Mountain Valley Pipe Asks FERC for 2-Yr Extension to Finish Project
It’s been an uphill battle to complete Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile Marcellus/Utica gas pipeline from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA. The project has been vigorously opposed by radical environmentalists from the beginning. Frivolous lawsuit after frivolous lawsuit has been filed by Big Green groups bankrolled by billionaires. Finally in June Equitrans, the builder, said they should be able to complete the 92% done pipeline by next spring (see Mountain Valley Pipe Will be Done and In-Service Early 2021). That is now in doubt. MVP made an official request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to extend the completion deadline by an extra two years.
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Oil and gas drilling giant Equinor (formerly called Statoil) is owned by the Norwegian government. Equinor/Statoil has drilled in the Marcellus/Utica for years. As recently as June 2019 the company reported drilling 9-14 Utica wells per year (see 
We have chronicled the break between trade unions and Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf over Wolf’s stubborn insistence on forcing the state to join a carbon tax scheme called RGGI–the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (
Yesterday MDN told you that Range Resources is planning to operate at net-zero carbon within the next five years, by 2025 (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: RG&E to raise rates, limit natural gas development in 2020 rate case; EQT Corporation: Successful race to catch up; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: U.S. Army Corps asks appeals court to reverse Dakota Access pipeline ruling; The potential hurricane impacts on Sabine Pass, Cameron LNG exports; Hurricane Laura targets the heart of America’s oil refining industry; NATIONAL: The United States set record for daily natural gas power burn in late July; INTERNATIONAL: Philippine energy chief says 4 LNG projects still on track despite virus delays.
We always aim to have stories posted by noon each day. Due to an unforeseen circumstance, MDN stories are slightly delayed today. Look for them by mid-afternoon. An email will be sent with headlines as soon as stories are posted. Stay tuned!
We’re catching up the permit report for the past two weeks. Two weeks ago only Pennsylvania issued new shale drilling permits (16 new permits issued). Last week all three M-U states issued permits: PA issued 16 new permits, OH issued 7 new permits, and WV issued 2 new permits for shale drilling.
Democrats are nothing if not creative. A leftist Democrat in the Virginia legislature, Del. Chris Hurst (Montgomery County) has introduced a bill to try and kill the remaining construction of the 92% complete Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). Dems couldn’t stop the project in the courts. They couldn’t stop it with nutjobs living in the tops of trees for months on end. They couldn’t get lefty Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam to stop it. So now they’re trying this: A bill that would require *any* company hiring a crew of 50 or more “temporary” workers during the COVID-19 pandemic to receive prior approval from the Democrat Commissioner of Dept. of Labor and Industry first.
Range Resources issued its annual Corporate Sustainability Report (CSR) this morning (full copy below). The report lays out the company’s performance on key issues. It also sets so-called greenhouse gas reduction targets. Of particular note, Range has set a target to achieve net-zero emissions by 2025. If they do, they would be the first oil and gas company to achieve a net-zero threshold by 2025–less than five years from now.
On August 24, 31 radicalized Big Green groups from across Pennsylvania sent a letter to the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Pat McDonnell demanding (they always demand) the DEP immediately and permanently revoke all Mariner East construction permits and prohibit the issuance of any future permits. Yeah, just stop the pipeline, which is about 98% done, from ever getting completed. What else can you say except it’s demented? Nobody in their right mind would reasonably request or expect the DEP to simply stop the project permanently.
The leftists who run and write the Scranton Times-Tribune are at it again–doing anything and everything they can to destroy the Marcellus industry that singlehandedly has created more new jobs and raised the standard of living for more people in northeastern PA than any other industry in the past generation–the Marcellus industry. The new target for Times-Tribune is a proposed $800 million LNG liquefaction plant in Wyalusing, PA (in nearby Bradford County). The Times-Tribune editors say the plan to build the plant and transport the LNG via rail is too “risky” and northeast PA will be just fine without an extra $800 million and hundreds of jobs. Dopes.
Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), maintains a list of pipeline projects going back to 1996. Based on that list EIA recently published an article on their Today in Energy site pointing out during the first half of 2020 some 5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of new natgas pipeline capacity (across the entire country) came online. They also point out some 8.7 Bcf/d of previously planned new pipe capacity was canceled in 2020, including Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Constitution Pipeline, both here in the M-U region. We grabbed the spreadsheet of the 145 active and/or canceled pipelines in 2020 and trimmed it down to show the list of pipelines active or canceled that have the potential to flow M-U molecules. Our list (below) shows 41 active pipe projects and 4 canceled projects.