Coterra Shifting Focus and $$ from Marcellus Gas to Permian Oil
This is precisely what we feared might happen and why we were against the merger of Cimarex Energy and Cabot Oil & Gas, now called Coterra Energy (see Cimarex Takes Over Cabot, Merged Co. Called “Coterra Energy”). In Friday’s quarterly update, we learned that Coterra is dropping two rigs and cutting back to one frac crew in the Marcellus (a plan that was announced earlier this year). We also learned that Coterra will milk the Marcellus cash cow and use that money to finance more work in the oily Permian (Texas) play.
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On Friday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry announced her office has filed criminal charges against two men for falsifying paperwork and risking catastrophe while working on a natural gas pipeline project in western PA. The AG’s Environmental Crime Section and the US Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General investigated a case of suspected fraud in falsifying records for portions of a MarkWest Liberty Pipeline to transport NGLs.
The Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA (near Pittsburgh) has experienced a number of problems over the past six months during startup, including flaring and foul odors (see 
The Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), along with Citizens for Rights of the Ohio River Watershed (CROW), are trying to gather enough signatures from Cincinnati residents to put a measure on a city ballot that would create a so-called Bill of Rights (i.e. bestow human rights) for the Ohio River and its watershed. We wonder what the Ohio River “thinks” about that! This isn’t the first time the radicalized CELDF has tried this stunt in Ohio (see 
Here’s something truly noteworthy–something you need to sit up and pay attention to. Last Thursday, all four Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners–two Democrats and two Republicans–sat before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in a hearing and said the same thing. All four FERC commissioners warned the Senators that too many coal- and gas-fired power plants are retiring without enough new sources coming online to replace them. They said the situation is “catastrophic” and “the red lights are flashing.”
NATIONAL: Big Oil has $150 billion in cash – investors want a share; US weekly oil & gas rig count falls by the most since February; INTERNATIONAL: Russia seeks to become top LNG supplier by tripling exports; European natural gas prices fall to 21-month low.