Mountaineer Gas Begins Work on Morgan County, WV Pipeline
Anti-fossil fuel nutters have been on a holy mission to stop a 3.5-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being installed under the Potomac River (see Maryland Antis Oppose 13th Pipeline Under Potomac as “Dangerous”). They are trying to pressure the pusillanimous RINO governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, to block the project–a project from Columbia Gas Transmission (now part of TransCanada). Don’t tell the antis, but the pipeline system Columbia’s proposed 3.5-mile pipeline will feed is now under construction in West Virginia, just on the other side of the Potomac. In 2017, Mountaineer Gas launched the Eastern Panhandle Expansion pipeline project–a project to deliver natural gas via local distribution channels to a new industrial facility in Berkeley County, WV, and to provide gas to other local businesses and residents in the Tri-State area. Mountaineer’s pipeline expansion will be fed by the 3.5-mile Columbia Gas pipeline under the Potomac. There are three phases to the Eastern Panhandle Expansion project: Phase One runs a 22.5-mile, 10-inch-diameter steel pipeline from Morgan County to Martinsburg; Phase Two includes a loop to Charles Town; and Phase Three will build a four mile segment of pipeline into Martinsburg. The West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection approved the Eastern Panhandle Expansion in February (see WV DEP Issues Permit for Mountaineer Gas Pipeline in Eastern WV). As of last week, work on Phase One has begun, on both ends of the 22.5-mile pipeline…
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Last week MDN told you about two radical anti-fossil fuel activists who built tree houses in the Jefferson National Forest and are living in them (for now) in an attempt to prevent the trees and the trees around them from being cut to make way for the legally permitted Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
Fairmount Santrol, an Ohio-based sand producer that sells sand as a proppant for use in Utica and Marcellus Shale drilling, recently released its fourth quarter and full year 2017 update. Sand is good in Buckeye State. Fairmount reports the company sold 43.8% more sand in 2017 than in 2016–a sure sign that drilling in the Marcellus/Utica spiked up in 2017. Fairmount made $53.6 million in 2017, versus loosing $140.2 million in 2016, which is another positive sign. According to CEO Jennifer Deckard, “Proppant demand remained robust during the fourth quarter.” This may be the last quarterly update we bring you from Fairmount. As you may recall, late last year the company announced it is selling itself to Unimin, a subsidiary of Belgium-based SCR-Sibelco (see 
We’re not quite sure what to make of this story. North Carolina has been, as we’ve long pointed out, nitpicking in an attempt to slow down (or stop) the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) from traversing the state (see 
In January MDN brought you the sad news that the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), which operates the East Coast’s largest refinery on the banks of the Delaware River, had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (see 
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: OH residents to get chance to comment PTT cracker air emissions; power gen drivers of East Coast gas demand; OOGA gets a new leader; TransCanada starts up Cameron LNG feeder pipe; Texas drillers expand 14th month in a row; US exported more energy to Mexico than imported – for 3rd year in a row; will Trump’s steel tarrifs threaten US natgas industry?; Staoil changes name; Arctic freeze makes Europe nervous re Russian gas supplies; and more!
Rover Pipeline is in hot water again. This time it’s not Captain Craig “Ahab” Butler from the Ohio EPA, but the West Virginia Dept. of Environmental Protection. In a letter just released publicly (dated March 5), WVDEP slapped Rover with a “cease-and-desist” order, stopping all construction of Rover in the state, because of inspections in February that found 14 violations of water pollution regulations. The violations occurred in Doddridge, Tyler and Wetzel counties. Violations ran the range of leaving trash behind at construction sites to improper perimeter controls (no erosion devices installed) to failure to clean up the roads they used. In addition to trouble in WV, Rover is also facing new issues in both Ohio and Pennsylvania. In February heavy rains in the region caused “slippage issues” where the pipeline is being installed. Rover filed a report with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) last week to say it has eight crews working to correct slippage issues at six locations along its 51-mile Burgettstown Lateral. Here’s the latest on WV shutting down Rover, and Rover’s work to fix slippage issues…
Last week MDN reported that due to underground horizontal direction drilling (HDD) in Chester County, PA for the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project, a third sinkhole had developed. ME2 is being built close to the existing Mariner East 1 (ME1) pipeline. The sinkhole exposed a portion of the ME1 pipeline to the open air, which is why the head of the state Public Utility Commission (PUC) temporarily shut down the propane and ethane flowing through ME1 (see 
Big Green groups opposed to Dominion Energy’s $6.5 billion (up from $5 billion due to delays) Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina are about out of options in their holy mission to stop the project. They’ve tried multiple lawsuits, protests, bullying state environmental agencies–the whole bag of nasty tricks. And yet ACP is now under construction. What’s left to try to stop it? The Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, on behalf of a mishmash of second tier radical groups, have filed a “hail Mary” request with the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to stop construction of ACP until a lawsuit sitting before the Fourth Circuit questioning the validity of the permits granted for the project is played out. In other words, back to the tried-and-true playbook: delay, delay, delay–until eventually you deny…
We bet you didn’t know that a bloated, inefficient government bureaucracy like the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) can cut down on the amount of time it takes them to review permits necessary in the drilling process (like erosion and stream crossing permits)–just by changing the paperwork. That’s the claim the DEP is making. Yesterday the DEP released new paperwork–new forms to fill out–for Chapter 105 General Permit Registrations relating to water obstructions and encroachments. These new forms “will improve the quality of General Permit registration requests, eliminate unnecessary redundancies, and reduce review time frames.” Yeah, and we have a bridge in Brooklyn we’d like to sell ya…
As we reported last week, this week the PA House of Representatives was due to host a hearing on a slate of bills aimed at fixing not only the slowmo way the state Dept. of Environmental Protection approves permits, but also roll back some of the egregious regulatory overreach in PA (see 
Yesterday the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management, posted draft rules for changing well spacing for both conventional and Utica Shale wells. The new rules, which the public can comment on now (comments due by April 10th), will establish new minimum distances horizontal shale wells may be drilled from the boundaries of drilling units and new minimum distances from other horizontal wells. In our quick read of the proposed regs, it looks like shale wells must be drilled at least 400 feet from the drilling unit boundary line. There is no required minimum between shale wells drilled on the same pad as part of the same drilling unit. Below are the proposed regs from ODNR…
For some time now, MDN has had its eye on Mexico. Following landmark reforms in 2013 and 2014, Mexico’s oil and gas markets have been freed from strict government control. Mexico is interested in attracting foreign (i.e. U.S.) investment. While renewable energy prospects in Mexico grabbed much of the attention in mainstream media, the core of the energy reform effort lies in the expansion of Mexico’s natural gas market. Not only is power generation heavily focused on increasing capacity through gas-fired combined cycle power plants, but consumption by industrial users is also expected to rise at a steady pace in the coming decades. Mexico is already, and will become even more so, an incredibly important market for U.S. natural gas. NGI (Natural Gas Intelligence) knows just how critical Mexico is becoming to the U.S. and recently launched a new daily news and data service called the