Sierra Club Withdraws Federal Lawsuit to Stop NEXUS Pipeline
The uber-litigious Sierra Club and it’s vaunted stable of attorneys have been caught with their pants down–legally speaking. One of the (many) pipelines the Clubbers oppose is NEXUS, a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. NEXUS got final approval for the project from FERC in August (see New FERC Quorum Votes Final Approval for NEXUS Pipeline). The Ohio EPA granted a water permit for the project in September (see Ohio EPA Grants Water Permit to NEXUS Pipe, “Learned” from Rover). Seeing the NEXUS freight train moving on down the tracks, the Clubbers filed a request for “rehearing” with FERC in September (see CORNballs, Sierra Club Continue to Fight NEXUS Pipeline in Court). Before anyone can sue to stop a federal pipeline project, the first step is to request a rehearing. If FERC delays or rejects a rehearing request, the “aggrieved” party can then launch a lawsuit in federal Appeals Court. And that’s what the Sierra Club did last week. They filed a lawsuit against NEXUS in the Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, asking the court to force FERC to conduct a new review of the project, and in the meantime, shut it all down (see Sierra Club Files Federal Lawsuit to Stop NEXUS Pipeline). There’s just one teeny tiny problem: The landowner the Clubbers was using as their excuse to file the lawsuit recently sold his property to NEXUS. Oops. Now the Clubbers don’t have a reason to sue, so with tail between legs, they withdrew the lawsuit yesterday…
Read More “Sierra Club Withdraws Federal Lawsuit to Stop NEXUS Pipeline”
A small group of people whose bubble isn’t in the center of the level staged a “protest” on Saturday in Long Beach, NY (Nassau County), nominally against the Williams Rockaway Delivery Lateral pipeline project. The Rockaway project adds 3.2 miles of new Transco pipeline and related facilities in New York, from the Marine Parkway Bridge in Far Rockaway to offshore in the Atlantic Ocean. The protesters’ stated reason for opposing the project? Not because it may disturb underwater ecosystems. Not because it would temporarily disrupt the lives of those living nearby during construction. Not because of fears over water contamination. No. The stated reason is, “for the end to burning fossil fuels” and because they want NY state “to convert to renewable energy by 2030.” It is, literally, an impossibility to end the use of fossil fuels within the next 100 years. But these idiots refuse to use logic and reason. So now they’re targeting a minuscule 3 mile pipeline in an effort to vent their irrational rage. Meanwhile, up the Hudson in Westchester County, a different small group of nutters also gathered on Saturday to vent their rage for the same reason (anti-fossil fuel extremism), except the focus of their rage is Spectra Energy’s Atlantic Bridge Pipeline project…
We spotted a rather long and (to us) convoluted article about an experiment a New York City-area utility is conducting. National Grid (electric and gas utility) and their software partner AutoGrid are going to “use the latest demand response technology from the electricity world for natural gas.” That is, they are going to use software hooked to hardware to control how much natural gas is used by (so far) 16 customers signed up for the service. Supposedly it will work out bottlenecks in delivering natgas to customers–somehow reducing the amount of gas used overall. And that’s where our understanding falls down. How can you use software to use less gas–unless you are forcing someone’s thermostat to be turned down? We don’t get it. But supposedly this is the latest and greatest in technology. What did catch our attention in the article was a short passage about the coming electricity shortage NY faces because we lack natural gas pipeline infrastructure to fire gas generating plants. Specifically, New York and Long Island will soon face massive electricity shortages–unless utilities figure out how to force customers to lower their thermostats so they can use the gas to generate electricity…
American shale has fundamentally transformed the world geopolitically. How? Just think about. #1 – Saudi Arabia and Iran are on the brink of all-out war. For decades Saudia Arabia has been the world’s leading oil producing country. Iran has been in the top five oil producing counties. #2 – Venezuela, the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, is rumored to have defaulted on its foreign debt. Either situation, #1 or #2, hint at the potential for the flow of oil to be disrupted. Both happening at the same time is an oil cataclysm. A decade ago such news would have resulted in oil hitting $100, perhaps even $150 per barrel. The price of gas at the pump would have soared, overnight, to more than $5/gallon. Yet what has happened to the price of oil with this recent geopolitical news? Nothing. If anything, the price has gone down! The only reason oil prices are not through the roof is because of the abundance of American shale oil. An occasional guest blogger here on MDN is Daniel Markind, a partner with law firm 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Keystone XL pipeline gets Nebraska’s approval, what’s next; Commerce Dept. finds 6 countries “dumping” cheap pipe in U.S.; EIA reports first gas withdrawal of the season; EIA, IEA overstate oil supplies from shale?; structural changes to the energy business; a new US-China relationship on the horizon; Ineos first to deliver US shale to China; and more!
A journey which began for Pennsylvania landowners in Butler County, PA in July 2015 is nearing an end. Two Butler County, PA landowners with a combined 245.7 acres of land leased to XTO Energy sued XTO in 2015 claiming that XTO is breaking the lease agreement by paying royalties below 1/8 of what XTO receives in revenue for the gas (see 
In a disappointing development, the supervisors of Smith Township (Washington County), PA have voted to turn down MAX Environmental’s request to expand the Bulger landfill they operate in the town (see 
In January 2016 the Obama U.S. Forest Service (USFS) turned down a request from Dominion’s $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina, to pass through two different national forests (see 
The golden parachute has popped open for Rice Energy’s former CEO, Dan Rice IV. And it’s worth $2.6 million. EQT filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week to say that Dan Rice IV has been terminated (as an employee) as of the day the two companies merged. In a deal worked out prior to the merger, Dan is getting a check for $2.6 million–$1.91 million as a severance payment and $704,000 in lieu of his annual bonus. Which frankly doesn’t sound like a whole lot, given Dan was one of the shareholding owners of Rice Energy. His salary in 2016 was $3.35 million. But don’t shed any tears for Dan. We suspect his stock in the newly-merged EQT is worth a fortune. And Dan gets a seat on the EQT board of directors, a gig that will pay him. What’s next for Dan and the other Rice boys? We don’t have the particulars for all of the Rice boys, but we do know (from the SEC filing) that Dan signed a 3-year non-compete agreement, so we won’t see Rice Energy II in the northeast for at least three years. Other than that, we suspect the boys already have something up their proverbial sleeve. The Rice boys don’t strike us as the lounge-around-the-pool types…
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last Thursday granted Rover Pipeline permission to resume horizontal directional drilling (HDD) at four more locations where it had been stopped. One of those locations is drilling under the Ohio River in the Majorsville area. Rover is a $3.7 billion, 711-mile natural gas pipeline that (will eventually) run from PA, WV and eastern OH through OH into Michigan and on to Canada. A large portion of the pipeline began flowing natural gas on Sept. 1st (see 
Good news for Northumberland County: Atlantic Sunrise is rising in your neighborhood. Work on the $3 billion, 198-mile natural gas pipeline project that will run through 10 Pennsylvania counties to connect Marcellus Shale natural gas from northeastern PA with the Williams’ Transco pipeline in southern Lancaster County has begun in Northumberland County. Last week a Williams subcontractor working on that portion of the project gave a tour to a local newspaper. Atlantic Sunrise will pass through approximately 10 miles of Northumberland County, entering from Columbia County and exiting to Schuylkill County. So far, “Everything seems to be going really well” according to the contractor in charge of that portion of the project. They expect to begin welding pipes together by the end of this month…
Five more members of the nutty Lancaster Against Pipelines group have been arrested, including a minor. It’s bad enough putting your own life at risk. We consider it child abuse to put your child’s life in danger by sitting the kid down in front of heavy equipment–in a deluded attempt to stop construction. Just last week we told you about three old ladies who did the same thing (see 
Last week we told you about the hypocrisy of PJM Interconnection–the regional transmission organization (RTO) that operates the electric grid in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia, including PA, OH and WV (see 
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events.
It’s “game on” between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The DEC had arbitrarily, after more than one year of review, ruled against issuing a federal water crossing permit for a tiny 7.8 mile pipeline Millennium needs to build from its main pipeline to an electric generating plant under construction in Orange County. The power plant is due to be completed in early 2018, and needs a fuel supply. In a historic decision, FERC overruled NY DEC in September (see