BKV IPO On Hold, M&A Deals Falling Apart Due to Low Gas Prices
CERAWeek, happening this week in Houston, Texas, is one of (perhaps THE) premier oil and gas conferences held each year. Everybody who’s anybody attends, except for yours truly. Sometimes it’s the things you (over)hear around the proverbial water cooler at such events that are more interesting than what is said from the stage or in media interviews. For example, Banpu’s BKV, with major assets in the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus, filed plans with the Securities and Exchange Commission late last year to launch an initial public offering (see Northeast PA Marcellus Driller BKV/Banpu Files with SEC for IPO). According to whispers Reuters heard at CERAWeek, the current low commodity price of natgas has put BKV’s IPO plans on hold.
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Enverus Intelligence Research (EIR), a subsidiary of Enverus, released its latest Macro Forecaster, a report developed for the financial services industry, yesterday. The new report is focused on the outlook for near-term oil and gas prices. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of good news for the natural gas sector. According to Al Salazar, senior vice president at EIR, “Natural gas production has been resilient in 2023 in comparison to 2022, and we expect 2.9 Bcf/d of growth over the summer. Some of the growth will be offset by incremental LNG demand from Freeport LNG terminal’s restart and increased price-induced power burn growth, but natural gas prices will be under intense pressure.” Hmmm. We don’t like the sound of that.
As we mentioned in passing in our post yesterday about Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s first budget, one of the items in his budget (and in his speech) was support for a $1 billion hydrogen hub project in the Keystone State (see 
Two weeks ago, MDN brought you a summary of the latest quarterly update from Chesapeake Energy, which includes guidance (a forecast) for what the company plans to do in 2023 vis-à-vis drilling in the Marcellus and the Haynesville (see 
We have been closely tracking the restart of the shuttered Freeport LNG export terminal following its emergency shutdown in June 2022 after an explosion and fire. Most recently, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted permission for Freeport to restart two of three liquefaction “trains” at the facility (see 
An anchor from a local ABC television affiliate in Maine somehow wandered into the truth about New England’s lack of natural gas pipelines. (He may not have a job much longer.) As we have been stating (screaming about) for years, New England politicians have blocked new gas pipelines from Pennsylvania from delivering critically-needed natural gas supplies to the region. It’s only a matter of time before New England experiences repeated blackouts due to the lack of natgas for power-generating plants. It’s coming. And yet the Democrat politicians who have an iron grip on the region refuse to see reason. What is their solution to a lack of natural gas? Turn down your thermostat and sit in the cold. And if you complain about it, they (meaning people like Maine Gov. Janet Mills) will label you a racist, bigot, homophobic Republican who must be silenced at all costs. This is our very broken system of governance today–at least in New England.
As we have been reporting, CERAWeek, the world’s premier energy conference, is happening all this week in Houston, Texas. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reporters filed a roundup/overview of happenings at the event. Below is the roundup from Day Three of CERAWeek, which includes comments made by the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, attempting to suck up to the same oil and gas companies she has been bashing for the past two years. Also of interest, Europeans said during a panel discussion that European countries are reluctant to sign long-term LNG contracts because they believe (wrongly) that natgas will soon become “obsolete.” What dunderheads. No wonder Europe is crumbling and falling before our eyes.
NATIONAL: GenH2 and Chart Industries MoU for hydrogen liquefaction; Offshore is back; INTERNATIONAL: OPEC concerned about demand slowdown in USA, Europe; EU energy chief tells companies not to sign new Russian LNG deals.