Other Stories of Interest: Mon, Mar 22, 2021
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Folsom Engineering makes history with gas industry support; Why a federal order in the Weymouth compressor case has the natural gas world worried; Environmental justice groups offer vision to shut New York City peakers; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: From Big Green to Al Gore: misguided opposition to the Byhalia Connection increases; Ethylene shortages from plants crippled by deep freeze roil petchem markets; NATIONAL: The shale party is just getting started; Nonprofits press Biden team to exclude natural gas projects from global public financing; Climate change and cancel culture – here’s how left uses fear to push costly, radical policies; New report details shifting moods about the energy transition; The IEA sees peak oil demand! Yawn; America’s most underrated energy reality: low and lower cost natural gas; INTERNATIONAL: Aramco likely to partner with China on blue hydrogen, CEO says.
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Some good news to share as we exit yet another work week. The Enverus U.S. rig count pushed to a fresh 11-month high in the week ended March 17, passing by the 500-mark (502 active rigs). Oil rigs climbed by 4 to 375 (although the Permian lost 2 rigs). Gas rigs were up 6 at 127 active rigs. The Marcellus dropped 2 rigs but gained 1 for a net +1 addition. The Utica stayed even. The M-U collectively had 44 active rigs operating over the past week. The M-U’s primary competitor for rigs, the gassy Haynesville, gained a rig and operated 47 rigs over the past week.
Here’s another “XPress” pipeline to add to Columbia’s (TC Energy’s) long list of other XPress pipelines: East Lateral XPress. Columbia has built a number of XPress pipelines, including Gulf XPress, Mountaineer XPress, WB Xpress, Leach XPress, Rayne XPress, Buckeye XPress, and Louisiana XPress, all of which work together to flow (in part) Marcellus/Utica natural gas to points south, including to the Gulf Coast (
Shale and conventional oil and gas drillers in West Virginia listen up: If you file for a modification to a previously filed permit request, it’s going to cost you $2,500. Currently, it costs nothing. Senate Bill (SB) 404 passed the Senate last week unanimously. On Wednesday the House of Delegates approved it by a vote of 77-22. We expect Gov. Jim Justice will sign it.
Really Dick? This is what you spend your time on these days? Digging up long-addressed and settled and resolved actions (from SIX YEARS ago)–old infractions by pipeline companies like Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline. Claiming you will “not look the other way” when there’s a violation (a violation that happened long before you were even a FERC Commissioner). Whoa, you’re such a big man. So self-righteous. Glick is now digging up old pipeline sins to parade around once again. It’s like a dog that buried roadkill a year ago and recently rediscovered the spot, dug it up, and now drags the old rotting carcass around the yard for all to see, all proud of himself.
In July 2018 three radical environmental groups dropped their objections to permits the Pennsylvania DEP previously granted for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline. Clean Air Council, Mountain Watershed Association, and THE Delaware Riverkeeper “settled” their appeal of 20 permits issued to Sunoco for the ME2 project (see 
In yet another pathetic attempt to deflect attention away from his own crimes while in office (groping women, forcing nursing homes to accept COVID patients who infected other residents who died), Andrew Cuomo’s office yesterday announced a “settlement” with utility company National Grid (provides natural gas to half of New York City and all of Long Island). Cuomo’s office claims National Grid failed to protect underground gas pipelines from corrosion, which translates into $21 million of fines disappearing into the black hole of the Cuomo administration.
Feedgas, the natural gas flowing to U.S. LNG export terminals that gets liquefied and shipped to foreign destinations, hit a new all-time high on Wednesday: 11.65 billion cubic feet (Bcf) in a single day. All six major U.S. LNG export facilities currently in operation contributed to the surge, including Cove Point in Maryland and Elba Island in Georgia (both export 100% Marcellus/Utica molecules). M-U molecules are also exported from most of the other four active LNG export facilities, including large amounts of our molecules flowing to Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass facility.
In February 2020, Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell sent a letter to the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). McDonnell’s letter alleges Shell’s 97-mile, two-legged Falcon pipeline system that will carry ethane to the mighty Shell cracker plant now under construction in Beaver County, PA, “may have been constructed with defective corrosion coating protection.” It’s an explosive charge just coming to light now, more than a year later.
Williams, via its wholly-owned subsidiary Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco), has filed a lawsuit against Mountain Valley Pipeline (a competitor) over MVP’s plan to extend the pipeline an extra 75 miles from southern Virginia into North Carolina. Williams claims some of the land MVP wants to use under eminent domain crosses into Transco’s easements and building MVP so close to Transco may damage Transco’s pipeline and the cathodic anti-corrosion system that protects it.
A third Pennsylvania township, Clara Township in Potter County, is about to be lured onto the same litigation rocks by the siren song of the uber-radical Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) as two other towns, by adopting an illegal “home rule” law in an attempt to block a new wastewater injection well. CELDF lured two other towns onto the same litigation rocks, where they’ve crashed–Grant Township in Indiana County and Highland Township in Elk County. Both towns were sued by the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) when they tried to block injection wells using the same home rule tactic (see 
Earlier this week the Ohio Supreme Court expanded on one of its prior rulings concerning the Ohio Marketable Title Act (MTA) to try and make things a little bit clearer concerning previously severed mineral rights (severed from surface rights). What is at stake in the MTA is whether surface rights owners can regain possession of mineral rights by using the MTA–at least in some cases. Indeed they can, but certain rules must be obeyed.