U.S. Natural Gas Markets (and Prices) Now Linked with Rest of World
According to CME Group, the worldwide natural gas market has evolved, and trading activity has grown in the past few years. The trading volume of Henry Hub Natural Gas (NG) futures during non-U.S. hours has more than doubled from a couple of years ago. We are truly interconnected worldwide. However, there are implications and consequences to being interconnected. Namely, the U.S. gas market is less shielded from global events due to the global linkage created by our LNG exports. It becomes imperative for U.S. gas traders to understand and monitor what’s happening around the globe and how world events may cause volatility. Traders need to monitor for sudden shifts in global demand-and-supply balance, changes in weather patterns, and geopolitical risk. Read More “U.S. Natural Gas Markets (and Prices) Now Linked with Rest of World”
At its core, the theory of man-made global warming (renamed to “climate change”) is easy to understand. The theory says when we burn fossil fuels (or wood, or garbage, or any carbon-based source), carbon dioxide is released and floats up into the atmosphere. If there’s too much CO2 floating up there, it creates a canopy trapping the heat that rises from the earth, warming the entire planet. If it’s true that more CO2 creates a canopy, the question becomes, how much is too much CO2? Strong arguments are made that a slightly warmer planet benefits all life and is not necessarily a bad thing. However, a veteran energy analyst, in responding to the memes that natural gas should be phased out due to fear of global warming, offers a blunt assessment: CO2 is not the key factor that controls the temperatures we experience on the surface of our planet. The key factor is wind. 
For the first time, over 1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) was discharged from U.S. gas-fired power plants in a single year in 2024. It marks a new pollution threshold for the world’s largest gas producer and consumer of natural gas. Yet, because natgas has replaced coal and other higher-polluting sources of electric power, U.S. power emissions from all fossil fuels were up only 0.5% in 2024 from 2023, to 1.64 billion tons. And get this: Overall emissions from all sources were down 19% last year versus 2015. Using natural gas to produce electricity makes the country “greener,” something the media ignores. 
The venerable Baker Hughes national rig count was 589 active rigs last week—which is FIVE weeks in a row. Very unusual. The Marcellus/Utica rig count was a combined 34 last week—the same number for FOUR weeks in a row. The national count remains rangebound between 581 and 589 since June 2024 (except for Sep. 13, when it hit 590 for a single week). The M-U remained static last week, with PA at 15 rigs, OH at 9 rigs, and WV at 10 rigs. 
It’s always a red-letter day here at MDN HQ when we happen across a new pipeline project in the Marcellus/Utica region. Today is one of those days! Eastern Gas Transmission and Storage, a subsidiary of billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE), filed a new project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in December to beef up three existing compressor stations in Centre County, Clinton County, and Franklin County in Pennsylvania, and one existing compressor station in Loudoun County, Virginia, with the aim of flowing more Marcellus molecules to the Washington, D.C. area. 
Last August, MDN told you that the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2) officially received its first $30 million from the Bidenistas (see 
We’re just now learning the good news about decisions by two different North Carolina agencies to approve four new gas-fired power plants that utility giant Duke Energy wants to build at two different N.C. sites. In early December, the N.C. Utilities Commission issued orders deeming the gas plants necessary at both sites. Then, on Dec. 20, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality granted air quality permits for the four plants. All four will be fed by Marcellus/Utica molecules and are important new customers for our gas. 
Dominion Energy plans to build small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see 
Yesterday, the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) announced the completion of the NPCC Northeast Gas/Electric System Study. Initiated in 2023, the study evaluated New York and New England gas supply and gas pipeline constraints for extreme and protracted winter events during the peak heating season, from December through February, for three time periods: 2024/25 (short-term), 2027/28 (mid-term) and 2032/33 (long-term). It shows that if we get an extended (more than three-day) cold snap, those of us living in NY or New England will be in trouble. 
Diversified Energy, with major assets in the Marcellus/Utica region (also assets in other regions, too), owns approximately 8 million acres of leases with 67,000 (mostly) conventional oil and gas wells. The company’s business model is to buy lower-producing wells on the cheap and find ways to make them more productive. Earlier today, the company announced another deal to buy more assets in the Appalachian region. 
AccuWeather meteorologists who specialize in predicting the weather for the natural gas industry issued a statement to Rigzone saying several Arctic blasts will send waves of bitterly cold air across much of the eastern United States starting last weekend. The meteorologists said the “deep freeze could impact natural gas production and operations in the Northeast.” They specifically mentioned the Marcellus Shale by name, stating new shale drilling and flows from wells to pipelines “could be impacted by bitterly cold air.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, an extremist liberal, recently signed a bill into law that bans using carbon dioxide to frack wells in the state (see 
One of the significant stories of 2024 in the Ohio Utica was about Austin Master Services (AMS), a radiological waste management solutions company in Martins Ferry (Belmont County), Ohio, that handles fracking waste (trucks it for disposal). AMS ran into trouble when it ran out of money. The Martins Ferry facility where waste is temporarily stored went from a permitted maximum of 600 tons of stored waste to over 10,000 tons, in violation of its permit. The Ohio Attorney General’s office filed a lawsuit against the company in March to force compliance. Local newspaper The Times Leader, in doing a Top 10 stories of the year, provides an update on AMS and where things stand with the cleanup. 
A leftist anti-fossil group calling itself Protect PT (Penn-Trafford), located in Westmoreland County, PA, backed with big money from Big Green groups, has for years challenged Penn Township ordinances that allow Apex Energy and Huntley & Huntley (now Olympus Energy) to drill and operate shale wells. Protect PT finally struck out (legally) at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in May 2020 (see