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National Rig Count Down Again: U.S. Drops 2 @ 586, M-U Drops 1 @ 35
We are officially range-bound with respect to the Baker Hughes U.S. rig count. The count has gone up and down every few weeks. But since the third week of June, the range has been as low as 581 and as high as 589. And that’s it. Last week, the national rig count lost two rigs and now stands at 586. The Marcellus/Utica also lost one rig and now uses 35 active rigs. Pennsylvania remained the same with 21 active rigs. Ohio lost a rig (second week in a row) and now operates nine active rigs. West Virginia remained the same with five active rigs.
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The 295-mile Portland Natural Gas Transmission System (PNGTS) spans New England from the Canadian border to pipeline connections in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. The system began operations in 1999 and is located between three major pipeline networks originating in Canada and the U.S. TC Energy owns 61.7% of PNGTS. The remaining 38.3 percent is owned by Northern New England Investment Company. At least until yesterday, when PNGTS was spun off into its own standalone company, now owned by the evil BlackRock. 
We spotted some news that, on the surface, may not appear to be connected to the Marcellus/Utica, but we think it is. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) is investing approximately $843 million (CAD 1.2 billion) in Denver, Colorado-based Tallgrass Energy. CPP is a major investor in the Utica Shale (via Encino Energy), and Tallgrass is the owner and operator of the Rockies Express (REX) pipeline that flows Marcellus/Utica gas to the Midwest.
In late 2015, MPLX (i.e., Marathon Petroleum) bought out and merged in the Utica Shale’s premier midstream company, MarkWest Energy, for $15 billion (see 
What had been a regular stream of talk about providing power to data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) has become a torrent. There is a clear connection between data centers and the natural gas industry. This most recent round of quarterly financial updates by the biggest of the big pipeline companies (all of which have a huge presence in the Marcellus/Utica) reveals a new opportunity: building natgas pipelines directly to data centers. Why? Because increasingly those data centers are considering making their own power.
A section of the recently completed 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was shut down on Tuesday for “pigging” operations and maintenance. Certain sections of MVP have dropped to zero flows, while other sections have dropped to drastically lower flows. We’ll ask the questions no one else will: Why the heck is MVP shutting down a section of a pipeline completed less than two months ago? Is there a concern? And, is it normal for a brand new pipeline that came online within the past two months to experience an outage like this for pigging maintenance?
National Fuel Gas Company (NFG), headquartered in Buffalo, NY, is the parent company for Marcellus/Utica driller Seneca Resources and the parent of midstream company NFG Midstream (and subsidiary Empire Pipeline). Last week, NFG issued its latest quarterly update. During the quarter (considered the company’s third quarter), Seneca produced 96.5 Bcf (billion cubic feet) of natural gas, an increase of 2% from the prior year. Due to the sucky prices for natural gas, Seneca curtailed (shut-in) 5.6 Bcf during the quarter. Among the tidbits we picked up on is that NFG is about to officially file an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for a new project.
Pipeline giant Williams, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica and the owner of the mighty Transco pipeline that flows huge quantities of M-U gas south and southwest, issued its second quarter 2024 update yesterday. CEO Alan Armstrong called attention to the “crisp execution of key projects” that will benefit the company. Among those projects was the BIG news that the company’s Transco Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project went fully online on August 1st. Also prominently mentioned was the completion of the company’s Marcellus South gathering expansion project.
In April, the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission upheld a regulatory order from the Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) suspending operations of three wastewater injection wells located in Torch (Athens County), OH, owned by K&H Partners, a subsidiary of Tallgrass Energy (see 
In March 2021, Eureka Resources announced plans to build a Marcellus Shale wastewater treatment facility in Dimock (Susquehanna County), Pennsylvania (see 
The U.S. national oil and gas rig count lost ground last week it had gained the week before. The national combined Baker Hughes oil and gas rig count now stands at 586 rigs, down three from 589 two weeks ago. The Marcellus/Utica lost one rig last week. Pennsylvania lost a rig and now operates 20 active rigs. Ohio operated 11 active rigs. West Virginia remained the same with five active rigs. The M-U is operating a combined 36 rigs. The M-U’s primary competitor, the Haynesville, was down one rig from two weeks ago and now operates 34 rigs.
On July 12, Williams asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to bring the final pieces of the Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project online by the end of July (see 
On Friday, June 14, the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that runs from Wetzel County, WV, to Pittsylvania County, VA, announced the pipeline had, after a decade of planning and building, finally begun to flow Marcellus/Utica molecules (see 
This is so frustrating. A panel of three extremely liberal (wildly left) Democrat judges sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals — two appointed by Joementia and the other appointed by Lord Obama — have overturned a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval of the $1 billion Transco Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project that is already up and running and delivering extra natural gas supplies to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland. The three-judge panel ruled that FERC didn’t seriously consider man-made global warming when approving the project. The frustrating thing is that FERC is NOT an environmental agency; it’s an economic agency. Look it up — it’s in the FERC charter. Yet the libs are now demanding FERC become something it is not, an environmental agency that considers mythical global warming before it can approve new pipeline projects. Mission accomplished for the Bidenistas and Obamadroids. No doubt the Cackleistas would also approve of this bastardization of FERC.