Shovels Hit Dirt: GA Power Breaks Ground on Plant Bowen Expansion
Back in March, we told you about two radical green groups — the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Sierra Club — running to court to block new gas-fired turbines at Georgia Power’s Plant Bowen in Bartow County, Georgia (see Big Green Sues to Block Clean-Burning Gas Plant in Bartow County, GA). Yesterday, July 28, the shovels went in the ground anyway. Georgia Power, joined by two senior U.S. Department of Energy officials, formally broke ground in Euharlee on a project that adds roughly 1,485 megawatts (MW) of combined-cycle natural gas generation plus a 500 MW battery storage system using Tesla Megapacks. The new units are expected to fire up in three to four years — before the end of the decade. DOE tied the project to a $26.5 billion federal loan to parent company Southern Company. Big Green showed up too, but only with a press release. Read More “Shovels Hit Dirt: GA Power Breaks Ground on Plant Bowen Expansion”
Infinity Natural Resources, the Morgantown, WV-based operator running Utica Shale acreage in eastern Ohio and stacked dry-gas Marcellus/Utica positions in southwestern Pennsylvania, put out a preliminary hedging update on July 17th, giving the market a first look at its second-quarter derivative results before full Q2 earnings land. We thought that we would take the opportunity to try and explain (decode) what all of this hedging (derivatives) stuff is about. The headline number: a net derivative gain of approximately $57.5 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2026. That figure is a combination of two very different things, and it’s worth separating them. 
Back in May we told you about FERC’s proposal to modernize its natural gas “blanket certificate” program (see 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: The Rapid announces 8 new natural gas-powered buses to launch in 2027; Cheniere gets approval to introduce natural gas into final LNG expansion plant; Filled crude pipelines could cap Permian gas growth; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas futures extend decline; Spot gas broadly lower as prices retreat across most regions; U.S. enters a new cycle of natgas power development, but execution challenges loom large; Baker Hughes posts nearly 50 percent YoY increase in orders; U.S. LNG feedgas demand continues to rise; Private equity-linked asset sales to fuel US oil M&A; INTERNATIONAL: Oil tumbles on diplomatic optimism; Iran launches surprise missile attack on U.S. forces; UAE LNG exports via Gulf press on. 
Expand Energy, the largest natural gas producer in North America and a giant in the Marcellus/Utica, announced yesterday that it has signed a definitive agreement to buy Twin Eagle Holdings for $1.25 billion in cash from private equity owner Five Point Infrastructure. Twin Eagle is not a driller. It doesn’t own a single well. It’s a physical gas marketer — a middleman that buys gas from producers, moves it through pipelines and storage, and sells it to utilities, power plants, and factories. Twin Eagle markets more than 5 Bcf/d (billion cubic feet per day), controls 44 Bcf (billion cubic feet) of storage and roughly 2 Bcf/d of firm pipeline capacity, and serves over 1,000 customers across the U.S. and Canada. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter. When it does, Expand becomes the country’s biggest gas seller as well as its biggest gas producer. 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its dysfunctional and irresponsible counterpart, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals and consumptive use requests for responsible, safe shale drilling. The SRBC published a notice in the July 25th Pennsylvania Bulletin that the SRBC approved and/or renewed 21 general water use permits in June for individual shale gas well drilling pads in Clearfield, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Wyoming counties. 
In April, we brought you the news that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had issued a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Kosciusko Junction Pipeline Project (see 
Ameren Missouri (a subsidiary of Ameren Corporation) announced yesterday that it has filed an application with the Missouri Public Service Commission (MoPSC) to build the West Alton Energy Center, a 2,100-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle natural gas power plant. The company expects the plant to come online in 2031, pending regulatory approval, and to create more than 1,000 construction jobs plus roughly 45 permanent positions. Ameren will build it right next door to its existing coal-fired Sioux Energy Center in West Alton, Missouri — sitting at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers just upriver from St. Louis — so it can reuse the transmission connections and other equipment already on site. Company officials pitched the project as around-the-clock, in-state generation that will “work alongside our other resources” as older plants retire and demand climbs. Translation: Missouri needs power that shows up whether or not the wind blows or the sun shines. 
In January, MDN broke the news that Duke Energy was eyeing a 1,360-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant on 1,600 acres in Davidson County, North Carolina (see 
There’s terrific news brewing in Grant County, West Virginia — with an asterisk roughly the size of a cooling tower. Word circulated over the weekend that Dominion Energy plans to build a brand-new natural gas-fired power plant at its Mt. Storm complex, the same site where three coal-fired units have been cranking out electrons since 1965. The key detail: the gas plant would run alongside the coal units, not replace them. That’s more power, not swapped power. We like that math. 
Chesapeake Utilities Corporation (NYSE: CPK) and its subsidiary Peninsula Pipeline Company (PPC) announced on July 13 a new intrastate natural gas pipeline project in South Florida called the Florida Energy Pathway, or FEP. The line will be 24 inches in diameter, running from Palm Beach County to Miami-Dade County. It’s already anchored by firm commitments of nearly 250,000 dekatherms per day from multiple investment-grade shippers. (A dekatherm, or Dth, is a heat measurement roughly equal to a thousand cubic feet of natural gas — so think of it as about 250 MMcf/d, or 250 million cubic feet per day.) Upstream supply will come courtesy of Florida Gas Transmission’s Phase IX expansion. The price tag is around $1.2 billion, with an in-service date of 2030. Chesapeake plans to sell off up to 49% of the project to one or more partners. CEO Jeff Householder pinned the need on Florida’s booming population, its growing economy, and “significant energy supply constraints” in the south Florida market. 
Add another name to the growing list of pipeline projects chasing Northeast Marcellus/Utica gas: Tennessee Gas Pipeline (TGP), a Kinder Morgan subsidiary, launched a non-binding open season on July 13 for its proposed 219 South Project. The idea is to grab gas from as far north as TGP’s Station 219 Pool in Pennsylvania (Zone 4) and move it south through Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee — up to 530,000 Dth/d (that’s dekatherms per day, roughly equivalent to 530 Mcf/d). TGP says demand along its “200 Line,” the backbone connecting Pennsylvania to Tennessee, is growing fast enough to justify testing shipper appetite now. If it goes forward, in-service is targeted for December 1, 2029. The open season runs through August 13. Below are the key details, straight from TGP’s posting. 
Well, this isn’t what we expected. Bloomberg reported Friday, citing unnamed people “familiar with the matter,” that Devon Energy is exploring a sale of two of its shale positions — the Eagle Ford in South Texas and the Powder River Basin in Wyoming — that together could bring in more than $4 billion. Devon plans to announce a formal strategic review of the two packages when it releases second-quarter results in early August (the release is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 4, with the analyst call the next morning). Nothing is final. The timing could slip, and Devon could decide to keep both. Just two weeks ago we told you activist investor Kimmeridge is beating on Devon for moving too slowly on divestitures following the Coterra merger (see 
In March, we brought you the news that a Connecticut Superior Court judge tossed a lawsuit filed by Big Green group Save the Sound and the colluding Town of Brookfield, telling them their attempt to stop the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) from ruling on the Iroquois compressor permit was premature (see 