DC Fed Appeals Court Signals Support for MVP Southgate Pipeline
Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a 303-mile pipeline from West Virginia to southern Virginia that is 94% complete (in-the-ground). The pipeline is targeted to be in-service later this year. MVP Southgate is an extension to MVP that will travel an additional 75 miles from southern Virginia (where the current MVP terminates) into North Carolina. MVP Southgate has not yet broken ground. The project has been opposed by North Carolina and the same mish-mash of “environmental” groups that opposed MVP. Some of those groups appealed a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to issue a permit for the project. A virtual hearing in the case on Wednesday didn’t go the way antis wanted.
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This is quite clever. Last October the province of Quebec, Canada announced it will expropriate all of the rights for all oil and gas companies in the province to drill and extract oil and natural gas (see 
NATIONAL: To address supply shortages, stop restricting O&G on fed lands; US LNG exports down from last week; U.S. crude exports ramp up as global demand recovers; Lawsuit alleges Tellurian chief defrauded investor in short-seller battle; INTERNATIONAL: Current energy crisis confronts Net Zero-loving elites with the stark reality; Linde starts up ‘world’s first’ plant for extracting hydrogen from natgas.
According to super-secret sources talking to Reuters, Chesapeake Energy is in advanced talks to purchase Chief Oil & Gas for $2.4 billion. MDN brought you the news last October that Chief, a private company owned by Texas wildcatter Trevor Rees-Jones, was shopping itself for $3 billion (see 
In September MDN broke the news that Rockdale Marcellus had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (see 
The 
Below is the list of events we are aware of that will be of interest to those with an interest in the Marcellus/Utica shale region for the first half of 2022. Some events are in the region (PA, OH, WV). Some are not (TX, OK, CO). Some are virtual/online, but most have returned to in-person. All of them are of potential interest to the MDN audience.
In early 2021 Pennsylvania raised $144.85 million from its version of a severance tax, called an impact fee, based on drilling activity from 2020 (see 
Yes we predicted it and yes we were right (self-praise stinks, we know). We told you last year when the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) went forward with an absurd increase in the fee to drill a new shale well–from $5,000 to $12,500 (250%)–it would vastly slow the growth of new shale wells being drilled in the state and fall far short of revenue goals DEP hoped would fund the oil and gas program. Yesterday the DEP confirmed we were right.
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 well pad) in Washington Township in Westmoreland County. However, there’s a snag. Residents along a proposed road accessing the site don’t want the truck traffic on their narrow (18-foot-wide) road. Olympus doesn’t want to use an alternate route due to a sharp turn. Someone else proposed building a new access road, but it would cross a tributary that flows into the Beaver Run Reservoir (lots of red tape). The town is planning a couple of workshop meetings to figure out a solution.
The experts at S&P Global Platts have hauled out the old crystal ball–the one that looks at natural gas prices in the near-term (next couple of weeks to a month), and they foresee a rise in prices coming very soon. According to Platts, a drop in U.S. natgas production combined with colder weather that forces the use of natgas for heating which leads to tighter supplies means the price of natural gas will rise. How much and when?