Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide VA | Virginia
Va. Bill Aimed at Stopping Nearly Complete Mountain Valley Pipe
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.
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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.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Will California’s power blackouts affect Pennsylvania voters – and the election?; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Cheniere closes Sabine Pass LNG due to Hurricane Laura; EIA’s mapping system and data series show energy infrastructure near hurricanes, wildfires; NATIONAL: Oil producers poised to break chapter 11 bankruptcy records; Republicans warn of fracking ban, oil and gas jobs loss, on day one of convention; Senate Democrats’ climate “report” recycles Biden’s failed green jobs policies of 2009; Leading energy consumer advocate commends introduction of bipartisan pipeline safety innovation legislation; Majority of battleground state voters support U.S. energy leadership.
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.
A group of far-left, so-called environmental groups, including, Earthjustice, Buckeye Environmental Network, Concerned Ohio River Residents, Freshwater Accountability Project, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the Sierra Club, are suing the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) in an attempt to overturn permits issued by ODNR to build an underground NGL storage hub in Monroe County, Ohio.
While drilling in Chester County in the Marsh Creek State Park two weeks ago, Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2X pipeline experienced an “inadvertent return”–nontoxic drilling mud coming up out of the ground where it’s not supposed to (see 
Eureka Resources, which operates three frack wastewater treatment facilities in the Marcellus Shale, is doing some really cool stuff. Last October the company began extracting lithium from Marcellus wastewater at one of its plants in Bradford County, PA (see 
FirstEnergy Solutions (now called Energy Harbor) allegedly paid $60 million in bribes to (now former) Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder and four of his associates to gain their assistance in passing the hugely unpopular House Bill 6 (see 
CNX was fracking their Shaw 1G Utica well in Washington Township (Westmoreland County) in early 2019 when they detected “a strong drop in pressure” and stopped fracking (see 
Last Thursday Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report–for April through June 2020 (full copy below). The report shows natgas production in PA rose 2.8% compared to the same period last year. However, overall production fell 2.8% compared to 1Q20–the second quarter in a row production has fallen quarter-over-quarter.
Last December both Rover Pipeline and NEXUS Pipeline, two large Utica-gas pipelines traversing Ohio, appealed their property tax valuations to the Ohio Dept. of Taxation, looking to trim their tax bills in Stark County by up to 50% (see