Tetco M-2 Sinks to $1.435, Below EQT’s $1.50 Shut-In Trigger
The fall “turn down the valves” season for Marcellus/Utica gas has arrived, and it showed up about a week early. Last Friday (Sept. 11), the spot price at Texas Eastern M-2 (aka Tetco M-2), the key pricing point for gas produced in southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, averaged $1.435 per MMBtu (million British thermal units, roughly 1,000 cubic feet of gas). That’s 6.5 cents below the $1.50 mark that EQT, the region’s biggest driller, has flagged as its trigger for curtailing (temporarily cutting back) production. So, are shut-ins coming? History says probably, at least for a while. Read More “Tetco M-2 Sinks to $1.435, Below EQT’s $1.50 Shut-In Trigger”
Yesterday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule that rips out the heart of the Biden administration’s 2024 power plant carbon regulations. Gone is the requirement that new “base load” natural gas-fired power plants and long-lived coal plants capture 90% of their carbon dioxide (CO2) by 2032. EPA says the repeal will save $310 billion. At the same time, EPA proposed scrapping every remaining greenhouse gas standard for power plants, which it says would save another $370 million. For the Marcellus/Utica, where a parade of big gas-fired power plants is lining up to feed AI data centers, this is very good news. 
Remember Synapse Energy Economics? That’s the Massachusetts consulting outfit that, back in 2023, was paid by two Big Green groups to produce a “report” claiming Pennsylvania’s RGGI carbon tax would lower your electric bill (see 
NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy, which want to combine into the country’s biggest electric utility in a $67 billion deal, launched a full-blown charm offensive (i.e., piles of money) aimed at Virginia yesterday. The two companies unveiled what they call a “transformational” benefits package that doubles bill credits for homeowners (from two years to four), promises 1,000 new direct jobs, and throws in a brand-new office tower in downtown Richmond, paid for by NextEra shareholders. Why all the sweeteners? Because Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger says she is “deeply skeptical” the deal is good for her state, and she has formally inserted herself into the regulatory review. Here’s what’s in the new package, how it’s being received, and why it matters to Marcellus/Utica drillers. 
We told you back in July that the two landowners fighting the 2,180-megawatt (MW) Canadys Station gas-fired power plant in South Carolina’s Lowcountry were teeing up an appeal straight to the state Supreme Court (see 
A Syracuse University professor has published a paper in the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA) urging towns to treat AI data centers the way they treated fracking a decade ago. Syracuse’s PR department is billing it as “new research” that shows communities how to handle data centers. There’s just one problem. It isn’t really research—by the author’s own admission, no new data was collected. And several of the “facts” about fracking it leans on are flat wrong, especially about Pennsylvania. 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Eos Energy accelerates manufacturing consolidation after securing millions in federal funds; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Sempra Infrastructure announces long-term LNG supply agreement with Petrobras; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas futures start week with gains; Gas processing frac spread soars to 2.5 year high; New Green Ammonia Buyers Alliance targets food industry; Was 2026 really the “hottest summer on record” in the United States?; Energy reality forces tech to ditch climate virtue signaling; INTERNATIONAL: Oil climbs amid Saudi pipeline halt; Gastech 2026 kicks off in Bangkok with a call for more energy; More climate emotionalism (and vulgarity); New IEF report highlights growing importance of LNG market security as global trade expands. 
Back in March, MDN told you that New Fortress Energy (NFE) had entered a voluntary UK Restructuring Plan — the British cousin of a U.S. prepackaged bankruptcy (see 
Pittsburgh-based Alcoa says it’s “very close” to selling its shuttered Massena East aluminum smelter in New York’s North Country to a data center developer. Here’s the part that other reporting left out: the buyer has been sitting on that site since 2017, wants to build a 635-megawatt (MW) computing campus there — and Gov. Kathy Hochul froze the whole thing two months ago with her data center moratorium (see 
National Fuel Gas Company (NYSE: NFG) released its 2025 Corporate Responsibility Report last Wednesday, and the most newsworthy part never made the press release. Buried on page 22 — and repeated on page 25 — is NFG’s announcement that it has discontinued its consolidated absolute greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. The company is keeping its segment-level methane intensity targets and will keep publishing absolute emissions numbers. But the corporate-wide “cut total tons” pledge is gone. 
The streak is over. After three straight reports at 588, the national rig count finally moved, adding three to reach 591. Oil rigs went up. Gas rigs went up. And here at home? Nothing. The Marcellus/Utica sat at 33 for a second consecutive week, which is what “unchanged” looks like when you’re already at your lowest number in two years. Meanwhile WTI crossed $100 a barrel and our gas slid to $2.83. Read those two numbers together and you’ve got the whole week. 
Energy Transfer, one of the biggest midstream players in the country and a familiar name to Marcellus/Utica landowners thanks to the Revolution and Mariner East systems, announced last week that it is pulling its primary stock listing off the New York Stock Exchange and moving it to the brand-new Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) in Dallas. Three affiliated companies are going with it. Together the four represent close to $100 billion in market value — the largest chunk of listing business the NYSE has ever lost to a startup rival. Before you declare the end of Wall Street, though, there’s an asterisk the size of Texas attached to this one. 
The Marcellus/Utica region received 28 new drilling permits last week, August 31 – September 6, down from the 39 permits issued two weeks ago. Pennsylvania issued 11 of the new permits. Ohio issued 12 new permits. And West Virginia issued 5 new permits. The drillers who received new permits last week were: EOG Resources, Expand Energy, Greylock Energy, Northeast Natural Energy, and Range Resources. 
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy (Warren Buffett’s company), got the last piece of paper it needed yesterday for an important new pipeline project. FERC’s Office of Energy Projects issued a notice to proceed (NTP) on Sept. 10, authorizing EGTS to start building the Appalachian Reliability Project (ARP) — the 550,000 dekatherms/day expansion that will push more Marcellus and Utica gas from western Pennsylvania into Ohio. Even better, the approval comes in roughly six months ahead of the company’s own published timeline.