Range Resources Cuts Budget Again, Down Another $90M
Yesterday Range Resources announced it is hacking off another $90 million from its 2020 budget. In January the company announced it would reduce its 2020 budget by 29%, from spending $728 million last year to $520 million this year (see Range Releases 2020 Budget: Spending 29% Less, Focus on Marcellus). Yesterday the number for this year went down to $430 million, a 40% cut over last year’s budget. The reason for the additional cut? The ongoing low price of natural gas.
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The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) has been co-opted by Big Green groups to do their bidding. The latest example is a letter sent by DRBC to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), arrogantly telling FERC that the DRBC has the power to review the PennEast Pipeline project–to pass judgment on whether or not (and how) it gets built. That authority lies SOLELY with FERC.
Last December the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking for an extra 60 days to revise an Endangered Species Act (ESA) review of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project. In February they asked for another 45-day extension (see 
Is this an April Fool’s joke? Bloomberg is reporting comments from Damien Courvalin, Head of Energy Research & Senior Commodity Strategist at Goldman Sachs, saying U.S. shale oil drillers will emerge from the current oil price crash as “a winner.” This is the opposite of every other analyst we’ve read. What does Courvalin see that’s different from everyone else?
President Trump had a phone conversation with Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin on Monday. The topic? The Saudi-Russian oil price war, which Trump calls “crazy.” The result of the call was to tee up each country’s top energy officials, getting them to discuss ways to prop up the price of oil. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette will talk with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak about “ways the world’s largest producers can address volatility in the global oil markets during this unprecedented period of turmoil.”
Why is the Trump Administration not taking decisive action to address the crash in the oil price brought on by the Saudis and Russians? Agreeing to “talk about it” with the Russians, as we outline in another post today, is not action. Neither is buying up some extra barrels of oil for the strategic petroleum reserve. We think David Blackmon, a longtime oil industry worker and observer hits the nail on the head in a new column just published by Forbes. The reason the government isn’t addressing the oil price crash issue right now is…
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Think About Energy goes webinar on April 7: the learning continues; NY fight over gas supplies could renew next winter — official; NATIONAL: The coronavirus pandemic and the long-term energy outlook; What would happen if ‘fracking’ for oil and natural gas was banned?; Loosening of Obama-era fracking restrictions OK’d by federal judge; How low could U.S. oil production actually go?; A US-Saudi oil alliance? Here’s why that’s insane; INTERNATIONAL: After two bad winters, natural gas heads for an even worse summer; Crude price crash, pipeline constraints push Alberta’s WCS to all-time low; Ted Cruz, other senators, warn Saudis to stop using oil in ‘economic warfare’ against the US.