The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) and planned expansions to it and the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (Transco) system are providing utilities, data centers and others in Virginia and the Carolinas with enhanced access to Marcellus/Utica-sourced natural gas — and man, will they need it! Plans for new generating capacity between Washington, DC and the South Carolina/Georgia state line are proliferating, and the increasing ability to move large volumes of gas south on MVP and Transco will give producers in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio an important incremental outlet for their gas well into the 2030s. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll discuss the boom in power demand in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina and the very timely expansion of gas-pipeline access to three states.
We’ve hit parts of this larger story from different angles — in this blog mini-series, we’ll tie it all together. We’ll begin with MVP, the 303-mile, 2-Bcf/d gas pipeline that for many years was a poster child for the challenges midstream companies face in developing big energy infrastructure projects. It ultimately took both an Act of Congress and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling for MVP’s development consortium — led by Equitrans Midstream (now part of Marcellus/Utica gas production giant EQT Corp.) — to clear its remaining regulatory and legal battles.
MVP (light blue line in Figure 1 below) is a 42-inch-diameter pipe that runs from the heart of the Marcellus/Utica region in northern West Virginia to an interconnection with Williams’s Transco system at Transco’s Compression Station 165 (aka Station 165) in Pittsylvania County, VA. Transco (green lines) is a roughly 10,000-mile interstate pipeline between southern Texas and the New York City area. MVP started commercial operation in mid-June, and in recent days it has been transporting well under 1 Bcf/d (according to RBN’s weekly NATGAS Appalachia report), or less than half its current capacity, mostly due to constraints north, south and east from Station 165. (MVP’s developers plan to expand the pipe’s capacity by 500 MMcf/d, to 2.5 Bcf/d, “as soon as possible” — more on that later.)
Figure 1. MVP, Transco and Other Selected Gas Pipelines. Source: RBN
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About the song
“(For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People” was written by Eugene Record and appears as the fifth song on side one of The Chi-Lites’ third studio album of the same name. The song begins with a synthesizer blast, giving way to a funk-filled social commentary about giving power to the people with soulful solo sections from The Chi-Lites’ Eugene Record, Marshall Thompson, Robert “Squirrel” Lester and Creadel “Red” Jones, culminating in powerful choruses sung by the quartet. The song’s strong social message and arrangement share a commonality with tunes done by The Temptations and Sly & the Family Stone during the same era. It was released as a single in October 1971 and went to #4 on the Billboard R&B Singles chart and #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart. It was later featured in the 1995 film Panther. Personnel on the record were: Marshall Thompson, Robert Lester, Creadel Jones, Eugene Record (vocals) and uncredited Chicago session musicians (instrumentation). Eugene Record produced the record and did the arrangements.
The album (For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People was recorded in 1970-71 at Brunswick Record Studio in Chicago and produced by Eugene Record. Brunswick started in the record business in 1920 and after many buyouts closed shop for good in 1983. The building that housed Brunswick Records at 623 South Wabash Avenue in Chicago is now the home of Columbia College Chicago. A faded “B” from the Brunswick sign is still visible on the south side of the building, while on the opposite side you can still see “Studebaker” painted on the bricks, giving away the origins of the historic building. The album was released in 1971 and went to #3 on the Billboard R&B Albums chart and #12 on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. Four singles were released from the LP, including the #1 R&B hit, “Have You Seen Her.”
The Chi-Lites are an American R&B/soul vocal quartet originally formed at Chicago’s Hyde Park High School in 1959. The group’s most productive and lucrative time was in the late 1960s and early ’70s with the lineup of Record, Jones, Lester and Thompson. They have had 21 charting singles in their career so far and have released 18 studio albums, 15 compilation albums and 64 singles. The Chi-Lites are members of the Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame and Vocal Group Hall of Fame and have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Nine members have passed through the group since its formation. Creadel Jones died in August 1994, Eugene Record passed in July 2005 and Robert Lester left us in January 2010. Founding member Marshall Thompson, along with four other singers, still perform as The Chi-Lites and will be featured at the Fool In Love Festival in Los Angeles in late August.
