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Enverus U.S. Rig Count Down 1 Rig, Utica Adds 2 Rigs
The Enverus U.S. oil and gas rig count slipped by one to 406 over the past week. The Marcellus play stayed even with 32 active rigs. However, in a good sign, the Ohio Utica picked up 2 new rigs to close the week with 8 active rigs (total of 40 active rigs in the M-U).
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Late last week Shell shut down all work at its ethane cracker plant site in Monaca (Beaver County), PA to test workers for COVID-19. After testing roughly 7,400 (out of 7,950) workers Shell found 141 positive results, or 1.9%. Workers began returning to the site on Wednesday.
Big Green (Democrat) organizations are feeling full of themselves following the Biden/Harris election and winning control of the Senate. They’re making some pretty big boasts of what they’ll demand from Biden and Chuck Schumer. Demands like no new pipelines, ban natural gas everywhere, force all new cars to be electric, yada yada yada. One of the worst of the worst of the Big Green groups is the radical National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). In a blog post yesterday, the New York chapter of the NRDC lays out its 2021 plans that include their intent to try and block the construction of the New Jersey LNG export facility and block construction of the PennEast Pipeline in Pennsylvania.
U.S. exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) set a new all-time record high in December, averaging 9.8 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). The results in December were more than three times higher than the reduced export levels of last summer. Marcellus/Utica gas played a key role in those exports.
The Marcellus/Utica is the #1 natural gas producing play in the country. Last month the M-U region produced 33.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s December Drilling Productivity Report (see 
The average price for natural gas at the benchmark Henry Hub in southern Louisiana was $2.05 per million BTUs (MMBtu) in 2020. That’s the lowest average annual price in at least 25 years, maybe longer. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says while natgas usage rose in gas-fired electric plants, usage dropped for residential, commercial, and industrial users due to the ongoing pandemic.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Pennsylvania DEP Policy Director calls State Rep environmental criminal; NATIONAL: Enverus: expect hot oil & gas M&A market to slow in 2021; Schumer now under pressure from green left.