Too Much Gas, Too Little Pipe: M-U Spot Prices Slump Below $1
Here’s a head-scratcher for you. The Henry Hub spot (physical, not futures) price, the national benchmark for natural gas down in Louisiana, closed yesterday at $3.155 per MMBtu (million British thermal units, roughly the same as 1 Mcf, or a thousand cubic feet). Up here in the Marcellus/Utica, the very same molecule of gas sold for 88.5 cents. That’s not a typo. Our gas traded at a $2.27 discount to Henry Hub, fetching just 28 cents on the dollar. Why? The short answer is the same one we’ve given for 15 years: not enough pipelines. Read More “Too Much Gas, Too Little Pipe: M-U Spot Prices Slump Below $1”
The radical green groups trying to ban new Marcellus/Utica drilling in Pennsylvania through the back door haven’t gone away. They push shale well “setbacks” out to as much as a mile. Yesterday (Oct. 7), a coalition led by the Clean Air Council and Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) marked the two-year anniversary of its rulemaking petition and pushed in Harrisburg, calling on the Shapiro administration to act. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) still plans to deliver its recommendation to the Environmental Quality Board (EQB) by the end of this year. The antis are making noise. We need to make more. 
A coalition of 26 state attorneys general, led by West Virginia AG JB McCuskey, is urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to adopt a proposed rule that would let interstate pipelines do bigger upgrades, faster, without FERC’s full project-by-project review. All three Republican AGs in our neck of the woods signed on: West Virginia’s McCuskey, Pennsylvania’s Dave Sunday, and Ohio’s D. Andrew Wilson. The 24-page comment letter, dated Oct. 6, is a point-by-point rebuttal to a blue-state coalition (New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, California, and friends) that wants FERC to scrap the whole idea. It’s a wonky fight over a wonky program, but it matters a great deal to drillers, pipeline companies, and royalty owners in the Marcellus/Utica. 
A developer from Bucks County wants to build a 1-gigawatt (GW) natural gas-fired power plant and up to 28 data center buildings on a former U.S. Steel landfill in Elizabeth Township, Allegheny County. If built, the plant would burn somewhere around 150 million cubic feet of Marcellus/Utica gas every day. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news? It’s the same spot where Invenergy tried, and failed, to build a gas plant a decade ago. And the anti group that fought Invenergy spent this summer fighting EQT’s Heracles well pad down the road. 
On Tuesday, a crowd of protesters packed the Pennsylvania Capitol Rotunda in Harrisburg to demand a statewide moratorium (a ban, really) on new data centers. Most of the coverage framed it as an outpouring of everyday Pennsylvanians fed up with Big Tech. MDN took a closer look at who organized the rally, who arranged the buses, and who stood at the microphone. What we found: the same groups and many of the same faces that have fought shale drilling, pipelines, and gas-fired power plants in this state for the past 15 years. New signs. Same agenda. 
Where do the people who actually drill for, and service, oil and gas wells think the price of natural gas is going? Every three months the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas asks them, and the answer from the latest survey is: not much higher in the short run, but steadily higher over the next five years. The third-quarter 2026 Dallas Fed Energy Survey, released September 30, found executives expect the Henry Hub price to finish 2026 at $3.29 per MMBtu, rise to $3.82 in two years, and reach $4.28 in five years. Meanwhile, the price in the real world right now is hovering around $3.00. Here’s what the crystal ball says, and what it means for the Marcellus/Utica. 
The 108-mile “Women’s Water Walk” along the route of the proposed Constitution Pipeline wrapped up last Sunday in Schoharie. On Tuesday, the walkers carried jars of creek water to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office in Albany. The walk is over, but it didn’t end quietly. It gave birth to a new, permanent anti-pipeline coalition run by Frack Action. The Governor’s office answered with a carefully worded statement that isn’t quite the “stand strong” pledge the walkers came for. And the walk’s fundraising came up about 80% short of its goal. 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Democrat candidate for Ohio’s 94th district calls for moratorium on injection wells; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Duke Energy protects customers from data center costs; Hochul’s energy infrastructure development plan is rhetoric, not a plan; Connecticut is writing its energy playbook for the next four years; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas futures gain ahead of storage data; Democrats sue to raise your electric bill; Kalshi files proposal for never-expiring oil contract; Mixed outlook for energy expenditures this winter; US will rescind policy targeting oil and gas industry methane leaks; INTERNATIONAL: Oil dips as Middle East flows recover; U.S. and Russia explore Nord Stream restart, sources say.