WV DEP Grants Mountain Valley Pipeline Water Crossing Permit
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project, which filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2015, is being built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners. The project has faced stiff opposition from landowners in both West Virginia and Virginia. Although the project is not yet fully approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the project did get a favorable Draft Environmental Impact Statement from FERC last September (see FERC Gives WV to VA Mountain Valley Pipeline Provisional Thumbs Up). MVP had wanted a final Environmental Impact Statement by March 10th, but that didn’t happen. They’re still waiting. But there is a bit of good news for MVP: the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection yesterday issued a State 401 Water Quality Certification for the MVP project. However, there are still a couple of other WV permits under review, so MVP has not yet gotten the all clear signal in the Mountain State just yet…
Read More “WV DEP Grants Mountain Valley Pipeline Water Crossing Permit”
The West Virginia Oil & Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) is pushing hard to get legislation passed that we call “forced pooling lite”–WV Senate Bill 576 which addresses the issues of co-tenancy and joint development (see 
We spotted an article on The Motley Fool website by one of our favorite authors, Matt DiLallo. The article shines a light on the states that produce the most shale oil. Surprisingly (for us), the Marcellus/Utica was in the list. Appreciable amounts of shale oil are coming from Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, from both the Marcellus and Utica formations. Of course the amount produced in our neighborhood pales in comparison to the enormous amounts of oil coming from the Texas Permian and North Dakota Bakken. But hey, the fact that we even show up in such a list is kind of exciting…
The West Virginia Oil & Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) has just raised the stakes significantly in a bid to pass new “forced pooling lite” legislation. In the past six years, the oil and gas industry in WV has pushed for a forced pooling law five times. It’s failed every time. So this year the industry, represented by WVONGA, said it would not push forced pooling but instead would try to get a bill passed to address two of the issues that were previously part of a larger forced pooling bill–something called co-tenancy and joint development (see 
On Monday, MDN wrote about a new bill introduced in the West Virginia legislature that would exempt storage tanks used by the oil and gas industry from a 2014 law passed following a coal industry storage tank failure that temporarily polluted the drinking water for 300,000 WV residents (see 
Yesterday MDN reported on a new West Virginia bill (Senate Bill 576) that aims to bring both the drilling industry and rights owners together to support co-tenancy and joint development–which are stripped down pieces of previous forced pooling bills that failed in the past (see 
As MDN previously reported, perhaps the biggest energy-related issue for this year’s session of the West Virginia 60-day legislative session will not be a bill on forced pooling. Instead, the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) is pushing a legislation on co-tenancy and joint development (see 
Last Friday Bidell Gas Compression, a subsidiary of Canadian company Total Energy Services, announced it will establish its U.S. headquarters in Weirton (Hancock County), WV–in the northern panhandle of WV. According to their website, Biddel “is a leading supplier of reciprocating and rotary screw natural gas compressors from 20 to 8,000 brake horsepower.” That is, they manufacture and sell pipeline compressors. The site they chose includes a 100,000 square-foot building, part of the old ArcelorMittal machine shop operation. The investment will create 130 new jobs and spur new growth in other area businesses…
Three years ago in the closing hours of the 2014 legislative session, WV legislature passed SB373, the “storage tank” bill (see 
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The project, which filed an official application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in October 2015, is being built by EQT, NextEra Energy and several other partners. The project has faced stiff opposition from landowners in West Virginia (see 
The Baker Hughes rig count in the U.S. continued to be on fire in February. Whoops! Poor choice of words. The rig count continued its rocket ride. In January the average number of U.S. rigs was 683. In February, the count zoomed to 744, up 61 rigs in just a month. Each active rig translates into hundreds of jobs, both directly working at the rig and indirectly in services delivered to the rig and its workers. It also means more landowners will soon have royalty payments heading in their direction. When rigs are active, life is good. What about rig counts in the Marcellus/Utica? Total rig count went up another 3 rigs. Two of the rigs were added in WV (now 10), and one in PA (now 34). OH’s rig count remained the same (20 rigs) in February as January. Just 3 added rigs out of 61 means other shale plays (primarily the Permian and other oil plays) are where most of the rig action is happening. Here’s the full set of numbers, along with a pretty MDN chart showing the last 12 months of rig counts in the Marcellus/Utica…
Statoil, based in Norway, is a big player in the West Virginia Marcellus Shale. Statoil paid property taxes to Brooke, Marshall, Ohio and Wetzel counties (all in WV) in 2015 and later found, during an audit/review, that they had overpaid those counties. They overpaid Brooke by $1.8 million, Ohio by $2.9 million, Wetzel by $1.6 million and Marshall by $342,000 (see 
Here’s an interesting story. A religious commune of Hare Krishnas in Marshall County, WV steadfastly refused to sign an easement with Rover Pipeline to allow the pipeline across ~3,000 feet of commune-owned property. Rover had offered the Krishnas $7,000 for the easement, but no dice. You may recall that the Krishnas have no problem accepting oil and gas money, and have done so by leasing their land for shale drilling–even though the official view of the Krishnas is that “gas drilling is exploitative, that it is unsustainable and ‘contributes to the culture of death and toxicity’” (see 
The legislative session for West Virginia is in full swing–a session that lasts for 60 non-contiguous days at the beginning of each year. This year’s session opened on Jan. 11 and will conclude on Apr. 8th. As MDN previously reported, perhaps the biggest energy-related issue for this year’s session will NOT be (as it has in five previous sessions) a bill on forced pooling. Instead, the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) is pushing a legislation on co-tenancy and joint development (see 
West Virginia University (WVU) has joined a national effort to “turn natural gas into valuable products and do it at the well.” There are many locations in the Marcellus (and Utica) where pipelines don’t yet connect. Wells drilled but not hooked up to production. WVU has joined the newest branch of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Network of Manufacturing Institutes. Called Rapid Advancement in Process Intensification Deployment institute, or RAPID, the institute “will focus on using advanced manufacturing to develop breakthrough technologies to boost the productivity and efficiency of some of industrial processes by 20 percent in the next five years.” That is, they plan to design modular reactors–think of them as teeny tiny crackers–that can be carted around well site to well site, converting methane, ethane and other hydrocarbons into new chemical products. It’s a very exciting concept. WV in particular has a lot of hilly terrain that makes installing pipelines difficult. This is a potential solution to that problem…