fossil fuel industry in the Empire State–and beyond. As we’ve previously observed, DiNapoli is an anti-drilling bully (see our extensive list of MDN articles on DiNapoli’s attacks here). His latest attempt to smear the fossil fuel industry is to attack pipeline infrastructure. His office conducted an “audit” of pipeline safety from 1995 through 2014 (full copy below) and has supposedly found 194 pipeline “incidents” resulting in 23 fatalities, 123 injuries and $77 million in property damage. The aim, of course, is to imply pipelines are unsafe. There is no context in DiNapoli’s report. For example, during the same period, how many bridges have had “incidents” and how many deaths have there been from bridge accidents? During the same period how many railroad “incidents” have there been and how many deaths? When you stack up pipelines against any other form of transportation, pipelines are the safest mode of transport by far–it’s not even close. But you wouldn’t know that from DiNapoli’s slanted report…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | New York | Regulation | Statewide NY

Climate Change Hucksters, Incl. NY AG & Al Gore, Threaten O&G
March 30, 2016March 31, 2016

A small group of rabidly partisan Democrats who have drunk deeply from global warming Kool Aid–including New York’s corrupt Attorney General Eric Schniederman and global warming huckster Al Gore–gathered yesterday in New York to declare they are ready to litigate from sunup to sundown to ensure Dictator in Chief Obama’s Clean Power Plan (currently being challenged in court) is implemented–both now and by the next El Presidente. It is, of course, a sham. They don’t really believe in global warming–most of them anyway. They’re not that stupid (although Al Gore may be). They want total control over the source of energy you use–because it personally empowers them (in the case of New York Attorney General Schneiderman) and enriches them (in the case of Al Gore who buys and sells energy credits). It’s corruption at the highest levels…
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CNG/LNG | Exporting | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation

LNGL Applies to Build Pipeline to Bear Head LNG Export Facility
March 30, 2016June 16, 2016

Yesterday MDN told you that Bear Head LNG in Nova Scotia, Canada continues to make progress toward opening an LNG export facility that will export U.S. Marcellus and Utica Shale gas (see Bear Head LNG Facility Buys More Land, Opens Halifax Office). The very next day (today!) the parent company of Bear Head, LNG Limited (from Australia) issued another announcement to say they’ve registered for an environmental assessment for a pipeline they want to build–the Bear Paw Pipeline. It is the first (and perhaps most important) step in getting a new 39-mile pipeline built that will run from the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline to the new Bear Head LNG facility. Yes it’s a story about Canada, but it’s mostly a story about the Marcellus and Utica…
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Coterra Energy (Cabot O&G) | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide NY | Williams

Constitution Pipeline Reps Met with Cuomo Aide – April Deadline
March 29, 2016March 29, 2016

The Constitution Pipeline is a badly needed natural gas pipeline that would run ~125 miles from the gas fields of Susquehanna County, PA up into New York–all the way to Schoharie County, NY–where it would intersect with the Iroquois Pipeline and the Tennessee Gas Pipeline. The $683 million project would pump 650 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of PA shale gas to markets throughout the northeast and potentially into New England. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the project in 2014. Pennsylvania cleared the way for the pipeline in 2015. New York is holding it up–the tail wagging the dog–by not issuing stream and swamp crossing permits. We have repeatedly called on Williams, the main sponsor of the project, to take New York to court to strip them of their right to have any say in the matter since Cuomo is intentionally stopping the project for political reasons (see Time to Force NY DEC to Issue Permit for Constitution Pipeline). We’re just now hearing that representatives from the Constitution met with a top Cuomo aide in February to answer questions. The clock is ticking and Cuomo is almost out of time. New York has until April 29 to issue the permits or the application made to the state one year ago will expire. Perhaps that will be the triggering event for a massive lawsuit against the state…
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Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Sand/Proppant

OSHA Publishes New Silica Dust Rule, O&G Must Comply by 2018
March 29, 2016March 29, 2016

Last December MDN warned you that the Obama Administration’s latest attempt to regulate the oil and gas industry was coming from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)–via new silica dust regulations (see New Dust Regulation Latest Obama Attempt to Regulate O&G). As predicted, last week OSHA published their new rules (full copy below). We certainly have nothing against being safe and guarding the safety of workers. Silica dust is nasty stuff–effectively like asbestos particles. But once again the Obamadroids have taken a serious issue and have gone to extremes. The “good news” if there is any, is that the new rules don’t take effect for the oil and gas industry for two years…
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Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA Conventional Drillers File Lawsuit to Stop New DEP Regulations
March 28, 2016March 28, 2016

Pennsylvania’s small, conventional oil and gas drillers have had enough of Gov. Tom Wolf and his Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, John Quigley. Last week a trade association representing many of PA’s small, independent oil and gas drillers–the Pennsylvania Independent Petroleum Producers Association (PIPP)–filed a lawsuit against implementation of new rules and changes to existing rules known as Chapters 78 & 78a (see PA DEP Issues “Final” New Drilling Regulations; Industry Pushback and PA DEP On Course to Jam New Regulations Down Drillers’ Throats). PIPP objects to conventional drillers being subjected to many of the same rules as unconventional (shale) drillers. PIPP says the two types of drilling are apples and oranges and to make small drillers jump through the same hoops as big shale drillers will literally eliminate small drillers from the Keystone State–making it unprofitable to continue drilling. So PIPP, on behalf of those drillers, sued to stop the new regulations…
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Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | New York | Pipelines | Regulation | Spectra Energy | Statewide NY

FERC Denies NY Request to Stop Work on Pipeline Near Nuke Plant
March 28, 2016March 28, 2016

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has just delivered a blistering slap across the face of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. You may recall in early March Cuomo asked FERC to stop Spectra Energy’s work on their Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline project, an $876 million expansion of the existing Algonquin pipeline system that will carry 342 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to New England states that badly need the gas. Cuomo wanted the work stopped because the pipeline will run close to a nuclear plant (see Gov. Cuomo Asks FERC to Halt Algonquin Pipeline Near Nuke Plant). FERC has just said “nope” to Cuomo’s request. The work to build the pipeline continues…
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Energy Companies | Industrywide Issues | Landfills | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Regulation | Statewide PA

PA DEP Won’t Renew Permits that Allow Drill Cuttings to be Reused
March 28, 2016March 28, 2016

A few years ago (not sure exactly when) three companies were issued permits by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to reuse drill cuttings–leftover rock and dirt that come out of a borehole–on construction sites. The three companies were issued the permits on an experimental basis. The permits will expire March 1, 2017. Even though DEP officials openly state, on the record, that “drill cuttings aren’t dangerous,” the DEP has indicated they will not renew the permits after they expire. However, the DEP appears to leave the door open to issuing more permits in the future, once they make a final determination after reviewing the results from these three companies. Who are the companies that were issued permits?…
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