FERC Rejects Rehearing Request from Antis re MVP, ACP Projects
Last September a group of 57 gentry landowners in Virginia and West Virginia, backed by an out-of-state Big Green group, sued the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in an attempt to gut the 80-year old Natural Gas Act that gives FERC the right to grant eminent domain for pipeline projects (see VA, WV Landowners Sue FERC re Pipelines, Seek to Gut Natural Gas Act). Specifically, the colluding landowners oppose Dominion’s $5 billion, 594-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) that will stretch from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina, and EQT’s $3.5 billion Mountain Valley Pipeline project, a 303-mile pipeline that will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA. The frivolous lawsuit, titled BOLD ALLIANCE, et al. v. FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION, et al., was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which was the wrong court. Only FERC has jurisdiction over the projects and decisions about whether or not they can get built. If a supposedly aggrieved party disagrees with FERC’s decisions, they must first file for a rehearing, and if FERC still refuses, THEN the supposedly aggrieved party can file a lawsuit ONLY with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The suers, Big Green group Bold Alliance, filed for a rehearing with FERC. Bold Alliance tried to sidestep the law by moving forward with a lawsuit prematurely. However, the really big no-no is that they filed in U.S. District Court for DC, NOT the Court of Appeals for DC. Big difference. Here’s “the rest of the story”…last Friday FERC rejected Bold Alliance’s request for a rehearing for both MVP and ACP. So we expect the next step is that Bold Alliance will now file an appeal with the correct court, the DC Court of Appeals…
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TransCanada is attempting to do what so far, no one else has been able to accomplish: Increase flows of Marcellus/Utica (and perhaps other basin) gas into New England. The way they’re doing it is via the Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGTS), a 295-mile pipeline that spans New England from the Canadian border to pipeline connections in New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts. No, TransCanada is not proposing to build any new pipeline as part of their plan. In fact there is no construction of any kind for phases I and II in what TransCanada is calling its Portland XPress Project (PXP). Phase I, which TransCanada filed on April 20, asked FERC for permission to begin flowing an extra 39.8 million cubic feet (MMcf) of natural gas from Pittsburg, NH, to Westbrook, ME, and to increase the flow from and to Canada. In Phase II, which was filed yesterday, TransCanada asked FERC for permission to flow an extra 11.3 MMcf from Westbrook, ME, to Dracut, MA. When the filing for Phase III comes along, they will ask to build a new compressor station, among other bits and bobs. New England and Atlantic Canada desperately need the gas, so there’s no reason why FERC would deny these reasonable requests. Perhaps TransCanada can succeed where Kinder Morgan’s TGP Northeast Energy Direct and Spectra Energy’s Access Northeast projects failed, and boldly go where no pipeline has gone before…
A rather juvenile, kindergartenish attitude appears to be taking root in the Democrat Party–at least in the Old Dominion. Dems there have decided that wind and solar, which provide something like 2.9% of all electric generation in the country, should just take over now and that we should stop building any/all pipelines that flow evil, nasty, “yesterday’s energy” called fossil fuels. And on that self-deluding basis, a group of Dems from Roanoke and across the state signed a (blithering idiot) letter to Democrat Gov. Ralph Northam demanding that he just stop both the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Atlantic Coast Pipeline projects in Virginia–federal projects. Of course the Dems are not really THAT stupid. This is a sleazy political calculation–playing to the nutjob base that elects them. States don’t have the right to overrule the federal government. The last time Virginia tried to overrule the federal government was in 1860, and you know how that turned out…
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Northeast shale takeaway gets boost from new pipes; to Shell and back – the cracker journey over the last 6 years; crucial components for Shell cracker recently delivered; PA DEP head talks water contamination, fracking & funding; Bakken Shale comes roaring back with higher oil prices; the drive to ban oil trains in NJ will threaten public safety; shale drillers face new test as price tops $70/barrel; natgas injection season finally arrives; pipeline investments dogged by regs, tariffs, protesters and redundancy; and more!
Last Friday National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Western New York State which operates drilling subsidiary Seneca Resources and pipeline subsidiary Empire Pipeline, issued its second quarter 2018 (everyone else’s first quarter) update. Via Seneca Resources, NFG drills wells in northcentral and northwestern PA. Via Empire Pipeline, they build and maintain hundreds of miles of pipelines. NFG wants to add to their pipeline portfolio by building the Northern Access Pipeline–a $455 million project with 97 miles of new pipeline along a power line corridor from northwestern PA up to Erie County, NY. Northern Access would allow Seneca to drill new wells in an area currently pipeline “constrained.” However, Northern Access construction has been blocked by the corrupt NY Dept. of Environmental Conservation (see 
Eclipse Resources, a Marcellus/Utica pure play driller headquartered in State College, PA, issued its first quarter 2018 update last week. Eclipse has drilled the longest onshore natural gas wells in the world–in the Ohio Utica. Impressive company. In March the company announced it is looking for someone to buy, or (more likely) for someone else to buy them (see 
The vast majority of Rover Pipeline is done, and most of it is now up and running (see 
Theresa “Red” Terry (whom we call Grandma Red) and her daughter Minor Terry finally came down from the trees where they were perched since April 2 in an illegal attempt to block Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) from cutting the trees. They came down on Saturday after a federal judge said if they stayed past midnight Saturday, they would each be fined $1,000 per day. The money would go to MVP. Red said, “Mountain Valley has taken enough from us…There wasn’t a lot more I could do up there besides show my ass and give them money.” As we previously reported, a number of Virginia lawmakers expressed their support of the Terrys and their flagrant disregard of the law (see 
Last Thursday the radical Big Green group PennEnvironment released a “study” that claims PA should move to adopt electric buses, instead of all other alternatives (like compressed natural gas) because electric buses are (supposedly) more environmentally friendly. We understand the argument about replacing diesel-powered engines to lower the amount of nasty stuff that enters the air. But PennEnvironment’s argument to use electric buses is as much about reducing mythical global warming as it is reducing diesel emissions. And here’s the thing PennEnvironment doesn’t tell you (and what their Big Green supporters are too dull to figure out themselves): electricity comes from somewhere. It’s not magic. It’s produced. In PA, as of January 2018, 54% of all electricity is produced either by coal or natural gas-fired plants. Another 40% is produced by nuclear plants. How much electricity is produced in PA by all those gigantic windmills you see when sailing down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, along with solar? A measly 2.9%. So how “clean” are electric buses, really? Put another way, the majority of what powers electric buses is good old fossil fuels. Does PennEnvironment know they’re advocating for more fossil fuel use? Meanwhile, the Wolf administration (surprisingly) continues to invest in CNG buses, which is the smart thing to do…
TransCanada, one of Canada’s leading midstream/pipeline companies, cooked up a deal in 2016 to pipe natural gas from Canada’s West Coast to the East Coast in order to fend off cheap supplies of Marcellus/Utica gas that will flow into Canada from the NEXUS and Rover pipelines (see 
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events. To have your event included (or if you are aware of a worthy event you believe should be on this page), please send the details and/or a link to have it included to the calendar@marcellusdrilling.com email address.
On March 3, the Mariner East 1 (ME1) natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline was suddenly switched off by order of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) after a sinkhole opened up under the pipeline in Chester County, exposing some of the bare steel to the open air (see 
Yesterday CNX Resources, formerly CONSOL Energy, released its first quarter 2018 update–its first full 3-month update since separating from the coal company. CONSOL began life as a coal company 150 years ago and only in recent decades entered the oil and gas business. The company split itself into coal and oil/gas back in November (see 
As we reported earlier this week, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, who has been lauded as the most liberal governor in America, once again pushed for a Marcellus-killing severance tax (see 
There is nothing mysterious or complex about the actions taken by a Virginia State Senator, Chap Petersen (Democrat from the swamp, the D.C. area). Petersen is a lawyer and has just sued the U.S. Forest Service because the Forest Service is blocking a road in the Jefferson National Forest, which is their RIGHT to do (they manage it), because down that gravel road are several ILLEGAL TRESPASSERS who refuse to come down from trees that need to be cut down to make way for the federally-approved Mountain Valley Pipeline. There’s nothing complex in understanding that Petersen (did we mention he’s a Democrat?) supports lawlessness and anarchy. Imagine that, a lawmaker who supports people that break the laws he makes. How idiotic is that? Here’s the story of how Virginia Dems in high places continue to flout the laws of our country in their quest to retain political power (and contributions) by currying favor with radical Big Green supporters…