Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Dominion Energy | Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Statewide VA | Virginia
Va. Governor Refuses to Stop Mountain Valley Pipeline Work
The pressure DC swamp dwellers and anti-fossil fuelers from across the country (indeed from across the world) have put on Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (a Democrat) has been intense. They want Northam to abuse his executive authority, in contravention of the law, and block both the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) projects in his state. Northam’s predecessor, Terry McAuliffe (also a Democrat) created the state’s first Environmental Justice Advisory Council. That Council, packed with anti-fossil fuelers, has advised Northam to block ACP and MVP. Northam has just given his own Council a polite but firm, NO.
Read More “Va. Governor Refuses to Stop Mountain Valley Pipeline Work”
PJM Interconnection is a regional transmission organization (RTO) operating the electric grid in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, including PA, OH and WV. It is the largest competitive wholesale electricity market in the U.S. (second largest in the world), with more than 1,000 companies (1,376 generation sources) as members, serving 65 million customers with 177 gigawatts of generating capacity. It’s yuge! EIA published numbers yesterday quantifying natural gas-fired generation in PJM. The upshot: natural gas has eclipsed coal in electric generation in PJM, and PJM uses more natgas plants in both raw numbers and as a percentage of electricity generated, than any other power grid.
It seems that universities in states outside the Marcellus region are fascinated with the Marcellus. They love to “study” it. Or at least, the Marcellus is a goldmine for them in research grants. The latest outsider to study the Marcellus is the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Using a National Science Foundation grant, researchers from UT “will look at how aquatic microbial communities are impacted by biocides associated with hydraulic fracking.” That is, they’re studying whether or not fracking, because it has a low presence of chemicals, is creating superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics. Will fracking cause a new Black Plague?
Some of the best frac sand to be found–the finest particles–come from Wisconsin sand mines. Once upon a time Wisconsin was the primary frac sand producing state, for both the northeast and the southwest. But then Texas oil frackers began experimenting with Texas sand and found they could use it. No, the Texas sand is not quite as fine (or good) as Wisconsin sand, but it works. And it’s cheap, because transportation costs are low. Shipping sand from Wisconsin to Texas by rail costs big bucks. The northeast is not blessed with its own sand mines for fracking, so we still depend on places like Wisconsin. And now, increasingly, Wisconsin depends on us.
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Ohio Public Utilities Commission to help with gas restoration in Massachusetts; Columbia Gas launches “Back-to-Business” initiative to support to affected businesses; Business groups ask SCOTUS to shut down Massachusetts #ExxonKnew shakedown; PUC delays natural gas plant vote; Duluth hearings will go on; Emails show law firm pitched San Francisco on idea of suing energy producers; NYMEX Nov natural gas futures rise to $3.268 MMBtu on weather-related issues; Global warming to leave us crying in our costlier beer; Venture Global LNG to supply U.S. natural gas to Poland; U.S. LNG 25% cheaper than Russian gas: PGNiG; U.S. shale surges as Saudi Arabia issues veiled supply threats; How high can oil prices go?; Asia’s natural gas prices are rising – now higher oil prices and tariffs could cause more pain.
Que the music with dramatic drums, cymbals and trumpets. Camera A, zoom in on Secretary McDonnell. The whole state is watching. It’s time for the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to announce the winners of PA’s Hunger Games-style contest to grab a piece of the $12.6 million “fine” paid by Sunoco Logistics Partners for “permit violations related to the construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline project” (see 
Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project of EQT Midstream, continues to work on constructing its 303-mile long project from West Virginia into Virginia–despite a recent court order overturning some of the permits for the project (see 
In September the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) lifted a stop-work order for the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project that stretches from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina (see 
You can just imagine it. Maya van Rossum (THE Delaware Riverkeeper), Tony Ingraffea (former Cornell prof and member of Trout Unlimited), Sandra Steingraber (paid by Ithaca College to be a climate protester) and other far-out lefties sitting in a room hatching yet another plan to block new pipeline projects, all in a bid to stop the use of all fossil fuels. “I know I know!” says one of them. “Let’s create a map of ‘high value streams and rivers’ and ‘areas of ecological sensitivity’ and then dare those filthy, nasty pipeline companies to build a pipeline across any of them. We’ll draw the map so every area is at ‘risk’–except for a few ditches in the middle of nowhere. That’ll do it!” And, voila, Trout Unlimited (TU), colluding with other Big Green groups, has just released a magical map to, you know, be “helpful” to pipeline companies, so they know where they can’t stick a nasty pipeline (i.e. anywhere). That’s what TU has just released.
The Pennsylvania Senate Appropriations Committee will today conduct an “off-the-floor” meeting to discuss and potentially report out for a vote House Bill (HB) 2154, a bill introduced in March to “roll back” (more like “lock in”) regulations that govern conventional PA drilling to the Oil and Gas Act of 1984 (see 
After selling Rice Energy to EQT (see 
Yesterday Range Resources, the very first company to sink a Marcellus Shale well back in 2004, announced it has cut a deal to “sell a proportionately reduced 1% overriding royalty in its Washington County, Pennsylvania leases for gross proceeds of $300 million.” Yeah. What, exactly, does that mean? More high finance stuff. The deal, as we try to understand it, reminds us of “factoring” that we learned about in our college business classes. You know, selling the money you will receive in the future from accounts receivable for a lump sum today? We think of this deal as kind of like that. Not exactly, but kind of.
The hits keep rollin’ in. Last month the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) monthly “Drilling Productivity Report” (DPR) estimated that this month (in October) the country’s seven major shale plays would produce an amazing, all-time high of 73 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas production (see 
Nine Energy Service, an oilfield services company that competes with companies like Halliburton and Baker Hughes, operates in a number of shale basins, including the Marcellus/Utica. Magnum Oil Tools is a “downhole technology” company providing completions products including dissolvable frac plugs and a number of other patented inventions. Magnum also has operations in the Marcellus/Utica. Yesterday Nine announced it is buying out and merging in Magnum in a deal worth $493 million.