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Shell Shuts Down SWPA Cracker Plant Construction re COVID-19
Yesterday MDN told you that Shell had not (yet) closed down construction of the mighty ethane cracker plant they are building in Beaver County, PA (see COVID-19: Shell Keeps SWPA Cracker Construction Site Open). After a confirmed case of COVID-19 coronavirus in the county, the Board of Commissioners asked Shell yesterday to shut down the site for now. Within a few hours Shell did just that, sending home some 8,000 workers. The work stoppage will last from a few days to a few weeks.
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On Tuesday MDN told you that Chesapeake Energy has hired “debt restructuring advisers,” to help the company figure out how to stay afloat with $9 billion worth of outstanding debt (see 
Marathon Petroleum, the parent company of MPLX (formerly called MarkWest Energy) announced some big changes last November. Namely, they caved to “activist” investors (we still call them corporate raiders) and their demands to split the company in three and dump the current CEO (see 
We continue to be impressed with New Fortress Energy and its aim to own as much of the LNG supply chain as possible. The company is building an LNG (liquefied natural gas) liquefaction plant in northeast Pennsylvania (see 
Shale Gas News is a weekly radio program that plays on three radio stations in Pennsylvania. Last weekend’s show featured a segment with Colin Grabow, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. Grabow’s research focuses on domestic forms of trade protectionism such as the Jones Act and the U.S. sugar program. Yes, the Jones Act again! During the segment, Grabow describes what the Jones Act is and how it negatively affects U.S. shale gas exports to places like New England and Puerto Rico (see 
It’s getting bloody out there. Just two days ago we told you the “unthinkable” may happen, that oil may approach or hit $20/barrel (see 
Nobody knows just how low the price of oil and natural gas will go due to the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis (see today’s companion story), but that doesn’t stop prognosticators from rendering estimates of prices and (in this case) production levels. We spotted a couple of stories of interest. One story takes a stab at estimating where natural gas production in the U.S. will end up this year (down 2.4 Bcf/d), and another story estimates where oil production will end up this year (down 1 million barrels/day). Here are those predictions and rationale, for what it’s worth…
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Rep. Conor Lamb supports Biden’s ‘no new fracking’ push; NATIONAL: Seven of the most prolific Texas shale drillers cut $7.6 billion from budgets as oil prices collapse; ConocoPhillips and other oil producers slash their budgets deeper; Oil’s crash is both a help and a hazard for LNG export projects; In the oil business, everything flows downstream, including the pain; Crude market vaporizes; contango and storage plays take center stage; INTERNATIONAL: Canadian heavy oil plunges to lowest price on record.