M-U Rigs Even @ 36; Haynesville Even @ 55; Nat’l Up 4th Week @ 581
Last week was (once again) noteworthy for the Baker Hughes rig count. Although the Marcellus/Utica count didn’t budge, the national count increased by 1 rig. The national count has risen over the last four weeks — by 19 rigs. The new national count of 581 is the highest the combined count has been since May 2025 (well over a year). The combined M-U rig count remained at 36 active rigs for the ninth consecutive week. The M-U’s chief competitor, the Haynesville, maintained its count of 55 active rigs, operating 19 more than the M-U. Read More “M-U Rigs Even @ 36; Haynesville Even @ 55; Nat’l Up 4th Week @ 581”
For the past decade, landowners in Wayne and Pike counties in northeastern Pennsylvania have unfairly been denied the ability to profit from fracking on (and under) their property, simply because they happen to live inside the imaginary boundaries of the Delaware River Basin, an area under the iron hammer control of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC). The DRBC, unlike its counterpart in the Susquehanna River Basin (SRBC), is controlled by left-wingers. They falsely claim that allowing fracking anywhere in the basin would destroy the water supply of 14 million people. Congress is now on the cusp of overturning this ongoing tragedy. 
On July 12, the Pennsylvania Senate and House passed, and Governor Josh Shapiro signed into law, a $50.84 billion General Fund budget. It was only 12 days late this year. This is a net-positive budget for the Marcellus/Utica industry. It contains no new taxes or fees on production, delivers a long-sought modernization that unlocks the deep Utica play, and builds legal scaffolding favorable to gas-fired power for data centers. The only new obligations — full-cement plugging and (for midstream-adjacent projects) data-center reporting — are modest. 
In early May, Devon Energy completed its buyout of and merger with Coterra Energy, paying $21.4 billion in Devon stock (see 
Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage (EGTS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company (Warren Buffett’s company), filed a new project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in July 2025 (see 
A long-running and favorite tactic of the environmental left is to use our own judicial system against us. On the federal level, foreign-backed groups like the Sierra Club, Earthworks, Food & Water Watch, and others have (in the past) challenged new pipeline or drilling projects, filing appeal after appeal up the line, blocking construction until said lawsuits were resolved. Last June (2025), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) took away the left’s ability to block construction while lawsuits are filed and played out (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Ohio named CNBC’s number 1 top state for business; NATIONAL: Freeport LNG maintenance, ample supply drag natural gas futures lower; U.S. exports of crude oil and petroleum products reached record in April; Regarding energy, the left wants us to live smaller lives; What is a data center and why are they suddenly everywhere?; INTERNATIONAL: Oil eases as US, Iran continue talks after renewed fighting; “Experts” quite simply don’t hold a candle to markets; China is weaponizing fertilizer against American farmers.