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What May Be Ahead for M-U in 2025 & 2026: More Pipes, More M&A
The end of the year and the beginning of a new year are times when many publications reflect on what was and what may be. A recent article by Hart Energy’s Oil and Gas Investor magazine tackled the topic of what may lie ahead for the Marcellus/Utica region over the next couple of years. The article looked at two primary issues—the potential for more pipelines getting built within (and out of) our region and the likelihood of more mergers and acquisitions for drillers in our region. Read More “What May Be Ahead for M-U in 2025 & 2026: More Pipes, More M&A”
Last fall, MDN began tracking the issue of who, ultimately, should pay to build out new electricity sources for data centers (and AI) that increasingly use huge amounts of power (see 
The Pittsylvania County Planning Commission voted on Jan. 7 to recommend against granting Virginia-based Balico permission to proceed with a $8.85 billion project to build a data center complex. Last October, Balico applied to rezone more than 2,200 acres for a proposed campus that would include its own massive on-site gas-fired power plant complex using Marcellus/Utica molecules from the Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
Last October, Shell signed an agreement to buy 100% of RISEC Holdings’ 609-megawatt (MW) two-unit combined-cycle gas turbine power plant located near Providence, Rhode Island (see 
We have two stories about Coterra Energy to share. Coterra was formed in 2021 by the merger of the Marcellus-focused Cabot Oil & Gas and the Permian/Anadarko-focused Cimarex Energy. Unfortunately (for the M-U), the merged company has chosen to concentrate new drilling outside of the northeast Pennsylvania Marcellus until the price of natgas improves (see 
We have a post-mortem for the price of natural gas in 2024, and it ain’t pretty. With respect to the “front month” NYMEX futures price average during 2024, BofA (Bank of America) Global Research said in a report that the Henry Hub natural gas price averaged just $2.41 per MMBtu last year. It was “the lowest level since 2020 and second lowest level in at least 25 years.” Ouch. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) did a review of the Henry Hub spot (physically traded) price for 2024 and found it averaged $2.21 per MMBtu. That’s the lowest average annual price in inflation-adjusted dollars EVER reported. Double ouch. 
Last week, MDN brought you the great news that five of the six largest banks in the United States have now canceled their memberships in the awful Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), a group of woke banks under the umbrella of the equally terrible United Nations (see 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Texas oil, natural gas industry breaks record with $27.3B paid in taxes, royalties; Report from seven New England states outlines “staggering costs” of green energy policies; NATIONAL: Energy sector goes from S&P 500’s ‘worst to first’ in 2025 start; How Madoff’s Ponzi beneficiaries are funding climate lawfare; INTERNATIONAL: Oil slips below $74 amid resistance at key technical level; European imports of liquefied natural gas from Russia at ‘record levels’.