Frac Sand: Does Size Really Matter?
Today, we introduce you to a new advertiser on Marcellus Drilling News: MS Industries. Below is a sponsored post from MS Industries. Such posts on MDN are extremely rare. We only accept sponsored posts if we believe the content is (a) very high quality and (b) directly relevant to MDN readers. This post on frac sand hits the bullseye. Among MDN’s audience are many who work for drillers (i.e., producers) and those who work for the oilfield services companies that work for those drillers. Believe it or not, frac sand is one of the keys, one of the closely-guarded secrets of drillers, that determines the success of their drilling programs. MS Industries, serving the Marcellus/Utica (and other plays), offers a range of high-grade frac sand, including whole grain silica microproppant. Matt Henry, one of the principals of MS Industries, writes about the role of microproppants in fracking. Click to learn more about the critical role of frac sand and why size *does* matter… Read More “Frac Sand: Does Size Really Matter?”
There has been dynamite news coming from this week’s CERAWeek by S&P conference in Houston (wish we were there!). Of all the things reported thus far (with two days still to go), no piece of news has been more dynamite than a statement made by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum during a talk at the event yesterday. Speaking of the 124-mile Constitution Pipeline project that Williams gave up on building in 2020 after years of delays and legal roadblocks by New York State, Burgum said the Trump administration is willing to “step in” and take federal action to get the pipeline project from the Pennsylvania Marcellus to New York and New England completed. 
One of President Donald Trump’s greatest lines during the 2016 presidential campaign was his promise, “We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, ‘Please, please. It’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore, Mr. President, it’s too much.’ And I’ll say, ‘No it isn’t. We have to keep winning. We have to win more!’” Such was our thought (“We’re winning too much!”) about yesterday’s massive announcements (plural) coming from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA announced the launch of the biggest deregulatory action in the history of our country. It is MASSIVE, with extremely important/critical implications for the oil and gas industry. Many of the actions EPA is taking will roll back, modify, or otherwise improve regulations that directly affect the shale industry, including actions on Biden’s Clean Power Plant 2, the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulation, revising regs to allow brine (wastewater) to be recycled and used for things like cooling data centers, and much, much more. 
Yesterday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro visited the site of an orphaned well being plugged in Washington County, PA, to celebrate and toot his own horn that this is the 300th orphaned well plugged since he became governor in January 2023. There’s nothing wrong with that, except during the same 2+ years, Ohio has plugged at least double that number. Which makes us ask: Why does it take so much longer and cost so much more to plug wells in PA than in OH? 
Multiple speakers at this week’s CERAWeek by S&P conference in Houston have predicted that demand for natural gas will continue to see record highs due to AI (artificial intelligence) and more LNG export facilities coming online. However, the speakers caution that while we have plenty of supply to meet the higher demand, we don’t have enough pipelines to move the molecules from where they are extracted to where they are used. In an interview on the sidelines of CERAWeek, EQT CEO Toby Rice said, “We have the gas, we just don’t have the pipelines to get it to places, so now you see a situation where it doesn’t matter how much we produce.” Never a truer word spoken. 
In January, we told you that faced with the possibility of blackouts, Connecticut’s Democrat Governor, Ned Lamont, wants to keep his nuclear and gas-fired power plants (see 
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Cheniere wins FERC approval for Texas LNG expansion; NATIONAL: CERAWEEK Occidental Petroleum sees US oil output peaking in next five years; EPA eliminating environmental justice jobs; USA tariffs prompt criticism at Houston energy industry gathering; Polar vortex could bring cold blast to millions across US, AccuWeather says; Williams eyes expanding natural gas infrastructure; Why energy executives believe natural gas is no longer ‘just a bridge fuel’; INTERNATIONAL: Swedish battery maker Northvolt collapses, a blow to Europe; China extends subsidies for unconventional gas drilling.