WV PSC Approves Massive 2,060 MW Gas-Fired Plant for Doddridge Co.
In September 2022, Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) announced that it had selected West Virginia for a 1,800-megawatt (later upgraded to 2,060 MW), combined-cycle natural gas power station that also uses carbon capture and storage (see CPV Announces Plans for Massive $3 Billion, 1,800 MW Gas-Fired Plant in WV). At that time, CPV was not prepared to announce where the massive new power plant would be built — but later confirmed that the project, called the Shay Energy Center, would be located in Doddridge County (see CPV Confirms Doddridge County, WV Location for Gas-Fired Plant). In January of this year, we questioned why there has been no word on the status of this important project (see WV Still Waiting to Build State’s First Big Gas-Fired Power Plant). We are delighted to report the WV Public Service Commission (PSC) approved the Shay Energy Center on Monday. Let the bulldozers start!
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Chesapeake Energy issued its first quarter 2024 update yesterday. The ongoing low price of natural gas and Chesapeake’s previously announced curtailment of ~25% of its production caused the company to miss Wall Street estimates (of $87 million) for first-quarter profit. Chessy made $26 million in net income during 1Q24 versus making $1.4 billion in 1Q23. Ouch. Chesapeake’s net production in the first quarter was approximately 3.20 Bcfe/d (100% natural gas), utilizing an average of nine rigs to drill 28 wells and place 29 wells on production while building an inventory of 24 drilled but uncompleted (DUCs) wells and 22 deferred turn in lines (TILs).
The great state of Pennsylvania has an Independent Fiscal Office (IFO), created by Act 120 of 2010 and Act 100 of 2016. The IFO analyzes fiscal proposals made by state agencies and is nonpartisan in its analyses. PA State Senator Gene Yaw, from Lycoming County (and Chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources & Energy Committee), introduced a bill last June to create an Independent Energy Office (IEO) modeled along the same lines as the IFO (see 
UGI, a diversified energy company with midstream (pipeline) operations in the Marcellus and one of PA’s largest utility companies, hinted last summer that it was looking to sell or spin off its propane subsidiary into a new company (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Washington County Chamber relocates to The HQ at CNX; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Tellurian sends production workers home amid sale talks; NATIONAL: US LNG exports fall in April for fourth straight month; How climate change activists undermine the energy transition; U.S. announces $392M grants to modernize aging natgas pipes; INTERNATIONAL: WoodMac descends into global warming hysteria; A shockingly inept report from the IEA on battery storage.
Equitrans Midstream, builder of the mighty Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), issued its first quarter 2024 update yesterday. The update came without the typical conference call for analysts, given the impending merger with (takeover by) EQT Corporation. Picking through the prepared updates and filings with the SEC, we discovered some useful bits of news. First and foremost, Equitrans expects to begin operations on MVP on May 31st, provided all necessary directives are issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). MVP’s cost went up yet again, from $7.6 billion, estimated earlier this year, to now approximately $7.85 billion. However, MVP wasn’t the only big news coming from the update.
In late 2015, MPLX (i.e., Marathon Petroleum) bought out and merged in the Utica Shale’s premier midstream company, MarkWest Energy, for $15 billion (see 
Private companies create jobs and economic stimulus, not “the government,” as the left convinces you. Companies, especially manufacturing companies, locate where there is cheap energy. In Pennsylvania, there is abundant cheap (and CLEAN) energy from Marcellus gas in the northeastern part of the state. And indeed, that is exactly what is happening. Businesses are locating in what locals call the “Inland Triangle” of PA — seven counties with numerous major interstate highways running through them in the heart of the Marcellus.
When the Bidenistas announced a $750 million “investment” of taxpayer money would flow to the Philadelphia region (actually Delaware and New Jersey, and a little bit of Philly) for a “green” hydrogen hub, wackadoodle antis pitched a fit (see 
Greg Wrightstone, a Pennsylvania native, is a geologist, the executive director of the CO2 Coalition, and an author. Wrightstone recently published an article detailing how Pennsylvania’s environment is not in the state of crisis that alarmists say it is. He implores Gov. Josh Shapiro to get his head out of his…mental morass…and stop worrying about mythical catastrophic global warming. Overall, the weather has been getting better and agricultural production is up in Pennsylvania. Shapiro needs to drop the doom and gloom routine.
First, the radicals of the Biden administration came for your natural gas stoves (see 
A week (nay, a day!) doesn’t go by that the Biden administration and one of the many executive agencies it oversees (EPA, DOE, PHMSA, DOT, FERC, etc.) issues a new “environmental” regulation. As we write about in a companion story today, just yesterday, the Bidenistas of the Dept. of Energy released a new final regulation yesterday controlling your what type of water heater you can buy, hoping to force you to buy a heat pump water heater (see Bidenistas Regulate Gas Stoves Furnaces, and Now, Water Heaters). Why the sudden flurry of new regulations coming from the alphabet soup of federal agencies? Because, says a card-carrying leftist, to “safeguard” environmental policies against an eventual Trump takeover next year.
Permitting in Pennsylvania, especially permits overseen by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), has been a hot mess for years. A Chapter 102 Erosion and Sedimentation permit sometimes takes two, three, or even six to eight months for approval — instead of the law-mandated 14 days. It got so bad that in the fall of 2019, PA State Sen. Gene Yaw introduced a bill to allow third-party reviews of these permits in an attempt to speed it up (see