Army Corps Waiting for Redo of Candy Darter Report for MVP Permit
Nearly two weeks ago we brought you the sad and angering news that the clown judges of the 4th Circus Court of Appeals overturned a FERC-approved plan by Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to switch from using open trench to underground horizontal directional drilling to cross 136 streams and 47 wetlands in Virginia and West Virginia (see 4th Circuit Throws Out Plan for Safer MVP Drilling re Candy Darter). The cited reason for rejecting the plan is a concern for two species of endangered fishies, one of them the candy darter. The nattering nabobs of Big Green group Appalachian Mountain Advocates are pestering the Army Corps to provide assurances they won’t move forward anytime soon with approving construction for MVP given the court decision.
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All eyes are on Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project that is, once again, on pause due to the leftist judges who sit on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. In a pair of decisions a week apart, the clown judges overturned a permit and a plan to change drilling methods so the 94% completed MVP can finish (see 
In December 2020, Dan Rice IV, former CEO of Rice Energy and a member of the EQT board of directors, launched a “blank check” acquisition firm, called Rice Acquisition Corp., to invest in various energy ventures. Dan found that something-to-invest-in just a few months later in the form of acquiring and merging together Archaea Energy and Aria Energy into a single company focused on providing renewable natural gas (RNG) and “green” hydrogen (see 
In direct contravention to the advice, pressure, and bullying of Joe Biden’s “Special Presidential Envoy for Climate” John Kerry, who insists that banks and investors refuse to fund oil and gas companies, big banks around the world (and here in the U.S.) are disregarding Kerry’s hot air and, with $100/barrel oil almost here, opening up the door to the bank vault and showering oil and gas with money once again. Hey John, money talks and (you know what) walks…
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Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. The company plans to drill a series of new wells (and a well pad) in Washington Township in Westmoreland County. In January we told you about a snag with plans to build the well pad and drill the wells (see 
Dominion Energy is divesting itself from a natural gas utility company it owns in West Virginia–Hope Gas, Inc. Dominion is selling Hope to investment firm Ullico Inc. for $690 million. Ullico plans to combine Hope Gas with another company it owns, Hearthstone Utilities, Inc. The reason this deal caught our attention is that Hope Gas owns and operates “2,000 miles of gathering pipelines” in the Mountain State.
The list is, unfortunately, long and getting longer. Atlantic Coast Pipeline. PennEast Pipeline. Constitution Pipeline. And others. Yes, each one of those massive projects that got canceled means a loss of revenue for the companies involved, and a loss of takeaway capacity for drillers in the Marcellus/Utica region. However, perhaps the biggest loss is the jobs those projects would have provided for union workers. The cancellation of each of those projects resulted in the loss of revenue and income for union workers–direct harm to families. Have you thought about those costs?
In his first two days in office, Joe Biden declared war on the oil and gas industry. One of the first things he did was to revive an interagency working group on the “social cost” of greenhouse gas emissions and directed the issuance of an “interim” cost (see 
EQT, the country’s largest natural gas producer, issued its fourth quarter and full-year 2021 update yesterday. We have loads of great information. In 4Q21 EQT made $1.8 billion in profit (net income), although the company ended up losing $1.2 billion for the year due to bad bets on hedging. The company produced 527 Bcfe (billion cubic feet equivalent) of natural gas in 4Q21, versus producing 401 Bcfe in 4Q20–an increase of 31%, mainly due to extra production from buying Chevron’s and Alta Resources’ Appalachian assets over the past year. That works out to be an average daily production of 5.85 Bcf/d last quarter–the highest natgas production of any U.S.-based company.
As it has done for the past couple of years, CNX Resources, when issuing quarterly updates, doesn’t bother to issue a handy summary of the numbers. Instead, CNX’s top brass will talk about some of the particulars on a conference call. Folks interested in the details of the lastest quarter have to wait and wade through SEC filings. A few weeks ago the company issued a quarterly 8-K statement, which we included with our review of 4Q21 (see 
The ace reporters at Reuters have sussed out another inside exclusive: Williams, the pipeline giant, has hired “two veteran executives” to help the company set up an LNG marketing operation. The operation will put Williams into direct competition with other big LNG marketers including Cheniere Energy, Shell, and QatarEnergy. The big question is this: How successful will this effort be if Williams doesn’t actually own an LNG export terminal of its own?