Dominion Expects to Close Most (Not All) Buffet Pipe Deal Nov. 1
In July Dominion Energy announced it is throwing in the towel and canceling the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project that would have stretched from West Virginia to North Carolina. The company also announced it is selling its pipeline business to Warren Buffett (see Dominion Cancels Atlantic Coast Pipe, Sells Pipe Biz for $9.7B). Dominion announced yesterday it expects to close on most, but not all, of its pipeline deal with Buffet on Nov. 1.
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MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio-produced natural gas is essential to economic and environmental progress; West Virginia joins coalition seeking to protect pipeline construction; NATIONAL: Key indicator shows signs of oil market recovery; A ban on drilling misses its mark; Renewables won’t save us if the electric grid is not ready; Stable oil prices may finally bring consolidation to the shale sector.
Yesterday kicked off the first day of the three-day Shale Insight conference, 10th annual edition. This year’s event is all-virtual due to the coronavirus. Headliners for the first day included presentations by Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Pat Toomey, Vice President for Shell (in charge of the cracker plant) Hilary Mercer, and Secretary of the Dept. of Energy Dan Brouillette. There were a number of other presenters too. We have a summary below.
Equitrans Midstream, which used to be part of EQT as EQT Midstream, is still EQT’s main squeeze when it comes to gathering pipelines connected to its wells. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced yesterday it has fined Equitrans $427,650 for “slips, stabilization, and erosion and sedimentation violations at pipeline sites in Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties.”
Last Thursday our friend Joe Barone from Shale Directories hosted the 2020 version of the annual Utica Midstream Conference in Canton, OH. Unfortunately, we could not attend. However, Joe has written up a great summary of what was said. The overriding theme of the day? Optimism for 2021.
An unusual situation for permits to drill new wells for last week. Pennsylvania only had 5 new permits while West Virginia had 12 new permits. It’s typically the other way around. Could this be the beginning of the effects from PA raising the permit fee from $5,000 to $12,500 per well? Maybe! Ohio had no new Utica permits issued last week. Drilling seems to have slowed in the Buckeye State.
Pieridae Energy’s Goldboro LNG project, located in Nova Scotia (with the potential to export Marcellus/Utica molecules) has been on our radar for years. In August Pieridae hired a senior VP to run the project (see 
Consulting powerhouse Ernst & Young (EY) has just published results from a new survey titled “Oil & Gas Digital Transformation and Workforce Survey.” The survey/study finds “digital transformation” of oil and gas companies is essential to the future of our industry. What, exactly, is “digital transformation”? We’ll tell you.
It could have been avoided. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has no one to blame but themselves for what happened at Marsh Creek Lake in Chester County, PA, when Energy Transfer (ET), drilling underground to install a pipeline for the Mariner East 2 project, experienced a drilling mud spill in August (see 
Two months ago PTT Global Chemical signed a contract with the Mountaineer NGL Storage project to use Mountaineer’s planned underground storage facility in Monroe County, OH to supply ethane to PTT’s cracker plant in neighboring Belmont County when/if the cracker gets built (see 
Here’s a story we haven’t written about in two years. American Water Management Services (AWMS) owns a wastewater injection well in Trumbull County that supposedly caused a low-level earthquake (that nobody could feel) in 2014. Actually there are two injection wells located at the site, both operated by AWMS. They were both “temporarily” shut down by the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources following the quake nobody could feel (see 
In the first half of 2020, the U.S. exported 5.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum products, a slight increase of 48,000 bpd (1%) from the first half of 2019. Wait, what? Exports went UP and not down? Even though the entire world shut down and used far less fossil fuels during 1H? That’s right. The reason we exported slightly more petroleum products is because NGLs (natural gas liquids) are part of those numbers, and the world kept using NGLs, like propane and ethane, even during the COVID shutdown.