CNG/LNG | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Regulation | Statewide VA | Virginia
Virginia SCC Approves Dominion LNG Storage Facility in Greensville
In November 2023, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) agreed with a petition from Dominion Energy subsidiary Virginia Electric and Power Company that requested a planned LNG production, storage, and regasification facility in Greensville County, VA, should be exempt from FERC jurisdiction under section 7 of the Natural Gas Act (see Dominion LNG Storage for Va. Power Plant Exempt from FERC Regs). The FERC decision cleared the way for the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) to make a final decision on whether or not the project should get built. The SCC recently approved the project. Read More “Virginia SCC Approves Dominion LNG Storage Facility in Greensville”
This is one of those “man bites dog” stories. It wouldn’t be news if a Virginia House of Delegates member who is Republican proposed allocating $15 million of taxpayer money to provide “road extension, grading, and natural gas pipeline extension” for a natural gas power plant and potential data center in Pulaski County, in rural Southwest Virginia. But it definitely IS news when a Democrat proposes it! 
Dominion Energy plans to build small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see 
Diversified Energy, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (also assets in other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. Earlier today, the company announced another deal to buy more assets in the Appalachian region. 
The dataheads (sounds better than geeks or eggheads) at the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an interesting analysis on Friday detailing which states export the most and import the most electricity. In 2023, Pennsylvania exported 83.4 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity to other states in the PJM electric grid. That’s roughly 26% of all the electric power the Keystone State produced. Meanwhile, for the first time in years (maybe in forever?) Virginia became the #1 state importing electricity, importing 50.1 million MWh. Virginia is also in PJM, so it’s not a stretch to suggest Pennsylvania’s electric exports went (largely) to Virginia. 
In 2021, as he was running for Governor in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin pledged that if he won, he would remove the state from the onerous carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired power plants called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Youngkin kept his promise, although it took longer than he had hoped. Unfortunately, the left-leaning (very partisan) Association of Energy Conservation Professionals sued. The judge in the case just ruled the way Youngkin removed the state from RGGI was unlawful and that the state must (for now) remain in the high-tax, onerous organization. 
Antis did their best, but their best wasn’t good enough. Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) victoriously began to flow up to 2 Bcf/d of Marcellus/Utica molecules in June (see 
Just two days ago, MDN brought you a story about a developing issue of who, ultimately, should pay to build out new electricity sources for data centers (and AI) that increasingly use huge amounts of power (see 
Add Virginia to the list of states refusing to invest in companies and investment funds that push so-called ESG investing. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares issued an official Attorney General’s Opinion on the permissibility of basing Virginia Retirement System (VRS) investment decisions on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria. The Opinion confirms that the VRS Board of Trustees must prioritize financial returns and the best interests of beneficiaries above ESG policies when making investment decisions. Virginia joins a growing list of states, including West Virginia, Texas, and Tennessee that eschews investing in funds and companies that advocate anti-fossil fuel positions.
On Friday, June 14, the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, announced the pipeline had, after a decade of planning and building, finally begun to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules (see 
The future is much brighter for natural gas producers in West Virginia because of the completion and operation of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which stretches from Wetzel County, WV, in northern West Virginia, to Pittsylvania County, VA, in southern Virginia. In a recent appearance on the MetroNews Talkline radio program in WV, Marcellus Shale Coalition president Dave Callahan said completing and now using MVP “checks a lot of boxes” for the M-U industry. He explains which boxes in his talk…
On Friday, Equitrans Midstream, the builder and majority owner of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, announced the pipeline has, after a decade of planning and building, finally begun to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules. Who is buying those molecules? We know of at least one company. In a separate announcement, Roanoke Gas Company (a large local utility) said it had begun to purchase M-U molecules from MVP on Friday. Roanoke Gas said for the first time since 1965, the Roanoke Valley now has access to a new interstate natural gas pipeline via two interconnections Roanoke Gas has with MVP.
Yesterday, MDN brought you the great news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had given permission to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) late Tuesday to begin service along the 303-mile natural gas pipeline from northern West Virginia to southern Virginia (see 
Wonder of wonders. Yesterday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted its permission for the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to begin flowing natural gas. YES!!!! We are elated! Finally, nine years after MVP filed for permission to build, the pipeline is now (or soon will be) flowing Marcellus/Utica gas to the Southern U.S. This is a great day for all of the Marcellus/Utica.