WVDEP Reverses, Waives Water Permit for Mountain Valley Pipeline
Hold on or you might get whiplash. In March, the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) issued a federal water crossing permit for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP)–a $3.5 billion, 301-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA (see WV DEP Grants Mountain Valley Pipeline Water Crossing Permit). In June, a group of profoundly radical “environmental” organizations (Sierra Club, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Indian Creek Watershed Association, Appalachian Voices and Chesapeake Climate Action Network) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit against the WVDEP for doing their job issuing the permit (see Radicals File Lawsuit Against WV DEP for Approving MV Pipeline). Because of the pressure of that lawsuit, the WVDEP caved and reversed their decision in September, rescinding (called “vacating”) the permit for MVP (see Trouble for Mountain Valley Pipe: WV DEP Withdraws Water Permit). The WVDEP said they will “re-evaluate the complete application to determine whether the state’s certification is in compliance with Section 401 of the federal Clean Water Act.” Just two weeks ago the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld WVDEP’s decision and granted the agency’s motion to invalidate the previous certificate they granted the project (see Court Backs WVDEP Move to Cancel Permits for Mountain Valley Pipe). Yesterday, in yet another 180 degree about face, WVDEP announced it has “lifted the suspension” of the MVP stormwater permit–and that the agency has decided to waive the permit, MVP has no need to get it before beginning construction. It appears newly-minted Gov. Jim Justice, still in his first year, put a branding iron to the backside of WVDEP. Hold on to your cowboy hat! MVP is on the way to getting built in the Mountain State…
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In something of a good omen ahead of a vote on Nov. 9 by shareholders of EQT and Rice Energy to approve a merger, one of two EQT-shareholding corporate raiders, D.E. Shaw, supports the merger. In point of fact, Shaw has not opposed the merger since it was announced in June. Shaw’s “issue” has been that the merged EQT/Rice should immediately split itself in two–into upstream (drilling) and midstream (pipelines). Shaw’s pressure seems to be one of the (main?) reasons why EQT moved up the timing to consider such a split (see 
UGI is a major utility company in Pennsylvania, providing natural gas and electric service to 700,000 Pennsylvania residents across the state. UGI, via its Energy Services subsidiary, operates natural gas storage facilities, compressor stations, LNG plants and local pipeline gathering systems. UGI operates several gathering systems in northeastern PA. Yesterday the company announced is has purchased an existing gathering system from Rockdale Marcellus for an undisclosed sum. The Rockdale gathering system consists of 60 miles of gathering lines–along with dehydration and compression facilities–located in Tioga, Lycoming and Bradford counties in northeast PA. The system was purchased, on paper, by UGI subsidiary Texas Creek, so the gathering system has been rebranded UGI Texas Creek. MDN has a map of the new system below…
In August 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a favorable environmental assessment (EA) for three Spectra Energy projects: Access South, Adair Southwest and Lebanon Express. The three are part of an expansion of the Texas Eastern Transmission (Tetco) pipeline (see 
Let the battle begin! TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal last year to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada when/if the NEXUS and Rover pipelines get built (see 
Normally when you read about a raucous crowd at a public meeting dealing with shale gas, it’s raucous because of misbehaving antis. This time the shoe is on the other foot. Huntley & Huntley has plans to drill four shale wells in Upper Burrell Township (Westmoreland County), PA. As MDN reported in June, a landowner in Upper Burrell filed an appeal against Upper Burrell’s zoning ordinance that allows drilling in rural, agricultural districts (see 
Monroeville, PA (Allegheny County, suburb of Pittsburgh) is hostile toward the shale industry and continues to display their hostility in court. In September, Monroeville Council voted to enact a super-restrictive seismic testing ordinance (see 
Yesterday a three-judge panel from the US District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals tossed out the Sierra Club’s petitions challenging Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorization of three LNG export projects: Dominion Energy’s Cove Point LNG in Maryland, Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG in Louisiana, and Cheniere’s Corpus Christi LNG in Texas. As we said in a post on Oct. 3rd: “The Sierra Club lawsuit against all three projects challenges FERC’s approval of them, arguing the plants negatively affect the environment and will make Mom Earth sick. While no one expects these lawsuits to go anywhere, you never know, which is why it’s important to keep an eye on it” (see 
In March MDN reported on a court case decided in Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals that seems to say that at least some landmen in Ohio DO need to be licensed real estate agents, in order to get paid (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: ODNR issues 6 Utica permits last week; Anti-shale & public health conf coming in Pittsburgh; Conestoga River temporarily blocked for Atlantic Sunrise construction; Murrysville Council delays action on compressor station; global warming prof from Stanford sues others who dare to disagree with him; confirmed – global temps for both water and air continue to cool; and more!
We chalk this one up as outrageous. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just shut down further drilling for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline project at Snitz Creek in Lebanon County, PA–because of a “less than one gallon” spill of non-toxic drilling mud. Drilling mud is composed of bentonite–the same clay compound used in kitty litter, toothpaste and cosmetics. A spill of less than a gallon is NOTHING. It’s not even worth reporting. Yet Sunoco Logistics, the company drilling, was honest and reported the “inadvertent return” as it is called. And because Sunoco previously had another small spill at the same location, the DEP, bowing to pressure from radical environmental groups, has halted any further horizontal directional drilling (HDD) work at the Snitz Creek location. This is bizarre, but perhaps not unexpected. It all stems to a deal Sunoco made with the devil…
Yesterday CONSOL Energy issued its third quarter 2017 update, along with a date for when the company will split in two–a coal company and a natural gas drilling company. The date is Nov. 28th. As of that date the CONSOL Energy name will belong to the coal company, and CNX Resources will be the new name of the natgas drilling company. According to Nick DeIuliis, CEO of CONSOL today and future CEO of CNX Resources, “Going into year-end, not only will our businesses be separated, but our E&P operations will be growing substantially.” One of the ways they intend to grow is by adding a third drilling rig to the two currently operating. Right now CONSOL is operating a rig in Greene County, PA and another in Monroe County, OH. The original plan was to add a third rig in 2018, but they are “moving it forward some” and will add it this year–somewhere in southwestern PA. During 3Q17 CONSOL drilled 10 wells–six of them in the Marcellus in southwest PA, and four in the Ohio Utica. The company continues to have a flirtation with the Utica–in PA. They have a program to drill dry Utica wells in both Indiana and Greene counties. The company said they plan to bring two Utica wells online in Westmoreland County by the end of the year–close to the first Utica well they drilled two years ago. Production was up slightly in 3Q17, to 101 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe). By comparison, in 3Q16 CONSOL produced 96.4 Bcfe. Below is yesterday’s update, the current slide deck used on the analyst call, and excerpts from the analyst call…
NEXUS Pipeline has had to use the unpreferred last option and has taken landowners of 42 properties to court using eminent domain in order to secure easements so they can lay pipeline through those properties. NEXUS is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. NEXUS received final approval for the project from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in August, the first major pipeline to get approved following a newly restored quorum at FERC (see 
Our heart stopped when we saw news from Crestwood Equity (used to be called Crestwood Midstream) yesterday that the company has sold its US Salt business on the shore of Seneca Lake near Watkins Glen to Kissner Group for $225 million. We thought, “Oh no! Crestwood has finally thrown in the towel on their Seneca Lake Propane Storage project!” But alas, our fears were unfounded. Background: In 2009 Inergy filed a request to convert a depleted salt cavern along the shore of Seneca Lake (in Schuyler County, NY, near Watkins Glen) into a propane/natural gas storage facility. Inergy was later bought by and merged into Crestwood Midstream, and Crestwood Midstream later renamed itself Crestwood Equity Partners. The New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been sitting on its hands from the beginning, refusing to grant the necessary permits to allow the facility to open. Sound familiar? Same old delay and later deny strategy from our corrupt governor, Andrew Cuomo. As recently as May of this year, Crestwood remained committed to building the storage facility in depleted salt caverns originally drilled by US Salt, which is owned by Crestwood (see 