Marcellus Drilling News

Commodity Price | Industrywide Issues | Weather

Volatile NYMEX Natural Gas Price Jumps 10% in Single Day
September 15, 2022September 15, 2022

Here we go again. Just a few days ago, the benchmark NYMEX price for natural gas (the “front month” contract for October) was trading below $8/MMBtu. Yesterday the price spiked up 10% in a single day–up 83 cents to $9.11. This was the 11th time this year the NYMEX price has either spiked or fallen by 10% or more, which hasn’t happened since 2001, when it spiked or fell 10% or more for 14 days. The watchword is volatility. Wild swings. The question is, Why did the price spike yesterday in particular? We have an answer.
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Commodity Price | Industrywide Issues | Research

EIA Predicts U.S. All-Time High Natural Gas Consumption in 2023
September 15, 2022September 15, 2022

Last week MDN brought you the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration “Short-Term Energy Outlook” for September (see Sept. EIA STEO Predicts $9 NatGas in 4Q22, $6 NatGas for 2023). Today we delve a bit deeper into some of the specifics. For example, the EIA predicts in the latest STEO that EIA expects natural gas consumption to increase by 3.6 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in the U.S. this year–to average 86.6 Bcf/d for the year. That would be the most annual U.S. natural gas consumption on record, ever. EIA also has some interesting predictions about where the benchmark Henry Hub price of natural gas will go for the rest of this year and into next year.
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Hydrogen | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Statewide PA

PA Stubbornly Continues to Try and Grab Hydrogen Hub for Itself
September 15, 2022September 15, 2022

Pennsylvania is stubbornly continuing to pursue a $2 billion hydrogen hub (part of the Biden infrastructure bill) on its own, without partnering with other Marcellus/Utica states. As we continue to point out, doing the application process alone jeopardizes attracting the project to our region. Yesterday the Pennsylvania House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee held a public hearing on hydrogen’s potential as an energy source. The opening presenter, Richard DiClaudio, president and CEO of the Energy Innovation Center Institute in Pittsburgh, made the case that hydrogen and the hydrogen hub is important to the future of southwestern PA.
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Chesapeake Utilities | Energy Services | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Pipelines | Regulation | Statewide MD

Maryland Issues Permit for Natural Gas Pipe Under Pocomoke River
September 15, 2022September 15, 2022

Pocomoke River State Park

The Pocomoke River runs 66 miles from southern Delaware through a series of relatively inaccessible wetlands called the Great Cypress Swamp in southeastern Maryland, eventually emptying into the Chesapeake Bay. In something of a surprise (for us), the three-member Maryland Board of Public Works yesterday approved issuing a permit to Chesapeake Utilities that allows the company to install a natural gas pipeline by horizontally drilling under the Pocomoke River. This is the same three-member Maryland Board of Public Works that has, for years, blocked Columbia Gas from installing a pipeline the same way under the Potomac River (see Fed Judge Upholds Maryland Decision to Block Pipe Under Potomac). Does anyone else smell big, fat, corrupt hypocrites in Maryland?
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Energy Services | Equitrans/EQT Midstream | Industrywide Issues | Pipelines | Regulation

Bloomberg Says Crazy Bernie is Wrong, Joe Manchin is Right re MVP
September 15, 2022September 15, 2022

Crazy Bernie Sanders

Last week roughly one-third of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi to let her know they do NOT support a proposed bill amending a Continuing Resolution (to keep the government running) that would streamline permitting for pipelines and all-but-guarantee Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) gets completed (see Fellow Democrats Welsh on Manchin Permitting Reform/MVP Deal). The permitting reform bill was the price Senator Joe Manchin extracted from his fellow Democrats in return for his vote on the horrible Inflation Reduction Act. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer assured Manchin the permitting reform bill would get passed. Yet last week, Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont (i.e. Crazy Bernie), delivered a fiery speech on the Senate floor saying hell no, he won’t vote for it. We’re not surprised. But here’s the shocker: An opinion columnist who writes for and is employed by Bloomberg has just published a column that says Crazy Bernie is wrong, and Joe Manchin is right, when it comes to MVP.
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Antero Resources | Energy Companies | Statewide WV | West Virginia

GO-WV Elects Antero’s Director of Gov’t Relations as President
September 15, 2022September 15, 2022

Maribeth Anderson

Maribeth Anderson, a Yeager Scholar who attended Marshall University and a former news director for WSAZ television in Huntington, WV, is the current director of government relations for Antero Resources. Anderson was recently elected as the first female president of the 14-member Board of Directors for the Gas and Oil Association of West Virginia (GO-WV). Anderson will continue to work for Antero, the largest shale producer in WV.
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Cattaraugus County | Industrywide Issues | New York | Research

NETL Team Travels to Western NY to Locate Undocumented Wells
September 15, 2022September 15, 2022

You’ve heard mainstream media and the Democrat Party’s attempt to brainwash you by renaming the millions of illegal, invading aliens crossing our southern border as “undocumented immigrants” or other laughable labels. The name change seems to have worked so well, it’s now being used by the government’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) with oil and gas wells. Ever hear of an “undocumented” oil/gas well? For most of us, they’re known as orphaned or abandoned wells. NETL is calling them undocumented because, well, there’s no official documentation that shows where they are located. NETL is hitting the road–to western New York State–to “find and characterize undocumented orphaned oil and gas wells.”
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Best of the Rest

Other Stories of Interest: Thu, Sep 15, 2022
September 15, 2022September 15, 2022

MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania offers natural gas safety training; NATIONAL: NIMBYism is a bipartisan energy problem; Despite energy crisis, Biden cuts oil, gas leases; INTERNATIONAL: Geopolitical wrangling leaves European gas market whiplashed; Shell names new CEO; Ostracized by the West, Russia finds a partner in Saudi Arabia; How sky-high natural gas prices affect international gas markets.
Read More “Other Stories of Interest: Thu, Sep 15, 2022”