M-U Landowners May be Asked to Lease “Pore” Rights for CO2 Capture
Over the past decade or more landowners have been approached about leasing their property and/or mineral rights–for shale drilling, pipelines, solar and wind farms, etc. Here’s a new one to add to the list: pore rights. Pore space is the underground space where carbon dioxide that’s captured from various processes can be injected and stored, keeping it locked away underground where it theoretically won’t damage Mom Earth. The whole concept of storing CO2 underground would be funny if it were not so sad that grownups are actually doing this. But we digress. Leasing pore rights may be the next big thing for landowners and mineral rights owners in the Marcellus/Utica region as carbon capture and storage takes off. However, who owns pore rights? Landowners or mineral rights owners?
Read More “M-U Landowners May be Asked to Lease “Pore” Rights for CO2 Capture”
When you only have one main pipeline flowing natural gas from the prolific Marcellus Shale to your region, as does Boston, if that pipe has an outage for any reason, as the Algonquin Gas Transmission (AGT) has had, you’re in trouble. AGT declared a force majeure (an unforeseen act of God) on the 26-inch line of its J System in Massachusetts. The outage in one particular section of the pipeline means “slashing nominations downstream of Trapelo to zero for the foreseeable future.” Ouch. Guess what’s happening to the price of natural gas at the Algonquin Citygates natgas trading hub? Through the roof.
The Acting Deputy Secretary for Oil and Gas Management at the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), Kurt Klapkowski, spoke to the DEP’s Oil and Gas Technical Advisory Board (TAB) yesterday, updating the board on his program’s finances (lack thereof). As part of his comments, Klapkowski observed that each year the number of new shale wells drilled in PA decreases. He offered some reasons why that may be happening. We have a few reasons to add that Klapkowski overlooked.
Pennsylvania has already received the first $25 million payment from the so-called infrastructure bill, a down payment on what will eventually be ~$400 million over the next 15 years to plug abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells across the state (see 
JobsOhio, a private nonprofit largely funded by liquor sales that the state allows the nonprofit to collect (in essence it collects sales tax on liquor sales), has funded a study from Cleveland State University that promotes the Buckeye State as THE place to locate a $2 billion hydrogen hub. However, the study says such a hub should NOT use Ohio’s abundant, clean, Utica Shale gas as a source to create the hydrogen that would be used by such a hub.
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility, to provide extra natural gas. That project is being investigated by the Biden administration on charges of racism (see 
You know how Big Banks have gone woke left, threatening to defund, divest, and refuse to loan money to oil and natural gas companies due to pressure from a small, vocal minority on the environmental left? Big Banks are now facing their worst nightmare: The oil and gas industry is making enough money, generating enough free cash flow, that it can walk away from loans from Big Banks. Goodbye and good riddance.
NATIONAL: Frac fleet shortage slows US shale growth; Most combined-cycle power plants employ two combustion turbines with one steam turbine; US natural gas storage climbs 53 Bcf to 1.45 Tcf, pausing NYMEX futures rally; Power burn leads lower 48 gas demand gains on limited fuel switching; Some fallacies attendant upon the Biden resumption of fossil leasing; If oil companies control prices, why do they ever lose money?