Arguments to Help People Change Their Thinking re Fossil Fuels
One of the pleasures we’ve had over the years in writing MDN and attending various industry events is meeting the great people who either work in or support the oil and gas industry. One of those people is Alex Epstein, author of the book, “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” Years ago, we held a webinar with Alex for the MDN audience (see Webinar Recording: The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels). Alex subsequently wrote another great book called “Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas–Not Less.” Alex recently published an article on the Fox News website that outlines how he talks to people, many of them anti-fossil fuels, about fossil fuels. He outlines the arguments he uses (21 of them) to try and penetrate the thick skulls of leftists when talking about oil and gas.
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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.
The mighty Shell ethane cracker plant in Monaca (Beaver County), PA, has a new person in charge: Emma Lewis, senior vice president of U.S. chemicals and products at Shell. We told you Lewis had replaced Hilary Mercer back in January (see 
A Washington County, PA, man and his anti-fossil fuel lawyer have won the right to force Chevron executives to testify in court in a case where the man accuses Chevron of using PFAS (“forever chemicals”) in fracking fluids in 2011-2012 near his home. He alleges the chemicals spread to his water well and damaged his health and the health of family members who drank and used the “contaminated” water.
In July, MDN told you about a disappointing (but not surprising) decision from the Democrat leftists on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court (see 
The vast majority (up to 99%) of Pennsylvania’s abandoned conventional wells are “orphans,” or wells without an identifiable, documented owner whom the state can hold liable for cleanup. Orphan wells date back to the Civil War in some cases. Even with “newer” wells, the problem has been poor recordkeeping by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (see 
The Baker Hughes U.S. rig count has gone up three out of the last four weeks, including last week, when it went up by two to 588. However, it’s still down 41 from the 629 it hit earlier this year in March, so we don’t get overly excited about reading that it went up again last week. It’s still below 600, an important psychological level. The Marcellus/Utica stayed even last week with 36 active rigs. However, one rig moved. Pennsylvania gained a rig and now operates 21 active rigs. Ohio lost a rig and now operates 10 active rigs. West Virginia remained the same with five active rigs. The M-U’s primary competitor, the Haynesville, was down two rigs and now operates 32 rigs. The gap between the M-U and Haynesville grows!
Once a month, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) analysts issue the agency’s Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), their best guess about where energy prices and production will go in the next 12 months. Starting in June, the EIA axed its monthly Drilling Productivity Report that focused on shale plays and instead rolled it into the monthly STEO (see 
Here’s a court case that flew under the radar until now. It’s a case that has the potential to affect some drillers and some royalty owners in Ohio. Sabre Energy Corporation (the plaintiff) sued Gulfport Energy Corporation and Antero Resources Corporation (the defendants) for breach of contract. Sabre Energy owns Overriding Royalty Interests (ORRIs), or fractional shares, in defendants’ shares of royalties from their oil and gas leases. Sabre Energy contends that these ORRIs attach to defendants’ recently drilled deep horizontal wells, and so the defendants owe it royalties.
As we’ve discussed many times before, the price for natural gas (especially the NYMEX futures price) is primarily determined by supply and demand — Economics 101. When there is too much supply with the same or less demand, prices go down. And boy, have they gone down! The problem we’ve struggled with all this year is too much supply. A number of drillers (many in the Marcellus/Utica) have pulled back on production to take some of the supply off the table. A good measure of supply is the inventory or storage number. Natural gas is stored during the “summer” season for use later during the “winter” season. As we began the injection “summer” season earlier this year, natgas inventories were 39% above the five-year average. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts inventories will have dropped to 6% above the five-year average by the end of October.
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.
The CEO of the Energy Association of PA who is also a former chairman of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) asks this question: What can Pennsylvania lawmakers do about a looming regional power shortage that they didn’t cause and can’t easily fix? He says this dilemma poses the most important energy issue facing the commonwealth today. He’s certainly not against renewable energy, but he points out in an op-ed appearing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that coal and natural gas-fired power plants are “retiring prematurely” for several reasons, and renewables can’t handle the load. The predictable end result will be blackouts in the PJM region.
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.