Commodity Price

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    WVONGA Says Rogersville Shale Drilling in WV is “When” not “If”

    To date, the shale revolution in West Virginia has been largely confined to the northern panhandle and north/central parts of the state, where first the Marcellus and increasingly the Utica Shale layers are targeted. Left out of the shale revolution has been southern WV. But that will one day change, according to Corky DeMarco, executive director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association. No, the Marcellus/Utica are not the focus in the southern part of the state. In the south it will be the Rogersville Shale, and according to DeMarco, it’s more of a “when” rather than an “if” drilling will happen in the Rogersville Shale in WV. When will it happen? The southern part of the state will experience the economic bonanza being experienced in the northern part of the state. What will it take for Rogersville drilling to begin? Higher natgas prices…
    Read More “WVONGA Says Rogersville Shale Drilling in WV is “When” not “If””

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    EIA: Oil & Gas Jobs Plunge 6 Months After Oil Price Plunge

    Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, has authored an excellent article about how jobs in the oil and gas sector lag behind oil price gyrations. That is, once the price of oil drops to a certain level, it takes a while before jobs in the sector start to disappear. Which makes sense. Oil (and gas) prices are cyclical–they go up, they down, they go up again. It’s always been that way. When prices tank, companies don’t immediately layoff people–it take a few months of wait and see to see if prices will recover. If they don’t recover within a few months? That’s when layoffs start to happen, and the statistics show it. A startling statistic included in the EIA story below: on-shore rig counts hit a new low for the week ending June 19–54% below the same point a year ago. It’s the lowest rig count level in nearly six years. While you can’t say “half the rigs, half the number of jobs,” you can say “half the rigs means a whole lotta jobs are now, 12 months later, gone”…
    Read More “EIA: Oil & Gas Jobs Plunge 6 Months After Oil Price Plunge”

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    Largest Private Oilfield Svcs Co Says Shale is Rebounding

    reboundCanary LLC is the largest privately owned (no publicly traded stock) oilfield services company in the U.S. Canary competes with the likes of Schlumberger, Halliburton and Baker Hughes. We wrote about Canary in January 2014, pointing out the company has operations in both the Marcellus and Utica Shale (see Oilfield Services Company Canary Buys Wellhead Competitor). Being privately owned gives one a certain sense of independence and fearlessness. Perhaps even a touch of contrariness. Such is Canary’s CEO, Dan Eberhart, who said last week in a press release that he believes the downward spiral of declining rig counts has stabilized and that a shale recovery has already begun in the U.S. In fact, he said, “the industry is on the way back.” When the head of the country’s largest private company that rents rigs and the manpower to run them says we’re at a turning point and drilling is about to pick up again, you need to perk up and pay attention…
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    Is Marcellus Production Heading for a Decline? EIA Says Yes

    A Reuters story is quoting analysis done by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (our favorite government agency) saying the EIA expects production in the Marcellus to remain flat for the next several years, and then begin a slow decline of 1% or so per year. The EIA prediction is based on the theory that natural gas prices in the Marcellus will remain really low–below $2 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf) through 2016, and the average price won’t hit $4/Mcf until 2020 or later. Private analysts (many of them) disagree and say production will continue to climb over the next several years as new pipelines come online and drillers “uncurtail” production that is idled right now. Who’s right?…
    Read More “Is Marcellus Production Heading for a Decline? EIA Says Yes”

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    Moody’s Says O&G Company Default Rate in 2015 Going Higher

    On Tuesday Moody’s Investors Service released a new report titled “Oil and Gas: The Bad, Ugly and Good.” The 12-page, which will set you back $550 (or free if you’re company subscribes to Moody’s) says, in essence, because the price of oil is recovering slowly, instead of quickly, “weaker oil & gas issuers are at a much greater risk of default.” That is, some drillers in 2015 will either go under or get bought out. How many? A high level summary of the report (below) doesn’t say how many. What it does say is that of all the companies rated by Moody’s with a credit rating of B3 or lower (too much debt, not enough revenue), 15% of all the companies in that list are oil & gas companies. That’s up from 8% of all companies in the list a year ago. In other words, it’s getting worse for drillers (or exploration & production companies, as it’s more properly called)…
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    SE PA Natgas Customers See Rates Drop 13.5% Thx to Marcellus

    Last winter in the northeast saw record-setting cold temperatures in many locations–particularly in Pennsylvania–and near-record demand for natural gas. That would normally mean the price of natural gas used to heat homes and power businesses would rise–significantly. Instead, if you’re among the 178,000 customers who live or work in one of 15 southeastern PA counties served by UGI Penn Natural Gas, your rates are about to go down–again. How much? By an average of 10.3% as of June 1st and another 3.2% on December 1st (total of 13.5% in 6 months). Why? Because UGI now sources ~90% of its natural gas from the cheap, abundant, clean-burning, homegrown, FRACKED Marcellus Shale. Even with record low temps and record high demand, your price just keeps dropping. UGI customers in other PA regions (northeast and central PA) are also seeing rates drop…
    Read More “SE PA Natgas Customers See Rates Drop 13.5% Thx to Marcellus”

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    Marcellus Shale Gas Road Show Visits Union County, PA

    Last Friday approximately 100 business leaders gathered in Lewisburg (Union County), PA for the “Think About Energy” briefing hosted by America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), UGI Utilities, Inc., UGI Energy Services and the Greater Susquehanna Valley Chamber of Commerce. The energy briefing is the seventh such briefing in a series being held throughout PA over the past year. The briefings focus on the supply outlook for natural gas and natural gas liquids, as well provide information on production, consumption trends, utilization opportunities and infrastructure developments. That is–the briefings help those who own or run businesses use and profit from the availability of cheap, abundant Marcellus Shale gas and figure out how to plug into the supply chain. Such sessions are not uncommon. What is uncommon about this session is it’s location–Union County–which is south of Lycoming County and east of Centre County. Union has not (yet) seen a single Marcellus Shale well drilled…
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    Canadian LNG Project Woos Europeans with Promise of Marcellus Gas

    ifYou may recall MDN has tracked the issue of potential LNG (liquefied natural gas) exports from Canada that would use, in part, Marcellus Shale gas. There are five such possible LNG projects, four of them based in Nova Scotia (see List of LNG Export Projects for Marcellus/Utica Shale Gas). You may also recall the article we brought you in which Moody’s Investors Service said the vast majority of LNG projects, including the ones in Canada, will not get built (see Moody’s: “Vast Majority” of LNG Export Projects Will be Canceled). Don’t tell that to Pieridae Energy Canada, the company with plans to build the Goldboro LNG project in Goldboro Industrial Park in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia. The US$8.6 billion (C$10 billion) project is 5-6 years away from beginning operation according to a presentation by Pieridae’s CEO Alfred Sorensen to a delegation of economic counsellors from the European Union in Halifax on Monday. One of the keys to the project giving it a “high probability of success” will be Marcellus gas delivered via the Maritimes & Northeast pipeline, according to Sorensen…
    Read More “Canadian LNG Project Woos Europeans with Promise of Marcellus Gas”

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    Cabot Continues to Lower Cost/Mcf, Plans for Constitution in 2016

    Last Friday the Cabot Oil & Gas management team held an analyst call to discuss first quarter 2015 results–and look forward to the rest of 2015. There is a lot of good stuff to read in the transcript from the call. We can’t include it all (much as we would like to). Two things really stood out to us as we scanned through the prepared remarks by Cabot personnel and in the question and answers that followed. (1) Cabot’s direct cost to drill and extra natural gas (and oil) continues to drop thanks to their diligence. That cost is now $1.22 per thousand cubic feet equivalent. That number does not (we assume) include the cost to transport and process the natural gas. What it means is that even at somewhere around $1.75-$2.00 per Mcf (our estimate), Cabot is at break even and starts to make money. (2) The Constitution Pipeline is still on track and Cabot predicts it will be operational in mid-2016. Cabot CEO Dan Dinges had some interesting things to say about the Constitution and whether or not they intend to send current production through it–or bring online new production to help fill the Constitution…
    Read More “Cabot Continues to Lower Cost/Mcf, Plans for Constitution in 2016”

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    Richard Kinder: Northeast Energy Direct to Proceed Later This Yr

    Richard Kinger, CEO of the country’s largest midstream company, Kinder Morgan, went on CNBC on Wednesday to chat about the price of oil and its “sweet spot” and other things. It was Kinder’s Kinder’s comments on his company’s future plans for the Marcellus/Utica region that most interested MDN. Topic A was Kinder’s plans to run an extension of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline into New England, the Northeast Energy Direct project (NED). Kinder said that project is very close to critical mass and should launch later this year, provided FERC approves it…
    Read More “Richard Kinder: Northeast Energy Direct to Proceed Later This Yr”

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    Could USA/Canada/Mexico Dethrone OPEC and Set Oil Prices?

    Here’s an interesting idea: What if the U.S. got together with both Canada and Mexico and formed a price fixing coalition like OPEC to control the price of oil? The three North American countries together produce 15 million barrels of oil per day and if they formed a block, it might dethrone OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) as the world’s defacto oil price-setting body. That idea is being floated by Breitling Energy Corporation CEO Chris Faulkner. MDN editor Jim Willis met and chatted with Chris at last fall’s regional Oil & Gas Awards Industry Summit in Dallas, TX. The price of oil has a great deal of influence over the price of natural gas–in particular LNG. So any kind of price-setting body is of keen interest to MDN readers. The question is, would such a price-setting body work here in the U.S.?…
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    Boone Pickens Predicts $6 Natgas, Exxon Will Buy Someone – Soon

    Oil man T. Boone Pickens is 86 years old. He’s never had a problem with speaking his mind, but the older you get, the more plain-spoken (some would say blunt) you get. And so it is with Boone. He appeared yesterday on CNBC to talk about the outlook for natural gas prices and about “what it will take” for Exxon Mobil to increase its production numbers again. In vintage Boone style, he dropped a couple of bombs. One is that he believes we’ll see $6 natural gas prices once again–in his lifetime (and remember, he’s 86). The other is that Exxon will end up buying a “big independent”…
    Read More “Boone Pickens Predicts $6 Natgas, Exxon Will Buy Someone – Soon”

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    OPEC Says American Shale Boom Over by End of 2015

    It seems that our enemies–countries that belong to OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) are gloating they believe their strategy of allowing the price of oil to collapse is “working” and that they are driving shale drillers in the U.S. out of business. OPEC is predicting the shale boom will be “over by the end of 2015,” after previously predicting the same thing by the end of 2018. Excuse us while we pick ourselves up off the floor after laughing so hard! Will these people never stop underestimating American ingenuity and resilience? Will they always misunderstand and pooh-pooh American exceptionalism–that we are the exception to the rule, virtually the only country in history where liberty and acknowledgment of God-given rights for individuals allows those individuals freedom to pursue their dreams, creating a country free of government tyranny and unleashing creativity and passion so intense it results in achievements in this country that surpass those of all other countries combined? Fortunately for us, it seems the members of OPEC are obtuse and fail to grasp the true nature of the shale boom–how it got started, and why it will continue long after we’re all dead and gone…
    Read More “OPEC Says American Shale Boom Over by End of 2015”

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    Is Natgas a Good Long-Term Fuel to Fire Electric Plants?

    Last week MDN told you the Union of So-Called Concerned Scientists had issued a “report” (rather unscientific, written by someone with a political science degree) to say even though Obama’s war on coal has been successful, it’s having the unintended consequence of electric generation power plants switching from coal to natural gas to fire them. UCS and other so-called green groups irrationally hate fossil fuels and want the switching to be from coal to so-called renewables, like solar and wind. So in an effort to besmirch and call into doubt the long-term viability of natural gas as a fuel source to generate electricity, UCS issued a report saying using natural gas to power electric plants is a “gamble” (see UCS “Report” Says Using Natural Gas for Electric Generation Big Gamble). The theory is that natural gas will run out in a few years, or become obscenely expensive, and all of those natgas-fired electric plants will mean super high electric rates. The problem with such “reports” is something called reality. We just noticed a press release from Midland Cogeneration Venture (MCV), the country’s largest natural-gas fired combined heat and electrical power generating plant, located in Michigan. The release was to commemorate an important milestone for MCV–the plant has been up and operating and supplying enough electricity for one million homes PLUS electricity and steam for major industry facilities, for the last 25 years…
    Read More “Is Natgas a Good Long-Term Fuel to Fire Electric Plants?”

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    With Cheap/Abundant Marcellus Gas, Why Aren’t Utility Bills Lower?

    The price of natural gas is low–and seems to be staying low–for an extended period. In the dead of a brutal winter (for the northeast anyway) the price of natgas has stayed below $3 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). This morning it was $2.68 Mcf. So what aren’t consumers–those who heat with natural gas–seeing lower prices on their monthly utility bills? None other than the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) tackled that very question yesterday in their Today in Energy publication. We have their article below. In a word, the reason consumers don’t see lower prices is…”regulation”…
    Read More “With Cheap/Abundant Marcellus Gas, Why Aren’t Utility Bills Lower?”

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    Low Temps Used to Mean High Natgas Prices, But No More

    Boston keeps getting hammered by snow storm after snow storm–more than 7 feet of snow in the past month. The polar vortex is dipping all the way down into the Deep South (Georgia et al). It’s minus 8 at MDN headquarters this morning in Binghamton, NY! So what’s the price of natural gas doing? Must be going through the roof like last winter, right? Wrong! The price of natural gas is still low, and according to one commodities trading expert, it’s going lower over the next month or so–despite the frigid temps in the northeast. Why? In two words: Marcellus/Utica…
    Read More “Low Temps Used to Mean High Natgas Prices, But No More”