FERC Gives Atlantic Coast Pipe Permission to Cut Trees in Va.
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 Victory! FERC Lifts Stop Work Order for Atlantic Coast Pipeline). Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit took further action to overturn permits that affect about 21 miles of the project (see 4th Circuit Again Blocks NPS Permit for Atlantic Coast Pipeline). However, most of ACP remains under construction. Yesterday FERC granted ACP permission for tree cutting in Buckingham County, Va.
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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 
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Natural gas service coming to Tunkhannock; Ohio county commissioners visit Shell cracker site; New CNX Midstream president sees opportunity in the pipelines; Tug Hill alliance grows, secures funds for wind farm review; City workers’ pension funds hinge on Mayor de Blasio’s environmental stand; Is the Niobrara really the next big thing?; Construction reaches its peak at Duke’s Lake Julian, NC plant; NJ lawmakers seek to limit disposal of fracking by-products; U.S. shale’s glory days are numbered; The changing U.S. energy trade balance is still dominated by crude oil imports; Industry, regulators unite to defend fracking in Mexico; Tokyo to back US exports of shale gas to Asia; Temporary natural-gas generators power data centers.
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.
Here’s a theme we return to from time to time, when we spot a story worth highlighting. Not everyone can or even should go to college following high school. Some students would be better served by learning a skill, a trade, and entering the workforce sooner rather than later. There are a number of skilled trades in the shale industry–in all segments from upstream (drilling) to midstream (pipelines) to downstream (petrochemicals). Last week a workforce forum was held at the Mon Valley Career & Technology Center in Washington County, PA. A panel discussion pointed out we’re quickly heading for a shortage of skilled workers for shale (and other industries) in the tri-state area.
On September 21, Dominion Energy stopped pulling gas from pipelines into the Cove Point LNG export facility (on the shoreline of Maryland) in order to conduct scheduled maintenance (see 
The Obama years were a disaster for the country in general, and the oil and gas industry (all coal) in particular. One of the egregious examples of overregulation under Obama (wild, far-out overregulation) was reducing so-called fugitive methane (CH4)–preventing teeny tiny leaks of methane from pipelines, wellheads, etc. Obama’s Stalinist EPA put in place expensive requirements to capture nearly every last molecule of CH4–making it uneconomical for many drillers and pipeline companies, driving them from the industry. The Trump Administration is correcting many of the egregious regulations of the Obama era. On Monday, Team Trump floated reworked (relaxed) regs for methane emissions.
It’s one thing for mud and sediment to wash away from a pipeline drilling site due to heavy and relentless rains–as we have experienced in the northeast these past few months. But it’s another thing entirely when actual sections pipeline sitting at the construction site float away! That happened in Franklin County, Virginia last Thursday. The landowner, who was (and is) opposed to the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline from slicing through his property, has complained repeatedly about erosion and sediment from the construction path spilling over onto his farmland. Friday morning he woke up to MVP pipes washed onto his cornfield following torrential rains and wind, the leftovers of Hurricane Michael.