Maine Wants Marcellus Gas Bad – Plans to Get it via Canada!
The only Republican New England governor, Maine’s Paul LePage, is also New England’s smartest governor. He knows New England residents are screwed bigtime without new sources of abundant, cheap, clean-burning natural gas–for heating and to produce electricity. LePage also understands the best place to get that gas is from the low cost Marcellus/Utica region–just a few hundred miles away from his state. The problem is that Maine’s neighbors have killed the only practical way to get that gas into New England–via pipelines (see MA Supreme Court Ruling Endangers New England Gas Pipelines; NH Regulators Veto Access Northeast Pipeline Contract; and CT Latest New England State to Give Up on NatGas Cooperation). But LePage isn’t ready to give up just yet. Perhaps his neighbors all want to commit economic suicide. Let them. LePage is floating an ingenious idea. It’s kind of a “going around your elbow to get to your thumb” plan, but hey, whatever works! LePage wants to run Marcellus Shale gas up into Ontario, Canada, then across that province into Quebec and from there on into Maine. The plan, which bypasses the rest of New England, is not as far-fetched as it first may sound…
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MDN first told you about IMG Midstream in August 2014 (see 
While the worldwide Baker Hughes rig count slide back a bit in October, from 934 in September to 920 in October, the rig count in the U.S. once again, for the fourth month in a row, went up. The average U.S. rig count for October was 544, up 35 from the 509 counted in September. However, the rig count was down 247 from the 791 counted in October 2015–so we still have a long ways to go. The Marcellus/Utica rig count was up for the third month running. In October the M/U rig count went up by 4 with 3 additions in PA (now 25 rigs) and 1 in WV (now 10 rigs). OH stayed even running with an average of 14 rigs…
Stone Energy, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (E&P) headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana drills mainly in the Gulf of Mexico but also has a presence in the Marcellus/Utica Shale with 90,000 acres of leases. Last year Stone quit drilling in the northeast and actually shut-in part of their production due to low prices (see 
Black Stone Minerals is one of the largest owners of oil and natural gas mineral rights in the U.S. Black Stone owns mineral interests and royalty interests in over 40 states and 60 onshore basins in the continental U.S–including leases in the Marcellus/Utica region. Black Stone also owns and selectively participates as a non-operating working partner in drilling programs, primarily on its own leased acreage. Black Stone reported its third quarter earnings yesterday. The numbers show the company made $37.5 million in 3Q16 (down a bit from making $53.9 million in 3Q15). However, for the first nine months of 2016 the company is in the black this year, while it was in the red last year at this point. Our point: yet more evidence that drilling and royalties and everything in our industry that was down is now trending up, once again…
Weatherford International is the fourth largest oilfield services company in the world, employing some 44,000 people. They have a branch office in Canonsburg, PA (Pittsburgh area) with major operations in the Marcellus/Utica. By comparison, Weatherford competitor Halliburton is the #2 largest oilfield services company in the world. A strange thing happened to Weatherford in September 2015. The public company floated new shares of stock and new IOUs (i.e., convertible notes) hoping to raise $1 billion in cash. But a few hours after they announced the offering, they withdrew it because “while investor interest was strong for this offering” the price those investors were willing to pay for the new stock and notes was not anywhere near what Weatherford wanted (see 
IHS Markit, an information and analytics company that keeps a close eye on the energy industry, says its analysis shows natural gas production in the U.S. went down “nearly 2%” in October from September. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a big deal. Production levels in South Texas and the Northeast, according to VP Jack Weixel, “fell off a combined 1.3 Bcf/d from September to October.” That is the largest regional month over month decline IHS Markit has seen since it began tracking these numbers. What does it mean? Typically it means higher prices are coming–less supply, the same or increasing demand equals higher prices (classic economics 101 stuff). However, there are so many complex and contributing factors, it’s not as simple as less supply = higher prices. Not anymore! Here’s what IHS Markit is saying…