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U.S. Rig Count Drops Another Rig, M-U Drops 1 Rig Too
Quick! Apply pressure to the wound before the patient (in this case, the Marcellus/Utica) bleeds out. Another week, another lost rig in the Marcellus. We can’t seem to stem the flow of rigs leaving. The national rig count also lost one rig overall. For the eighth week in a row and the 17th of the last 18 weeks, the U.S. active rig count lost rigs. The total is now down to 631 active rigs across both oil and gas (down from 632 last week). At least the loss is slowing. West Virginia dropped one rig after adding one last week. The rig counts for both Pennsylvania and Ohio stayed the same last week.
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Three weeks ago, University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) researchers released three studies commissioned by the State Dept. of Health supposedly investigating whether or not there is a connection between shale drilling and childhood diseases, including cancer (see 
Diversified Energy (formerly Diversified Gas & Oil), with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (and other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. The company issued its latest update, for the first half of 2023, last Friday. Paul Gough, from the Pittsburgh Business Times, listened to the conference call and combed through the update. He hit on a key piece of news: Diversified has accelerated its program to plug old wells (its own wells in addition to orphaned wells) this year. In fact, the company has already (as of June 30) plugged 174 wells for the first half of the year. That number includes 87 of Diversified’s own wells.
Hundreds of thousands of old conventional oil and gas wells across the U.S. have been abandoned over time by the companies and individuals who drilled them. In many cases, tracking down the original owner and who should be responsible for plugging the old wells is impossible. So, the government has stepped in to “fix” the problem by throwing your money at it. (Ronald Regan said the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: “I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”) Part of the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a program called the Methane Emissions Reduction Program, which contains $1.55 billion in funding from 2022 to 2028 to help with (among other things) plugging orphaned wells. The Bidenistas have just released $350 million of that $1.55 billion (23%) to get the process going.
Quick history lesson. In 2004, Range Resources was the first company to drill and frack the first Marcellus Shale gas well, which happened in Mt. Pleasant Township (Washington County), PA. It was love at first sight. Over the past almost 20 years, Range has added a few other counties to the list of place where it drills, and the company remains headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. However, Range considers Washington County, PA, “our core, our home, the DNA of our company.” The bond of love is still strong all these years later.
In July 2020, Dominion Energy announced it had decided to exit the natural gas pipeline business by selling it to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy (see 
When Russia illegally and immorally invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the price of oil and natural gas worldwide soared to record highs. Western countries pledged to wean themselves off Putin’s oil and gas, and Putin threatened them in return with cutting them off without notice. There was a lot of scrambling, and Europe filled its storage with oil and gas, so prices began to drop when the winter of 2022/2023 rolled around. Prices have continued to drop (except for oil, recently). With prices in the doldrums, drillers are drilling less. Rigs are being released. Yet production is still rising! It’s confusing–what’s happening?
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