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Clock Ticking to Pass Manchin’s Deal with Devil to Complete MVP
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, traded away the future of the country by supporting the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (the remnants of the Green New Deal) in return for finishing the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline along with a few other concessions for the oil and gas industry (see Joe Manchin Cuts MVP “Deal” in Return for Selling Out Country). Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised a vote on a “permitting reform” bill for Manchin in return for his IRA sellout. The permitting reform measure is supposed to get voted on by the end of September. Will it?
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Three LNG export projects in the U.S. are now under (or are about to begin) construction, including Golden Pass LNG, Plaquemines LNG, and Corpus Christi Stage III. According to a chart provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), when those three new facilities come online by early 2026, the U.S. will be exporting some 20 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day) of American gas molecules. Cool!
Bridger Photonics, Inc. is headquartered in Montana. Bridger developed a methane detection technology that is used by at least two companies with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica. Bridger recently announced it had received a $55 million investment from Beaverhead Partners LLC, a Montana-based syndicate. The money will help the company to expand its reach.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio Dem Ryan touts benefits of natural gas during Bellaire visit; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Likelihood of rotating outages in California significantly increased; NATIONAL: USA oilfield services employment rises in August; Ex-ExxonMobil rep gets API upstream VP role; Biden climate adviser Gina McCarthy leaving White House; INTERNATIONAL: OEUK hopes new PM will lead nation towards energy security; Gazprom starts producing LNG at plant near Nord Stream pipeline.
In June, MDN brought you the news that Tug Hill was shopping its THQ Appalachia division (Tug Hill’s West Virginia assets) for $5 billion (see 
Last week MDN told you that three radical environmental groups challenging an air permit issued by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the Renovo Energy Center, a Marcellus-fired power plant in Clinton County, PA, won a partial summary judgment lowering the amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) the new plant can emit (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently held two public hearings about a plan by the Westmoreland Sanitary Landfill in Westmoreland County, PA (southwestern corner of the state, near Pittsburgh) to build a gas-fired leachate evaporator. Leftist anti-drillers showed up to bash the proposal citing the landfill accepts shale waste, claiming the leachate is radioactive because of the shale waste and will contaminate everything if it’s burned. DEP plans to approve the temporary operation of an evaporator for 180 days to process 45,000 gallons of leachate per day.
The left finds the most devious ways to sink their claws into the fabric of American society and force it to conform to their twisted worldview–like using an obscure regulation promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In February 2022, the EPA announced a “minor” change to a regulation governing gas-fired turbines under the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), a framework in place since 2004. At first glance, the EPA’s announcement seems to be a minor update to a highly technical rule. However, a careful examination of the list of impacted units reveals that the change in enforcement framework could have significant impacts on both supply and demand dynamics in natural gas markets in the U.S. and beyond, affecting LNG exports, gas-fired power plants, and gas transmission and processing infrastructure (pipelines) in particular.
It’s already that time of year again! 
Every now and again, we come across someone who is willing to risk their career by openly admitting the truth. This time that brave soul is Russell Johns, the George E. Trimble Chair in Energy and Mineral Sciences at the John and Willie Leone Family Department of Energy and Mineral Engineering at Penn State University. In a letter to the editor published in the student-run Penn State Daily Collegian, Johns points out that when considering the intense mining operations needed to harvest materials used in solar and wind technology, and the shipping associated with those materials, etc., solar and wind actually have a *bigger* carbon dioxide footprint than does using natural gas. In other words, natural gas is greener than wind and solar!
While this is technically not a Marcellus/Utica story, it does affect our region (as well as all regions) due to the enormity of how it impacts the overall natural gas market. Russia, using the flimsy excuse that they found some trouble with a turbine during maintenance, has decided to keep the Nord Stream 1 pipeline closed down indefinitely after what was supposed to be a three-day outage to do routine maintenance. The outage denies Europe natural gas a critical time during which they are attempting to fill up storage ahead of the winter months. This is a transparent play by Vladimir Putin, who pulls all the strings in Russia, to squeeze Europe and get it to cave to his will and accept his invasion of Ukraine (i.e. remove all sanctions).
In a small but important victory against Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s effort to force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme, the PA Supreme Court on Wednesday opted not to overturn a Commonwealth Court decision that blocks the state from participating in RGGI until several lawsuits play out. The state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), under Wolf’s thumb, argued the state should be allowed to enforce the new tax in advance of a resolution to the lawsuits. Nope. Not gonna happen. It now appears it will be early next year before RGGI can go into effect–if ever.
The mighty Shell ethane cracker complex in Monaca (Beaver County), PA, is due to come online any day now. In fact, with such a large and complex facility, it is already “coming online” gradually and has been since August (see