FERC Tells Va. AG to Kiss-off on Request to Stop Pipe Approvals
Virginia’s radially left Attorney General, Mark Herring (Democrat), was among 11 other radically left Democrat AGs who recently sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) requesting the agency just stop doing its job in approving pipeline projects until the COVID-19 pandemic is over (see 11 Democrat AGs Ask FERC to Stop Approving Pipes During Pandemic). FERC Chairman Neil Chatterjee just responded to Herring with his own letter (copy below).
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Shell continues to ramp back up work being done at its mighty ethane cracker construction site in Beaver County, PA following a shutdown of activity due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company has announced plans to add 300 employees back each week until they are back up to full compliment.
We have some exclusive news to share about a northeast PA LNG plant project. In August 2018, New Fortress Energy announced plans to build at least one LNG liquefying plant in Wyalusing, PA (see 
From time to time we check in on Epsilon Energy, which concentrates most of its effort on the Marcellus in Susquehanna County, PA. Does Epsilon actually do any of its own drilling? No. They partner with (give money to) other companies, like Chesapeake Energy, and the other companies do the actual drilling. Epsilon, according to its website, owns ~4,000 net acres in the PA Marcellus. Epsilon issued its first-quarter 2020 update yesterday.
A leftist anti-fossil group calling itself Protect PT, in Penn Township (Westmoreland County), PA, backed with big money from Big Green groups, has for years challenged Penn Township ordinances that allow Apex Energy and Huntley & Huntley (now Olympus Energy) to drill and operate shale wells. Protect PT has finally struck out, permanently, at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
ECA Marcellus Trust I announced yesterday that there will be no distribution (dividend) paid for investors for first-quarter 2020 because expenses exceeded net revenues. Who is ECA Marcellus?
Have Marcellus/Utica drillers learned their lesson about growth at any cost? It seems the answer to that is, YES! The price of natural gas has been low for a long time due to overproduction. You’ve often read here on MDN that gas prices will be “lower for longer.” And yet with the coronavirus pandemic and the crash in oil prices, the price of natgas has been (mostly) inching up–getting close to $2/Mcf (although it was down again yesterday, to $1.62/Mcf). Estimates for gas prices next year are trending to the $2.50-$2.75 range. Everyone is watching–will M-U and other gas-focused drillers restart big spending and more drilling?
Diversified Gas & Oil (DGO) continues its program of buying up mostly older conventional oil and gas wells in Appalachia. In April DGO cut a deal to buy 6,500 conventional wells spread across West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, along with a 4,700-mile gathering pipeline system located in WV, for $110 million (see 
A relatively short pipeline project to flow water from the Susquehanna River in Tunkhannock (Wyoming County), PA to a water impoundment about seven miles away, began construction in February 2019 (see 
In May 2016, a landowner in Wayne County, PA filed a lawsuit against the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) asking a judge to declare that the DRBC does not have jurisdiction to prevent the construction of a natural gas well (see