RE: Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP)

By Rachel Adams-Heard, World Oil, 8/6/2018

HOUSTON (Bloomberg) — A $3.7 billion pipeline in America’s biggest shale gas play could be rerouted after a federal agency ordered all work on the project to stop.

In a rare move, regulators on Friday ordered EQT Midstream Partners LP to halt construction on its 303-mi Mountain Valley conduit, which would carry natural gas from the Marcellus basin to southern markets. The decision follows a U.S. appeals court’s order a few weeks ago vacating two key permits for the project.

The ruling, which requires agencies including the U.S. Forest Service to take a closer look at the project’s environmental impact, could lead to a “material re-route” for the pipeline, Height Securities LLC analysts Katie Bays and Josh Price said Monday in a note to clients.

EQT Midstream is confident that the permits in question will be restored, and that the Bureau of Land Management will stand by its decision that the route favored by the company is better than alternatives, spokeswoman Natalie Cox said in an email.

The company’s parent, EQT Corp., last month pushed the expected in-service date for the project to the first quarter of 2019 from late 2018. But late 2019 or early 2020 is more likely, Charles Robertson, an analyst at Cowen & Co., said in a note to clients.

And while the setbacks probably won’t cost EQT the $600 million it estimated earlier this year, “those construction stops do start to pile on material costs when the delays are reaching months instead of weeks,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Brandon Barnes said in an email.

Mountain Valley is a joint venture of EQT Midstream, NextEra Energy Inc., Consolidated Edison Inc., WGL Holdings and RGC Resources.

https://www.worldoil.com/news/2018/8/6/delay-puts-37-billion-marcellus-pipeline-at-risk-of-overhaul

From an Article by Isaac Groves, Burlington NC Times-News, August 4, 2018

GRAHAM, NC — The Alamance County Board of Commissioners will hear from those who want to build and those who want to stop a natural gas pipeline from coming into the county.

The commissioners’ regular meeting is at 9 a.m. Monday, Aug. 6, at W. Elm St., Graham.

The proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline Southgate would be a 72-mile, 24-inch diameter line connecting to the existing MVP in Pittsylvania County, Va., and carrying Marcellus Shale gas to the PSNC distribution system south of Graham, according to documents submitted to the county.

The company says the pipeline will bring cheaper natural gas to the area, which has a growing population and growing demand for energy, 1,260 jobs, $106 million in local spending and $1.3 million in county taxes, all with less pollution than coal.

Opponents, represented by the Haw River Assembly, say the company significantly exaggerates the tax revenue and the potential demand for natural gas, points out most of those jobs will be temporary, charges many will be taken by out-of-state workers, says the company is unfair to the property owners from whom it buys land, that there are environmental dangers in constructing and maintaining the pipeline and compression stations and the pipeline deepens the dependence on polluting fossil fuels and fracking.

The commissioners will hear from the company and the assembly, which is leading the charge against it. At the public comments period at the beginning of the meeting, three speakers for and three speakers against the pipeline may be heard. Five have already signed up to speak, according to the agenda.

http://www.thetimesnews.com/news/20180804/commissioners-to-hear-about-pipeline