Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Greene County (PA) | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Pipelines | Regulation | Washington County | Westmoreland County
PA DEP Shakes Down Equitrans $428K for Pipe Building Violations
Equitrans Midstream, which used to be part of EQT as EQT Midstream, is still EQT’s main squeeze when it comes to gathering pipelines connected to its wells. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced yesterday it has fined Equitrans $427,650 for “slips, stabilization, and erosion and sedimentation violations at pipeline sites in Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties.”
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Last week Ohio finally broke the drought of not issuing permits for new shale wells in the Buckeye State. Finally! Last week Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits for wells on three well pads. Ohio issued 4 new permits for wells on two well pads. And West Virginia issued 1 new permit.
Most political analysts believe this year’s presidential election may come down to one or two states–namely Pennsylvania and Ohio. If Biden can win in those two states, he stands a good chance of winning the election (an absolute nightmare!). But here’s what you don’t hear from mainstream media: the election may well turn on the issue of shale fracking. Counties in PA and OH, like Washington County in southwestern PA, are likely where the race will be won or lost. It’s not looking good for old ban-fracking Joe.
A few weeks ago MDN told you about Peregrine Energy Partners buying royalty payment rights from landowners in Doddridge County, WV (see 
CBS News, an ultra-biased mainstream media news outlet that we don’t typically watch or read, is publishing a series of articles on the effects of COVID-19–how it has changed the lives of average Americans. In a somewhat unusual twist, CBS focused on landowners in southwestern Pennsylvania who leased property for shale drilling. How has COVID impacted them? CBS interviewed several landowners who have seen their royalties drop like a rock over the last year–down some 75% from just a year ago. While CBS doesn’t say COVID is responsible for all of that drop, they do theorize it has contributed. Has it? Or is something else responsible for the huge drop in royalties?
Most of the layoffs during this particularly brutal (and historic) downturn in the oil and gas market have taken place in oilfield services companies like Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Sclumberger. But exploration & production companies are not immune. Chevron is laying off workers in their Marcellus/Utica operation because the company is selling all of its Appalachian assets and leaving the region (see 
On Friday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced it has fined CNX Resources and its subsidiary CNX Midstream $310,000 for two incidents in which 65 barrels (2,730 gallons) of non-toxic brine (salty water) leaked into the ground and 43 gallons of non-toxic drilling mud leaked into a creek. The DEP says CNX did “not adequately maintain erosion and sedimentation best management practices.”
This absolutely must stop. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro is completely out of control and abusing his power as AG. He has charged a third Marcellus/Utica company, National Fuel Gas Company, with crimes because of a few minor cases of erosion runoff during the installation of a pipeline in Washington County, PA. Since when is erosion a CRIME?
The Washington & Jefferson College Center for Energy Policy and Management (Washington, PA) is hosting a free webinar series on “
After spending years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to investigate Range Resources over a simple regulatory matter settled years ago by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, PA’s leftist Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, announced on Friday he had finally bullied Range into pleading “no contest” to so-called environmental crimes (misdemeanors), forcing the company to pay $50,000 in fines and $100,000 to Shapiro’s favorite Big Green charities. Does that sound like a success to you? Shapiro spent multiple hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to force the company to pay $150K. Sounds like Shapiro is The Biggest Loser to us.
Peregrine Energy Partners, headquartered in Dallas, Texas, continues a program to buy royalty rights in the Marcellus/Utica. In January 2019 we told you about Peregrine’s purchase of rights from undisclosed sellers in southwest PA (see 
This is getting ridiculous. Does anyone really believe that a single pipeline project already built and now getting a redo could possibly have racked up 680 “violations” during construction work over the past five months? We certainly don’t believe it. Yet that’s what the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) alleges. Energy Transfer (ET), the builder and fixer of Revolution, has their own allegation: The DEP itself is “not in compliance with its own guidelines.” Who inspects the inspectors for compliance?
Energy Transfer’s Revolution Pipeline runs through Bulter, Beaver, Allegheny, and Washington counties in southwest PA. The 24-inch gathering pipeline shifted and exploded in September 2018, just as it was entering service (see