Oct. STEO Predicts Lower Output, NatGas Price to Avg $3.10 in 2025
Once a month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. What did the October 2024 STEO, issued yesterday, show? EIA’s analysts believe U.S. natural gas production will decline in 2024 while demand will rise to a record high this year. EIA predicts the average spot price for natural gas for all of 2024 will end up being $2.30/MMBtu, up $0.10 from its prediction last month. The agency said the average for 2025 will be $3.10/MMBtu, which is the same prediction as last month. Read More “Oct. STEO Predicts Lower Output, NatGas Price to Avg $3.10 in 2025”
The stakes in this November’s election are incredibly high—for the country as a whole and for shale energy everywhere, including here in the Marcellus/Utica. Pennsylvania has been the focus this election season due to the presidential race. However, there is another M-U state, Ohio, where the outcome of a statewide race is also very important: that of the Ohio Supreme Court. There are seven judges on Ohio’s high court, with Republicans holding a slim 4-3 majority. There are three seats up for election. It is anticipated that the Ohio Supreme Court will handle an appeal by anti-fossil fuel zealots of the state’s law that allows drilling under (not on) state land and state parks. If the high court tips to the radical left, drilling under state land is in jeopardy. 
If you live in Pennsylvania, particularly in an urban area, and happen to be black, Asian, or Native American, and you own an Apple product and like to do things outdoors, you can expect a knock on your door by the Democrat anti-shale/global warming squad hoping to recruit you to become a Kamala Harris zombie voter. The younger or older you are, the better (especially under 25 and over 65). The Dems never see people in all of their complexity as individuals who can be reasoned with rationally—they only see groups that can be herded given the right fear-tactic stimuli, like schoolyard bullies from the fourth grade. That’s how they hold on to power. 
Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG export facility (Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana) has consistently received small gas deliveries since mid-September from an interconnect with the Texas Eastern Transmission Company (TETCO) pipeline. However, the 2.6 Bcf/d Plaquemines terminal has not yet begun to produce its first LNG. Gas deliveries will increase this fall as commissioning activities ramp up. The question is, will Venture Global screw its Plaquemines contracted customers the way it has its Calcasieu Pass customers? 
In June 2019, a series of explosions and a massive fire occurred at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) Refining Complex (see 
Hardly a day goes by that we don’t cover at least one story about a gas-fired power plant that will get fed with Marcellus/Utica molecules (
MDN reported a few weeks ago that EQT Corporation, now the U.S.’s second-largest natural gas producer (following the merger of Chesapeake Energy and Southwest Energy to form the country’s largest producer), was about to ship a fully-MiQ-certified LNG cargo to Germany (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Junior high classes underway at Utica Shale Academy; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Woodside takes over Tellurian for $1.2 billion; NATIONAL: Will the real Kamala Harris please stand up?; Traders bet hurricane will knock out electricity, leave power plants idling; INTERNATIONAL: Oil prices plunge as China fails to deliver new stimulus.