Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Dec 15, 2020
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Calcasieu Pass LNG project ahead of schedule, CEO says; NATIONAL: The Stealth Green New Deal; Flexible cement is made to fill the fine gaps around leaky gas wells; Biden eyes new EPA picks as Nichols falls from favor; Federal Reserve steps up climate-change response, backlash from House Republicans; North Face joins growing corporate hypocrisy against oil & gas industry; INTERNATIONAL: Bombshell report pours cold water on global LNG outlook.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Tue, Dec 15, 2020”
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) issued an environmental impact statement (EIS) on Friday that supports plans for Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to run through 3.5 miles of woodlands, and under the Appalachian Trail, in the Jefferson National Forest in Monroe County in West Virginia, in and Giles and Montgomery counties in Virginia. This is one of the few items remaining on the MVP checklist before completing the project which is already 92% built and in the ground.
We’re coining a new phrase here on MDN today: Marcellus-to-Marijuana, or M2M. (We’re trying not to giggle as we write this.) A “medical marijuana” facility in Perry County, PA (pot growing plant in MDN vernacular) will receive liquefied natural gas (LNG) beginning next year. There are no in-the-ground pipelines in the area, so the production plant, located in the Perry Innovation Park (near Harrisburg), will begin receiving PA Marcellus gas in the form of LNG next year delivered by tractor-trailers–a “virtual pipeline.”
Energy Transfer’s (ET) Revolution Pipeline runs through Bulter, Beaver, Allegheny, and Washington counties in southwest PA. The 24-inch gathering pipeline shifted and exploded in September 2018, just as it was entering service (see 
There is an ongoing question of whether or not the Ohio Marketable Titles Act (MTA), which impacts Utica shale rights, can be used to return previously severed mineral rights back to a surface landowner, or whether the MTA is superseded by the Ohio Dormant Minerals Act (DMA). In February 2019, Ohio’s Seventh District Court of Appeals said the MTA *does* still apply to mineral rights. The Seventh Circuit then ruled in a second case in April 2019, reaffirming yet again that yes, MTA applies to mineral rights. The Seventh Circuit ruled in a third case in October 2019 to say YES, the MTA still applies. In April, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed to hear and rule on the matter too (see 
In 2018 Kimberly-Clark announced the company would build a Marcellus gas-fired electric plant in Delaware County (near Philadelphia) to power its plant that manufactures Scott 1000 toilet paper (see 
A long-stalled request for permits to build two wastewater injection wells in Belmont County, Ohio has just gotten a boost from the Ohio Supreme Court. Last year MDN told you about New Jersey-based Omni Energy Group and their application to build two new injection wells near St. Clairsville (see 
This is rich. The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) took its sweet time reviewing a permit application to drill a series of Marcellus Shale wells on the property of U.S. Steel Corp.’s Edgar Thomson steel mill. Because the DEP delayed its review for so long, in October the East Pittsburgh Borough Zoning Board revoked a local permit previously granted for the project in 2017 (see 
Down but not out. That’s the best way to describe a $346 million pipeline project in northeastern Virginia called the Header Improvement Project. On Dec. 1 the Virginia State Corporation Commission dismissed a request to approve the project. Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) said it will resubmit the project under a new docket/request.
MDN has repeatedly read that Marcellus/Utica drillers (as well as drillers in other shale plays) must drill far less and produce far less in an effort to boost profits for shareholders. Just yesterday we published a story about M-U drillers overspending, by half a billion dollars, in 3Q20 (see 
Miracles never cease! The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) met yesterday and voted to approve a 1,300-foot-long pier in Gibbstown, NJ to load LNG tankers. Reaction by anti-fossil fuel zealots was swift, predictable, and hilarious. They’re claiming loading LNG onto ships is somehow more dangerous than the old DuPont dynamite factory that used to exist at the same location. They’re also calling the leftist Democrat governors of PA, NJ and DE “climate deniers.” Too funny!