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Shocker: Mountain Valley Pipeline Now 70% Built, Online by 4Q19
There’s nothing like some cold, hard facts to shock the public (in particular anti-fossil fuelers) back into reality. Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) provided just such a bucket of cold, hard facts yesterday by issuing an update on the project. Mainstream media (MSM) would have you believe that MVP, a 300-mile pipeline from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA, is on its last legs. About to be canceled for good. No hope of completing it. Yet, the facts say otherwise.
Read More “Shocker: Mountain Valley Pipeline Now 70% Built, Online by 4Q19”
The U.S. Fourth Circuit (i.e. Circus) Court of Appeals has bungled another decision regarding the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). Yesterday the court vacated a permit issued by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) that allows ACP to cross beneath the Appalachian Trail and 21 miles of national forest land in Virginia and West Virginia. You think we’re kidding when we refer to the judges of the Fourth Circuit as clowns? How else do you explain the judge quoting from The Lorax, a fictional children’s book written by Dr. Seuss, as part of the decision issued yesterday. The so-called decision is straight out of Alice in Wonderland. Bizarre. What’s next? Will we be treated to Youtube clips from the Captain Planet cartoon in future decisions? This faulty decision is already being appealed by Dominion Energy. It’s pretty easy to predict the decision will get overturned on appeal–by adult, non-clown judges in the next court up.
By a vote of 2-1, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) yesterday issued a final approval for Williams’ $85 million project called the Transco “Gateway Expansion Project,” which will flow an extra 65,000 dekatherms per day (65 million cubic feet) of natural gas to a couple of utility companies in New Jersey that have already signed on the dotted line as customers. The upgrades include a new compressor unit at Transco’s existing Compressor Station 303 in Essex County, NJ, a new valve and electric transformer also in Essex County, and equipment upgrades at a metering station in Passaic County, NJ. PSEG Power and UGI Energy Services have signed up to receive the extra gas–to be distributed to their customers in the region. Once again the two Democrat FERC commissioners, Cheryl LaFleur and Dick Glick, expressed overpowering, debilitating concern over how the project will “contribute” to mythical man-made global warming.
The Mariner East 1 pipeline sprung a small leak and spilled 20 barrels (~840 gallons) of ethane and propane in Berks County, near Philadelphia, on April 1 (see 
We told you that yesterday the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) was meeting to unveil proposed new regulations to cut down on so-called fugitive methane emissions from existing well pads and pipelines (see 
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Berks partnerships conserve 77 acres for migratory birds; PA clean vehicles video; Rising forecasts for 2019 U.S. natural gas production keep prices low; U.S. shale likes but doesn’t need OPEC cuts to keep on growing; The world should follow the U.S. energy model; Oil trading ‘God’ Andy Hall says shale has experts groping in dark; FTS International’s worries are not over yet; McNamee sworn in as FERC commissioner; Fluctuating natural gas prices are not a threat to the power grid; Poland’s PGNiG gets another US spot LNG cargo; Lithuania boosting ties with US LNG suppliers; Emerson buys Belgian valve company; Major LNG buyers’ uncontracted demand to quadruple by 2030.
An analysis by Argus Media shows the number of new permits issued to drill in the Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale was down 42% in November 2018 over the same time a year ago. Drilling in Ohio’s Utica Shale was down 26% in November vs. a year ago. Yet one overpowering fact remains: Production in both states is UP over a year ago! How do you explain it? Each year drillers get better at what they do–they get more gas from drilling fewer wells. Longer laterals, more sand, improved fracking techniques–it all adds up to more production with less drilling. Our region is also still working down our DUC (drilled but uncompleted) wells inventory, which means less drilling. And winter cold has set in, early. Yeah, less drilling means fewer jobs and fewer opportunities to sell goods and services to drilling companies. But watch for the permit numbers to start going up again (our prediction). Why? Because with pipelines which recently went online and new pipes due to go online, the price our gas is fetching has dramatically increased–and that means the willingness of M-U drillers to drill new wells will increase too.
It’s about we fight back against radical, insane people like those at the Sierra Club and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC). They are so far outside of the mainstream, and they are such pathological liars, it’s time to take the gloves off and fight back. Dominion Energy is doing exactly that! Dominion released a statement yesterday that directly and strongly (with fighting language) refutes recent false statements (i.e. lies) made by the Sierra Club and SELC about Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP). We’re standing up and cheering!
Pennsylvania General Energy drills in several PA counties, including Lycoming County in the north central of the state. According to the 
Every square inch of every new (even every repurposed/existing) pipeline will be opposed in court. You can bet your life on it. Radical environmentalists have made pipelines the new evil incarnate in the modern world. Never mind without pipelines we’d all live in the Stone Age again. The point, on the part of Big Green, is not to actually stop these projects–but make them pay big money. And make them a poster child for fundraising campaigns. Even though some of the 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is on hold due to court delays over stream crossing permits (see 
The liberal PA Gov. Tom Wolf administration continues to tinker with (i.e. destroy) the Marcellus miracle in the Keystone State. In August the Wolf Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) finally, after years of work, implemented onerous new regulations to cut down on so-called fugitive methane emissions from new drilling and pipelines (see 
