Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation | Transco | Williams
Williams’ PennEast Pipe Competitor Hits a Brick Wall in New Jersey
In March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see Williams Announces Transco Competitor to PennEast Pipe in NEPA). The project, called the Regional Energy Access expansion project, was aimed at competing with the PennEast Pipeline project by flowing gas from northeastern Pennsylvania to the Trenton, NJ area. PennEast got canceled after stiff opposition from liberal state officials in New Jersey. Williams is now facing the same opposition for its project.
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All six Big Banks (and investment firms) on the West Virginia blacklist of companies pressuring investors to avoid fossil energy companies are objecting to being included on the WV blacklist. One month ago WV State Treasurer Riley Moore sent a letter to six big banks/investment firms alerting them they are about to be added to the state’s “blacklist” for violating policies by not investing or doing business with fossil fuel companies (see 
The 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA announced in 2014 was supposed to be completed in 2018 and cost $3.5 billion. The project builder, Equitrans Midstream, now says MVP, which is 94% complete, should be done by the end of 2023 at a staggering cost of $6.6 billion. What happened in between 2014 and today is that Big Green groups, many of which use foreign funding (from countries like Russia) have repeatedly challenged the project. Complicit and colluding judges have placed roadblocks in the way, preventing MVP from finishing. Given the ongoing opposition from the radical left, MVP recently asked FERC to extend the time to complete the project until October 2026, just in case. Comments on MVP’s request to extend the deadline are due by tomorrow.
Since 2013 anti-fossil fuel zealots–people with an irrational hatred of fossil fuels–have tried to ban drilling under (not on) public parks in Allegheny County, PA (near Pittsburgh). In January of this year, County Councilor Bethany Hallam, a committed anti-fossil fuel fanatic (who herself uses fossil energy every day) introduced yet another resolution to ban fracking underneath county parks, which would potentially deny an important revenue stream to the county (see 
Last year the Bidenistas initiated a massive power grab to transfer the right of individual states to regulate local natural gas gathering pipelines to the federal government (see 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Texas wind power failing when state needs it most; NATIONAL: Biden will push for greater oil output on Mideast trip; INTERNATIONAL: Oil plummets on recession fears; EU votes to label natural gas as climate-friendly; OPEC issues first supply, demand indicators for 2023.
Ever hear the old saying, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?” That seems to be the philosophy for EQT Corporation with respect to the compensation it will receive from Equitrans Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. Newer readers may not know this, but back in 2018 EQT spun off its pipeline division into a brand new, standalone company, renamed Equitrans Midstream (see 
American Energy Partners, Inc. (AEPT), based in Allentown, PA, is a small but diversified company. They have their fingers in a number of different oil and gas pies, including subsidiaries in drilling, remediation, water, valuation services, and education. Add one more to the list: radioactive waste. AEPT recently announced it has purchased Austin Master Services, a company that services the Marcellus/Utica industry (and other industries) with radiological waste management solutions, including remediation, decontamination & decommissioning (D&D), and transport.
In June the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Environmental Quality Board (EQB) adopted an onerous new regulation that supposedly will capture every last molecule of stray methane that leaks from shale drilling operations (see 
God help you if you are a midstream company that has to wade through the mountain of federal regulations and codes generated by agencies including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and are subject to those agencies’ arbitrary decisions on what they will and won’t enforce. In what amounts to a game of Simon Says, FERC has just fined M3 Ohio Gathering, Utica East Ohio Midstream, and UEOM NGL Pipelines–all three either current or former owners of two tiny NGL pipelines that flow propane and ethane from the Scio (Ohio) fractionation plant–$30,000 for not filling out a particular form over a six-year period. Thirty grand for a paperwork violation. It is, according to lawyers who watch these things, an escalation, an “aggressive expansion of enforcement” on the part of FERC.
Not all that long ago Cabot Oil & Gas (now Coterra Energy), Southwestern Energy, BKV Corporation, and Diversified Energy were all pure play drillers focused just on the Marcellus and/or Utica Shales. Today all of them own assets in other basins in addition to the M-U. However, the very first company to sink a Marcellus well (back in 2004), Range Resources, has gone the other way. Range used to own assets outside of the M-U but has, for over two years, been a pure play driller laser-focused on only the M-U. According to CEO Jeff Ventura, Range plans to keep it that way–laser-focused focused on the M-U.
Ascent Resources, originally founded as American Energy Partners by gas legend Aubrey McClendon, is a privately-held company that focuses 100% on the Ohio Utica Shale. Ascent is Ohio’s largest natural gas producer and the 8th largest natural gas producer in the U.S. There have been plenty of rumors swirling about Ascent, one that says Gulfport Energy is interested in selling to Ascent (see