Southwestern Energy Grows M-U Prod 21%, Likes WV Upper Devonian
Southwestern Energy, one of the largest Marcellus/Utica drillers, issued its 2018 (and 4Q) update last Friday. The company reports growing M-U production 21% in 2018, to 702 billion cubic feet equivalent (Bcfe). That works out to be 1.9 Bcfe per day. Quite an accomplishment when you consider those numbers happened even after Southwestern sold off their Fayetteville Shale assets last year.
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On Friday TransCanada, owner of Columbia Gas Transmission, issued a press release to say the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved the startup of the remainder of the Mountaineer XPress pipeline project. Just last week we told you that FERC had approved more (but not the rest) of the project to go online (see
This is super sleazy. You might want to put on a rain slicker to keep the crap from sticking to you as you read it. Last week Chester County, PA commissioners asked to join a lawsuit against Sunoco’s Mariner East pipeline projects. The commissioners also voted to end easements allowing Sunoco access to the pipeline as it runs through county property, access needed so they could do work on it.
Duke Energy has a plan to build a critically-needed natural gas pipeline near Cincinnati, OH to replace an old pipeline built in the 1950s. A group calling themselves NOPE–Neighbors Opposing Pipeline Extension, is trying to defeat the project. We call them DOPEs–Dummies Opposing Pipeline Extension. The DOPErs are back, claiming a brand new pipeline through the area will be less safe and more dangerous than the old, worn-out pipeline.
This is wack. Instead of expanding and connecting pipelines to carry Marcellus/Utica natural gas to New England and from there on to the Canadian Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), some M-U gas now heads there after traveling all the way to Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG export facility on the coast of Louisiana.
USA Today recently published an article picked up from the investor website 24/7 Wall Street that analyzes the average cost per kilowatt hour for electricity state by state–all 50 states. It’s not surprising that Hawaii and Alaska are in the top two highest rates in the nation, separated from the Lower 48.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio moves into top five for recoverable shale natural gas reserves; Cap-and-trade climate petitioners resubmit entire petition to PA EQB; Governor presses for severance tax to repair levee; Wolf promotes proposal to fund high-speed internet expansion; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Energy Transfer natural gas pipeline ruptures in Missouri; NATIONAL: Andrew Wheeler confirmed by Senate as EPA chief; U.S. crude oil production, exports hit record levels; INTERNATIONAL: Drinking and gambling outpace oil, natgas revenues in Canada’s top-producing province; Global oil & gas drilling set to surge in 2019; Russia’s Arctic LNG project aims to tempt fuel-hungry Japan.