Money & Drilling Flow from Marcellus/Utica to Haynesville
While the mighty Marcellus/Utica continues to produce the most natural gas of any shale play in the U.S. (actually of any shale play in the world), the simple truth is the money and momentum for new shale gas drilling is happening in the Louisiana and East Texas Haynesville shale play. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that much of the new investment in the Haynesville is coming from M-U drillers!
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It’s been a long, tough slog for Equitrans Midstream’s Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a 303-mile pipeline from West Virginia into southern Virginia. The project is 92% done and in the ground. The final bits should be done within the next year and it will go online (if the crick don’t rise and the Lord don’t come) in mid-2022. One of the places where the pipeline was recently installed is close to a small clump of homes (called a “village”) in the Virginia mountains of Giles County. A place called Newport. A recent article in the Roanoke Times would have you believe the pipeline has somehow devastated the local community. It has not. We’re here to provide perspective on pipelines as good neighbors.
There is a very real and tangible cost to the delays coming from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) with respect to reviewing natural gas pipeline projects. Those delays, intentionally created by current FERC Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick, are costing West Virginians jobs and money. JB McCuskey, the state auditor for WV, should know. He audits how tax dollars are spent in the state. His office reviews and approves general operating budgets for some 700 municipalities, counties, and school districts across the state. McCuskey says FERC is tangibly hurting the state of WV by dragging its feet in reviewing pipeline projects.
Spire STL is a 65-mile pipeline that connects to and flows Marcellus/Utica gas from the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline to residents and businesses in the St. Louis, MO area. The pipeline began flowing gas in late 2019 (see 
Yale University operates a program it calls the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. A better name would be the Joseph Goebbels Program for Climate Change Brainwashing. The chief propagandists at the once-great university are desperately trying to figure out how they can turn the public against clean-burning, abundant, and cheap natural gas. The problem, it seems, is with the word “natural.” In polling research, Yalies discovered if they could force you to stop using the phrase natural gas and instead force you to call it methane, you would begin to “think right” about this evil, filthy, vile substance. One thing Yale won’t tell you is this: Where they get money to conduct this kind of “research.” Could the funding be coming from China? Or Russia? Or Iran?
Last week both Pennsylvania and West Virginia issued permits to drill new shale wells. Ohio remained skunked for a fourth week in a row. PA issued 30 new shale permits–one of the highest weekly tallies we’ve seen. PA’s permits were issued for wells on 11 pads, meaning there were a number of multi-well permits issued. WV issued 7 new shale permits, all of them for the same pad being drilled by EQT in Wetzel County.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Lackawanna College School of Natural Gas taking registrations; NATIONAL: Infrastructure bill boosts China, while reconciliation proposals pummel American consumers; U.S. Treasury to oppose development bank financing for most fossil fuel projects; The disaster of green energy; INTERNATIONAL: As U.S. retreats, China looks to back Taliban with Afghan mining investments; OPEC+ predictably rejects Biden plea for more oil production.